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Adoption of Social Media by Online Retailers

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DOI: 10.4018/jeei.2011010103

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26 International Journal of E-Entrepreneurship and Innovation, 2(1), 26-45, January-March 2011

Adoption of Social Media

by Online Retailers:
Assessment of Current Practices
and Future Directions
Farhod P. Karimov, Vrije Universiteit Brussel, Belgium
Malaika Brengman, Vrije Universiteit Brussel, Belgium

ABSTRACT
In the online environment, the absence of social presence may prevent consumers from purchasing online,
while it can enhance their trust, loyalty and enjoyment toward the e-retailer. Thus, today many online retailers
try to create social presence by adopting media-rich technologies. In this paper, the authors assess to what
degree social media cues are currently adopted by thriving web-vendors and on that basis speculate about
future developments. To this purpose, 210 top B2C e-commerce websites have been content analyzed to iden-
tify how they differ in the deployment of diverse social media cues. While a wide range of social media cues
are adopted by a majority of top e-retailers, a number of more advanced social media features like avatars,
recommendation agents, and video-streams are in their infancy where adoption is concerned. The paper
demonstrates that the utilization of social media features differs according to the monetary and symbolic
value of products sold by the e-commerce vendors.

Keywords: Content Analysis, E-Commerce, Social Cue, Social Media, Social Presence, Website Design

INTRODUCTION Bureau, 2009). One of the main factors hold-

Forecasting how rapidly tchnologies will ad-
vance and how society will use them is not an
easy task. While a decade ago, many scholars
predicted that by offering 24x7 online services,
internet retailing would be superior and would
replace traditional retailing instantaneously
(Peterson et al., 1997; Swinyard, 1997), current
U.S. e-commerce sales still only account for
3.4 percent of total retail sales (U.S. Census
DOI: 10.4018/jeei.2011010103
ing back consumers from purchasing online is
the lack of social contact with store employees
as well as with other shoppers (Lowry et al.,
2010). As this deficiency can be overcome by
the application of new media-rich technologies
conveying social-presence (Gefen & Straub,
2003, 2004), we feel this can be an important
factor contributing to the future success of
e-retailers.
While the absence of social-presence in
the online environment may prevent consumers
from purchasing online, its presence can enhance

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is prohibited.
 International Journal of E-Entrepreneurship and Innovation, 2(1), 26-45, January-March 2011 27
customer trust, loyalty and enjoyment towards
the e-retailers. Thus, today many e-commerce
businesses are trying to create social-presence
by adopting media-rich technologies. The aim
of this paper is to provide an understanding
of how the adoption of different social-media
features can affect online sales and also to as-
sess the current deployment of diverse social-
presence enhancing technologies among ‘top’
e-retailers in order to reveal opportunities for
other e-commerce businesses and to speculate
about future developments in this area.
We will first discuss how different social-
media features can be applied by e-retailers to
enhance perceptions of social-presence and
why this can be important in generating online
sales. Because it is necessary to understand the
present adoption of technological trends before
making any predictions for the future (Odlyzko,
2010) we subsequently investigate the current
adoption of such social-media features by top
business-to-consumer (B2C) online retailers.
We also examine more specifically how e-
commerce websites differ in their utilization
of these social-media cues depending on the
monetary and symbolic value of the products
they sell. Based on these findings we will point
out prospects for other e-businesses and will dis-
cuss what the future may bring. Understanding
how top e-retailers differ in their utilization of
social-media cues depending on the monetary
and symbolic value of the products they sell
will contribute to a better understanding of
social-media diffusion among the variety of
e-retailers and will allow us to make better
predictions about the future.
THE IMPORTANCE OF
SOCIAL-MEDIA CUES
FOR E-RETAILERS
In the offline retailing world, direct contact
with a salesperson provides the customer with
important cues for the establishment of trust (i.e.,
eye contact and gestures) which enhance the
relationship and intentions to buy (Steinbrück
et al., 2002). In contrast, the Internet lacks these
Copyright © 2011, IGI Global. Copying or distributing in print or electronic forms without written permission of IGI Global
is prohibited.
kinds of human aspects, limiting the potential
of purely virtual businesses (Anderson et al.,
2010). To enhance this capacity, e-commerce
companies must deploy mechanisms which
enable two-way interactions between custom-
ers and e-retailers. This involves embedding
social-media cues (i.e., cues based on human
characteristics) into website interfaces via
different communication media (Wang &
Emurians, 2005). Today, new media tools like
weblogs, instant messaging platforms, video
conferencing, and online social-networks are
reengineering the way people interact and are
unleashing the potential of businesses world-
wide (Hawn, 2009; Reding, 2010). Face-to-face
communication is being replaced by synchro-
nous and asynchronous communication such as
e-mail, texting, blogging, podcasting, instant
messaging and mobile devices (Badawy, 2009).
The integration of such social-media cues into
retail websites will increase the perception of
employee presence and improve consumers’
online experiences (Wang et al., 2007). ‘Virtual
advisors’, one particular form of website social-
presence, may for instance facilitate customers
to make a decision to purchase the right product
(Dash & Saji, 2007).
Scholars found that social-presence has
a positive impact on trust, loyalty, perceived
usefulness and enjoyment, and in turn positively
influences the customer’s intention to purchase
products and services online (Cyr et al., 2007;
Dash & Saji, 2007; Gefen & Straub, 2003).
Social-media permit firms to engage in timely
end-consumer contact at relatively low cost and
with high efficiency (Kaplan & Haenlein, 2010).
Dell Inc., for example, generated a total of $6.5
million in revenue in orders for PCs, acces-
sories and software from their social-presence
on Twitter (Guglielmo, 2009). Active users on
Facebook are contributing more than 3% of all
traffic to the top retail sites online, and 25% of
social-network users post links to other com-
panies, products or services (Mahoney, 2009).
Thus, e-retailers need to invest in creating and
maintaining effective social-media channels
with potential customers if they want to stay
competitive in the future. While it is necessary
28 International Journal of E-Entrepreneurship and Innovation, 2(1), 26-45, January-March 2011

