虛擬銷售員對消費者信任與購買意圖之影響 －以產品知識為干擾變數

The Effects of Avatar on Online Consumer Trust and Purchase Intention: the Moderating Effect of Consumer Knowledge

朱映潔(Ying-Jie Jhu)

指導教授 ： 孫碧娟

大同大學/經營設計學院/事業經營學系所/碩士(2008年)

摘要

網路購物的本質是缺乏人性化的，採用虛擬銷售員來推薦產品與提供產品資訊是解決網路購物缺乏人性化的方法之一。隨著網路購物的盛行，許多公司也開始使用虛擬銷售員來推薦產品予消費者。許多現存文獻亦指出虛擬銷售員確實有助於增加顧客對線上零售店的滿意度與購買意圖。
然而，近來的實證研究指出消費者信任在電子商務中是很重要的並且採用不同類型的虛擬銷售員對顧客在信任上所造成的知覺也有所差異。因此，本研究將虛擬銷售員的類型納入本研究的實驗設計中，意圖瞭解消費者對虛擬銷售員的信任是否可有效增加消費者的購買意願。
此外，過去有許多豐富的行銷文獻加入產品知識為干擾變數，探討其對消費者決策行為的影響，同時探討產品知識是否會影響消費者其對該虛擬人物的的信任的相關研究並不多見，因此本研究的目的為探討虛擬銷售員的類型對消費者信任的影響並加入產品知識為干擾變數探討虛擬銷售員的類型對消費者信任的影響。本研究以保養品為受測產品，採2(虛擬銷售員：專家型與魅力型) x 2 (產品知識：高與低)的實驗設計，以某知名網站女性會員為研究對象，共回收問卷597份。本研究的重要結論有：
1.顧客的認知信任與情感信任愈高，消費者的購買意願愈高。
2.情感信任對購買意願的影響高於認知信任對購買意願的影響。
3.虛擬銷售員的類型不同，顧客在信任的程度上也有所不同。亦即，顧客對專型虛擬銷售員的認知信任會高於對魅力型虛擬銷售員的認知信任;反之，顧客對魅力型虛擬銷售員的情感信任會高於對專家型虛擬銷售員的情感信任。
4.主觀產品知識對於虛擬銷售員與消費者信任間的干擾效果達到部份顯著。
5.客觀產品知識對於虛擬銷售員與消費者信任間的干擾效果達到部份顯著。

關鍵字

虛擬銷售員 ； 認知信任 ； 情感信任 ； 產品知識

並列摘要

It is an emerging trend for firms to use the virtual salesperson to overcome the impersonal nature of online shopping. The virtual salesperson is a graphic character that can be created by technology. With increasing prevalence of online shopping, avatar plays an important role as a salesperson to recommend product to customers. Extant literatures suggest that virtual salesperson can increase customer satisfaction with the online retailer, and purchase intention. However, the recently empirical study suggested that customer trust is important in electronic commerce and using different types of avatar may have different effect on customer’s trust. Thus, different type of avatars is used in this study to examine whether customer’s trusts in avatar can effectively increase purchase intention. However, product knowledge is usually considered as a situational factor when discussing consumer attitude and behavior in previous researches. Thus, the objectives of this study are to discuss the effects of types of avatar on customers’ trust, the effects of customer trust on purchase intention, and the moderating effect of product knowledge. Based on a 2 (expert avatar and attractive avatar) x 2 (high and low of product knowledge) experiment design, data collected from 599 well-known web sit female member was used to test the research hypotheses. The experimental product is skin care product. Results of the study reveal:
1.Either cognitive trust or emotional trust positively affects purchase intention.
2.Emotional trust has stronger influence on purchase intention than does cognitive trust.
3.The effect of type of avatars shows a significant difference on customer trust. For expert avatar, customer cognitive trust is stronger than emotional trust. On the other hand, for attractive avatar, customer emotional trust is stronger than cognitive trust.
4.The moderating effect of subjective knowledge is partially supported.
5.The moderating effect of objective knowledge is partially supported.

並列關鍵字

purchase intention ； emotional trust ； cognitive trust ； avatar

參考文獻

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