In anonline context, marketers can only benefit from sensorial marketing byexploiting visual stimuli through objective sensory features (OSF). These playa determining role in the brand-consumer connection, arousing emotions,feelings, and impressions in the consumer's subconscious. For decades, retailbrands have been benefiting from sensory marketing to deliver a unique andengaging brand experience and consequently, increase sales. Previous researchhas shown that the OSF of a website is one of the key dimensions to impactuser's emotions and impressions. However, the relationship between OSF andconsumer purchase intentions (PI) lacks research. Moreover, the following twodimensions of OSF, picture size (PS) and menu titles and filters (M&FT) thatimpact the aesthetics of a webpage layout, will enhance the consumers’ responseto a retail brand website. Nonetheless, there are still few empirical studieson this area. This dissertation aims to understand the role of OSF in customerPI through the manipulation of two of its dimensions, PS and M&FT, explainthe importance of these dimensions in a website and provide guidelines forcompanies to take advantage of these crucial, relatively unexplored dimensionsof OSF. This research was conducted through a random distribution of fourquestionnaires, representing a different combination of two OSF dimensions,applied to cosmetics online e-commerce. The collected data were analysedthrough a variance analysis with two factors for repeated measures (FactorialANOVA) and three linear regressions to validate the hypotheses of the proposedmodel. The results demonstrate that an “affective website” increases consumers'PI due to the intermediating role of affective responses (AR) and trust. Byusing positive website’s OSFs through moderate-high stimuli, brands can induceIn an online context, marketers can only benefit from sensorial marketing byexploiting visual stimuli through objective sensory features (OSF). These playa determining role in the brand-consumer connection, arousing emotions,feelings, and impressions in the consumer's subconscious. For decades, retailbrands have been benefiting from sensory marketing to deliver a unique andengaging brand experience and consequently, increase sales. Previous researchhas shown that the OSF of a website is one of the key dimensions to impactuser's emotions and impressions. However, the relationship between OSF andconsumer purchase intentions (PI) lacks research. Moreover, the following twodimensions of OSF, picture size (PS) and menu titles and filters (M&FT)that impact the aesthetics of a webpage layout, will enhance the consumers’response to a retail brand website. Nonetheless, there are still few empiricalstudies on this area. This dissertation aims to understand the role of OSF incustomer PI through the manipulation of two of its dimensions, PS and M&FT,explain the importance of these dimensions in a website and provide guidelinesfor companies to take advantage of these crucial, relatively unexploreddimensions of OSF. This research was conducted through a random distribution offour questionnaires, representing a different combination of two OSFdimensions, applied to cosmetics online e-commerce. The collected data wereanalysed through a variance analysis with two factors for repeated measures(Factorial ANOVA) and three linear regressions to validate the hypotheses ofthe proposed model. The results demonstrate that an “affective website”increases consumers' PI due to the intermediating role of affective responses(AR) and trust. By using positive website’s OSFs through moderate-high stimuli,brands can induce hedonic emotions and impressions such as interest and comfortand, consequently, trust. Finally, the results determined that the greatest OSFcombination is large pictures and simple menus and, that the most determinant OSFdimension to influence consumers' ARs is PS. To conclude, this study provides acontribution to the literature by explaining the role of OSF in consumers’ PIs.Also, by presenting a set of relevant implications, it aims to increase theknowledge of companies and researchers on this relevant topic.
Date of Award | 12 Oct 2022 |
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Original language | English |
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Awarding Institution | - Universidade Católica Portuguesa
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Supervisor | Carla Martins (Supervisor) & Joana Machado (Co-Supervisor) |
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- E-commerce website
- Objective sensory features (OSF
- Picture size (PS)
- Menus and filters title (M&FT)
- Affective responses (AR)
- Trust
- Purchase intention (PI)
The role of website objective sensory features on consumers’ purchase intentions
Ferraz, M. L. P. L. D. C. (Student). 12 Oct 2022
Student thesis: Master's Thesis