for Web based companies to know what kinds In the subsequent paragraphs we discuss
of social-presence enhancing new media-rich different instruments that can be used by e-
technologies they need to implement, depend- retailers to generate online social-presence:
ing on their resources, capabilities as well as photo cues, video cues, avatars, recommenda-
commodities traded, research evaluating differ- tion agents, live help features, online social-
ent online social-media mechanisms (i.e., text, networks, support web-blogs and user custom-
voice or video chat, the use of avatars, etc.) is ization features.
predominantly lacking (Benbasat, 2010). This Photo-cues – of people can convey a sense
paper aims to fill this gap. of personal, sociable and sensitive human con-
tact and so the perception of social-presence
can be created by presenting photos of smiling
ONLINE SOCIAL-MEDIA CUES people on the web interface (Gefen & Straub,
2004). Embedding facial photo-cues is costless
In this paper the focus is on the instruments
and does not require any additional resources.
which generate social-presence in e-commerce
Video-cues – are rich media streams
websites (Table 1). Because the degree of
embedded into the website and can generate
social-presence clearly differs between offline
a high level of social-presence by simulating
and online communications, investigating the
face-to-face interaction as they transmit many
mechanisms of online social-presence is a valu-
visual and audio cues (Aldiri et al., 2008). The
able Information Systems (IS) research topic
deployment of a video-stream feature can be
(Lowry et al., 2010). Social-presence can be
costly and may require extra resources both
defined as “the degree of illusion that others
technological and human.
appear to be ‘real’ physical persons in either
Avatars – are 2D or 3D humanoid inter-
an immediate (i.e., real time/synchronous) or
face characters which entail humanlike char-
a delayed (i.e., time-deferred/asynchronous)
acteristics, such as facial expressions, speech
communication episode” (Kreijns et al., 2010).
output, body gestures, auditory and kinesthetic
In a Web environment, social-presence can
feedback, human emotions, and social intelli-
be achieved either via virtual communities,
gence (Qiu & Benbasat, 2009). These graphic
message boards, chats or via socially rich text
characteristics can be animated by means of
and picture content, personalized greetings,
computer technology (Holzwarth et al., 2006).
human audio and video, intelligent agents, etc
The integration of avatars into retail websites
(Hassanein & Head, 2007). These social-media
may enhance the perception of employee
cues refer to the emerging digital communi-
presence and influence consumers’ purchase
cation channels where anyone can generate
intentions (Holzwarth et al., 2006; Wang et al.,
and disseminate information content, both
2007; Keeling et al., 2010). Obviously there are
as provider as well as consumer (Kim et al.,
considerable costs associated with the imple-
2010). The availability of more social-media
mentation of avatars in e-commerce websites.
cues in a website generates a higher level of
Recommendation Agents (RAs) – are
social-presence (Lowry et al., 2010), and may
software entities that carry out some set of
enhance consumers’ trust and purchase inten-
operations on behalf of online-shoppers such
tions (Gefen & Straub, 2004).
as content-filtering, providing shopping advice

