Social co-browsing in online shopping: The impact of real-time collaboration on user engagement

Stefan Seedorf, Christian Thum, Thimo Schulze, Lea Pfrogner

Research output: Chapter in Book or Report/Conference proceedingConference Proceedingpeer-review

11 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

For many years, online shopping has been a solitary activity. Social co-browsing is an emerging technology which enables two or more users to share the same view in the browser in real-time. Co-browsing enhances online shopping sites with a multi-player mode and enables new forms of communication between online shoppers. In this paper, we study the impact of social presence in social co-browsing on key attributes of user engagement. We extend a measurement model for user engagement with social presence and conduct an online experiment on Amazon's Mechanical Turk. Two subjects are either paired in text chat session or social co-browsing session. Additionally, a control group is engaged in solitary online shopping experience. User engagement attributes, social presence, and perceived usefulness are measured using a survey. Our data analysis suggests that users who perceive a higher psychological presence are significantly more engaged in the online shopping activity. In particular, social presence in co-browsing leads to a more rewarding experience than in the case of a chat-only approach.

Original languageEnglish
Title of host publicationECIS 2014 Proceedings - 22nd European Conference on Information Systems
PublisherAssociation for Information Systems
ISBN (Print)9780991556700
Publication statusPublished - 2014
Externally publishedYes
Event22nd European Conference on Information Systems, ECIS 2014 - Tel Aviv, Israel
Duration: 9 Jun 201411 Jun 2014

Publication series

NameECIS 2014 Proceedings - 22nd European Conference on Information Systems

Conference

Conference22nd European Conference on Information Systems, ECIS 2014
Country/TerritoryIsrael
CityTel Aviv
Period9/06/1411/06/14

Keywords

  • Collaborative Systems
  • E-Commerce
  • Social Presence
  • User Engagement

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