Investigating the role of presence in collaborative online shopping

Abstract

A large number of studies investigating business-to-consumer e-commerce have focused exclusively on online shopping by individuals, although consumers often desire to conduct their shopping activities with others. This study has therefore attempted to study collaborative online shopping by looking at two types of presence that are of particular relevance to this context, namely, telepresence and social presence. Telepresence is one's mental state in which a shopper feels physically present within a virtual shopping store, while social presence refers to the degree to which a medium allows a shopper to establish personal connection with his/her shopping buddies. A model is developed to explain how telepresence and social presence jointly affect consumers' continuance intention to use collaborative shopping, through the mediating effects of perceived usefulness and shopping enjoyment. The model was tested in a survey and was supported by the empirical results.