Table 1. Web-based instruments to generate online social-presence

Photo cues Assistive interfaces Support blogs Instant help

Video cues Social networks Review boards User customization

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is prohibited.
 International Journal of E-Entrepreneurship and Innovation, 2(1), 26-45, January-March 2011 29
and guiding and directing consumer choices
(Schafer et al., 2001). Consumers treat online
RAs as “social actors” and perceive human
characteristics (e.g., benevolence and integrity)
in computerized agents (Wang & Benbasat,
2005). The appropriateness and deployment of
online RAs differ according to business goals
(Schafer et al., 2001). They can bring added
value to online-shoppers particularly in the case
of complex purchase decisions.
Instant messaging – is the most popular
manifestation of near-synchronous technologies
which support Internet-based synchronous chat
with point-to-point communication between us-
ers on the same system (Grinter & Palen, 2002).
These live help functions allow consumers to
engage in social interaction when making their
shopping decisions and are deemed particularly
relevant when perceived risk associated with
the purchase is high. The deployment of media-
rich communication technologies such as text
chat, audio and video chat can be costly and
require additional financial and human resource
investments to operate.
Online social-networks (OSNs) – refer to
online platforms where people are intercon-
nected (Douglis, 2010). These platforms are
used for information sharing, video sharing,
photo sharing, chatting, tagging and blogging
(Hoadley et al., 2010). OSNs became very
popular despite the probability that they may
put the privacy of internet users in danger (Vas-
cellaro, 2010). Today, individuals, businesses,
and even governments communicate with each
other, their customers, and constituencies via
OSNs such as YouTube, Facebook, and Twit-
ter (Badawy, 2009). Facebook.com alone, for
example, has more than 500 million active
users (Facebook, 2010). While the impact of
such social-networks on online customers’
purchasing behavior has not been studied yet,
we expect that they will be of more relevance
in purchasing high involvement products when
perceived risk is higher.
Support web-blog (forum) – is Web in-
formation sharing technology (Boulos et al.,
2006). It contains an online personal journal
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is prohibited.
with reflections and comments, and is updated
with individual entries or postings frequently
according to the website owner’s editorial
purposes (Reichardt & Harder, 2005). Support
forums contribute to Web content by linking and
filtering evolving content in a structured way and
by connecting people through shared interests
(Lindahl & Blount, 2003). They engage people
in knowledge sharing, reflection and debate,
constructing knowledge around a common topic
within a community of practice (Boulos et al.,
2006). Online customers may seek supportive
information for some technically complicated
product categories, especially when there is
little brand information or for very specialized
but less familiar niche products.
Online product review/rating – is pro-
vided by customers who previously purchased
products and may add value for prospective
consumers (Mudambi & Schuff, 2010; Williams
et al., 2010). Today they have become a major
information source for consumers regarding
product quality (Hu et al., 2008). Interest-
ingly, consumers who shop from an unfamiliar
e-retailer in search of lower prices seek more
negative word-of-mouth information and are
more likely to believe that problems may occur
as compared to e-retailers with whom they are
more familiar (Chatterjee, 2001). However,
positive as well as negative reviews increase
consumer awareness, whereas positive reviews,
in addition, improve attitudes toward products
(Vermeulen & Seegers, 2009). Hence, customer
reviews are found to have a positive relationship
with sales (Chen et al., 2004). Even though
Duan et al. (2008) found online user reviews to
have little persuasive effect on actual consumer
purchase decisions, their positive impact ap-
pears to be stronger for less-popular products
than for more-popular ones (Chen et al., 2004).
