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Abstract:
Internet-based interactive multimedia technologies enable online firms to employ a variety of formats to present and promote their products: they can use pictures, videos, and sounds to depict products, as well as give consumers the opportunity to try out products virtually. Despite the several previous endeavors that studied the effects of different product presentation formats, the functional mechanisms underlying these presentation methods have not been investigated in a comprehensive way. This paper investigates a model showing how these functional mechanisms (namely, vividness and interactivity) influence consumers’ intentions to return to a website and their intentions to purchase products. A study conducted to test this model has largely confirmed our expectations: 1) both vividness and interactivity of product presentations are the primary design features that influence the efficacy of the presentations; 2) consumers’ perceptions of the diagnosticity of websites, their perceptions of the compatibility between online shopping and physical shopping, and their shopping enjoyment derived from a particular online shopping experience jointly influence consumers’ attitudes toward shopping at a website; and 3) both consumers’ attitudes toward products and their attitudes toward shopping at a website contribute to their intentions to purchase the products displayed on the website.

Virtual product experience, functional control, vividness, interactivity, online product presentation, electronic commerce

Abstract:
This paper proposes a new method for online consumer decision support: Multimedia-based Interactive Advising (MIA). The method is based on current internet technologies, particularly multimedia, intelligent agent and advising technology. The discussion of the benefits and design of MIA will illuminate particular areas of research and development, with the goal of improving consumers’ choices in e-commerce environments.

Multimedia-Based Interactive Advising, product design, electronic commerce

Abstract:
As organizations increasingly utilize Web-based technologies to support customers better, trust in decision support technologies has emerged as an important issue in online environments. In this study, we identify six reasons users trust (or do not trust) a technology in the early stages of its use by extending the theories of trust formation in interpersonal and organizational contexts to that of decision support technologies. We study the particular context of decision support technologies for e-commerce: online recommendation agents (RAs), which facilitate users' decision making by providing advice on what to buy based on user-specified needs and preferences.

A laboratory experiment is conducted using a multimethod approach to collect data. Both quantitative data about participants' trust in RAs and written protocols that explain the reasons for their levels of trust are collected. A content analysis of the written protocols identifies both positive and negative trust attributions that are then mapped to six trust reasons. A structural equation modeling analysis is employed to test the causal strengths of the trust reasons in explaining participants' trust in RAs. The results reveal that in the early stages of trust formation, four positive reasons (i.e., knowledge-based, interactive, calculative, and dispositional) are associated with higher trust in RAs and two negative reasons (i.e., calculative and interactive) are associated with lower trust in RAs. The results also demonstrate some distinctive features of trust formation with respect to decision support technologies. We discuss the research and practical implications of the findings and describe opportunities for future research.