User customization – enables e-retailers
to automatically interact with their customers,
offering them a variety of web-based personal-
ization opportunities that might drive customer
satisfaction and trust (Riemer & Totz, 2001).
The positive impact of offering customiza-
tion possibilities on customer trust has been
30 International Journal of E-Entrepreneurship and Innovation, 2(1), 26-45, January-March 2011
empirically confirmed by different scholars
(Chen & Barnes, 2007; Koufaris & Hampton-
Sosa, 2004). The personalization of products
to specific requirements obviously increases
customer value and lowers the competitive
comparability, thus increasing switching costs
(Riemer & Totz, 2001). User customization op-
portunities may vary depending on the type of
the products sold. Some products such as airline
tickets, laptops and gifts are easily customizable.
For example, online-shoppers can customize
the dates, times and number of stop-overs for
plane tickets or they can customize the entire
hardware and software configuration of laptops
(Koufaris & Hampton-Sosa, 2004). In addition,
customization features can serve as a key means
of acquiring customer information (Chellappa
& Sin, 2005).
E-RETAILER CATEGORIES
AND THEIR NEED FOR
SOCIAL-PRESENCE
Some products appear to sell better on the
internet than others. Products that have a low
cost, intangible value proposition and which
score relatively high on differentiation are more
likely found to be purchased online (Phau &
Poon, 2000). As a consequence, the lack of
online social-presence can be a strong inhibitor
for purchasing certain product categories on
the Internet. For that reason we assume that
the need for social-presence and consequently
also the adoption of social-media cues will vary
depending on the kind of products offered by the
e-retailer. Many scholars have offered diverse
categorizations of e-retailers according to the
type of goods they trade (Choi et al., 2006; De
Figueriedo, 2000; Girard et al., 2003; Peterson
et al., 1997; Rosen & Howard, 2000). Most of
them categorized online retailers based on cus-
tomer involvement (i.e., low versus high) and
product characteristics (i.e., search versus ex-
perience goods). Correspondingly, we propose
that commercial websites can be distinguished
according to the ‘monetary’ and ‘symbolic’
value of the products they sell and that their
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is prohibited.
need for social-presence and consequently also
their adoption of social-media cues will differ
accordingly. The proposed categories are not
conceived to be clear-cut but rather to represent
a continuum with two axes from ‘less’ to ‘more
expensive’ and from ‘more functional’ to ‘more
symbolic’ (Figure 1). The general proposition is
that e-retailers belonging more or less to these
different categories will vary in their need for
social-presence and consequently in their adop-
tion of social-media cues.
‘Monetary value’ is probably the most
commonly used indicator of consumer involve-
ment because perceived risk is higher when the
price is high (Laurent & Kapferer, 1985). This
evokes more complex information search be-
havior, as such products are bought less fre-
quently and increases the need for confirmation.
Therefore, we assume that the need for social-
presence and the adoption of social-presence
enhancing features will be higher for e-retailers
selling more expensive products.
H1: e-retailers selling products of higher
monetary value are expected to utilize
more social-media cues.
‘Symbolic value’ refers to the differen-
tiation of products based on brand image. In
contrast to more functional products, where
image is less important, products with a higher
symbolic value, like fashion for example, are
more ego-involving because of their symbolic
meaning which conveys one’s lifestyle or per-
sonality (Laurent & Kapferer, 1985). As it can
be tricky to express such symbolic qualities via
the website interface (Degeratu et al., 2000), we
assume that the need for social-presence will be
higher in the case of e-retailers selling products
of higher symbolic value. In accordance, Has-
sanein and Head (2006) found websites selling
high symbolic value products (e.g., apparel) to
benefit from higher levels of social-presence,
while websites selling more functional products
(e.g., headphones) did not exhibit a positive ef-
fect from higher levels of social-presence. Thus,
they confirm that the effect of social-presence
differs according to the type of products offered
 International Journal of E-Entrepreneurship and Innovation, 2(1), 26-45, January-March 2011 31
Figure 1. Categorization of e-retailers according to the monetary and symbolic value of
products sold
by the e-retailer and more specifically, according
to the symbolic value of the products offered.
Consequently, we assume that the utilization
of social-presence enhancing features will be
higher for e-retailers selling more symbolic
versus more functional products.
H2: e-retailers selling products of higher
symbolic value are expected to utilize
more social media cues.
METHODOLOGY
Content Analysis: Method
and Procedure
In order to establish to what extent media-rich
technologies which convey social-presence are
adopted by B2C e-retailers, we content analyzed
their websites identifying the different social-
media cues utilized (see first column of Table
2). Content analysis is a scientific, objective,
systematic, quantitative, and generalizable re-
search technique for making replicable and valid
inferences from textual, pictorial, or audible
matter to the contexts of their use (Krippendorff,
2004). This method has been used by many
scholars to investigate website content across
different domains (Choi et al., 2007; Govers &
Go, 2005; Henry & Story, 2009; Maynard &
Tian, 2004; Zhao & Zhao, 2004). The analysis
of the website content was carried out during
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is prohibited.
June-July 2010 and proceeded in 2 stages: (1)
careful investigation of the website’s front page,
(2) choosing a product and clicking till the last
checkout page. While browsing through the
shopping process, we carefully investigated
web pages for the presence or absence of the
different social-media cues using a pragmatic
coding scheme (absence=0; presence=1). The
obtained data is reliable because coding two
clear possibilities satisfies the condition of
reliability and there is no need to perform an
additional record of nominal data by different
observers (Hayes & Krippendorff, 2007).
Sample
The sample consisted of 210 top revenue produc-
ing B2C e-commerce retailers as identified by
Internet Retailer’s ‘Top 500 Guide’. In view of
the fact that utilizing a broad range of interac-
tive web features may require high financial
and human resource investments to maintain
effective e-commerce activity, it is expected that
the Internet Retailer’s Top 500 companies can
be considered as the most apt to have adequate
resources to employ fully-featured websites.
The Top 500 ranks B2C retailers in the U.S.
and Canada based on full-year online sales,
including retail chains, catalogers, Web-only
merchants, brand manufacturers and digital
content sellers (Internet Retailer, 2010). As we
aimed to examine whether there are significant
differences in the utilization of social-media
is prohibited.
Social-cue 2 x 4 design Total χ² Sig. 2 x 2 design Total χ² Sig. 2 x 2 design Total χ² Sig.
feature % df = 3 2-sided % df = 1 1-sided % df = 1 1-sided
Low monetary High monetary Monetary Symbolic
value value value value
Low High Low High Low High Low High
symb. symb. symb. symb. % % % %
value value value value
% % % %
Photo cue 62.7 81.7 50.9 57.1 63.8 13.24 .004 71.2 53.5 62.9 6.971 .006 55.6 71.6 63.3 5.792 .012
Video cue 25.5 28.3 31.6 19.0 26.7 2.071 .558 25.2 26.3 25.7 .029 .494 29.6 24.5 27.1 .695 .249
Avatar .0 .0 .0 2.4 .5 4.019 .259 .0 1.0 .5 1.127 .471 .0 1.0 0.5 1.064 .486
RA .0 .0 5.3 .0 1.4 7.169 .043* .0 3.0 1.4 3.412 .103 2.8 .0 1.4 2.874 .247
Live help 15.7 31.7 43.9 33.3 31.4 10.02 .018 24.3 37.4 30.5 4.206 .029 29.6 32.4 31.0 .182 .391
Review 56.9 76.7 75.4 52.4 66.7 10.73 .013 67.6 65.7 66.7 .086 .441 66.7 66.7 66.7 .000 .558
tool
Rating tool 49.0 80.0 66.7 45.2 61.9 17.41 .001 65.8 57.6 61.9 1.488 .141 58.3 65.7 61.9 1.203 .170
Support 39.2 16.7 38.6 21.4 29.0 10.72 .013 27.0 31.3 29.0 .466 .298 38.9 18.6 29.0 10.44 .001
blog
Facebook 54.9 56.7 70.2 57.1 60.0 3.432 .330 55.9 64.6 60.0 1.685 .124 63.0 56.9 60.0 .813 .223
Table 2. Adoption of social-media cues among e-retailer categories

Twitter 45.1 55.0 64.9 45.2 53.3 5.633 .131 50.5 56.6 53.3 .786 .227 55.6 51.0 53.3 .441 .300
Myspace 5.9 13.3 10.5 14.3 11.0 2.182 .535 9.9 12.1 11.0 .262 .385 8.3 13.7 11.0 1.564 .152
Flickr .0 3.3 10.5 .0 3.8 10.73 .013* 1.8 6.1 3.8 2.590 .106 5.6 2.0 3.8 1.850 .159
Youtube 5.9 18.3 35.1 16.7 19.5 15.10 .002 12.6 27.3 19.5 7.158 .006 21.3 17.6 19.5 .445 .312
Customize 11.8 5.0 10.5 7.1 8.6 2.028 .567 8.1 9.1 8.6 .064 .496 11.1 5.9 8.6 1.830 .134
32 International Journal of E-Entrepreneurship and Innovation, 2(1), 26-45, January-March 2011

* The assumption has not been met because the minimum expected count is less than 5.

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 International Journal of E-Entrepreneurship and Innovation, 2(1), 26-45, January-March 2011 33
cues depending on the type of products traded,
we included various industries in our sample,
classified according to the monetary and sym-
bolic value of products sold (cf. Figure 1):
Selling products which are relatively cheap in
price and low in symbolic value:
• Books/Music/Videos (N=20)
• Flowers/Gifts (N=11)
• Food/Drug (N=20)
Selling products which are relatively cheap in
price and high in symbolic value:
• Apparel/Accessories (N=20)
• Health/Beauty (N=20)
• Sporting Goods (N=20)
Selling products which are relatively expensive
and low in symbolic value:
• Computers/Electronics (N=20)
• Hardware/Home Improvement (N=20)
• Office Supplies (N=17)
Selling products which are relatively expensive
and high in symbolic value:
• Jewelry (N=15)
• Housewares/Home Furnishings (N=20)
• Automotive Parts/Accessories (N=7)
Analyses and Results
The quantified data gathered from the content
analyses was entered into SPSS and the fre-
quencies of adoption of the social-media cues
under investigation were counted (Singleton
& Straits, 2009). We performed ANOVA and
cross-tabulations to measure the variation and
relation between our variables of interest.
An overview of our findings regarding the
overall adoption of the different social-media
cues is presented in Figure 2. While some
social-media cues have been readily adopted by
e-retailers (a.o., facial photographs, customer
reviews and ratings, and some online social
networks such as Facebook and Twitter), other
social-media cues appear to be still in their
infancy what their adoption is concerned (a.o.
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is prohibited.
video features, avatars, recommendation agents
and live help and support blogs).
The results also indicate that the adoption
of social-media cues (mean = 4,40; st.dev. =
2,49) appears to vary markedly along the web-
sites investigated: 13 out of 210 websites did
not display any social-media cues, while 9 of
them featured 9 or more different kinds of
social-media cues and should be considered
exemplary in this regard (i.e., Mountain Equip-
ment Co-op, Dell Inc., Newegg Inc., HP Home
and Home Office Store, Abt Electronics Inc.,
Weight Watchers International, Gaiam Inc.,
Recreational Equipment Inc. and BestBuy).
Differences in the amount of social-media
cues utilized across website categories are first
compared by means of a 2 by 2 (monetary
value x symbolic value) ANOVA. This initial
analysis, pertaining to the summated total
number of social-media cues featured in the
websites, reveals that there are no main differ-
ences in adoption of social-media cues when
the monetary or symbolic value of products sold
is concerned. However, there does appear to
exist a significant interaction effect (F=12,788;
p<.001; see Figure 3).
Apparently, the average number of social-
media cues utilized is higher in e-retailing
websites selling expensive products low in
symbolic value than in websites selling expen-
sive products high in symbolic value (av.
number of social-cues = 5,21MV high x SV low versus
3,71 MV high x SV high), which is somewhat contrary
to expectations. Nevertheless, a post-hoc Bon-
ferroni test confirms the statistical significance
of this difference (p=.016). When websites
selling cheaper products are concerned, as
expected more social-media cues seem to be
utilized when products sold have a higher
symbolic value as compared to when they have
a lower symbolic value (av. number of social-
cues = 4,67MV low x SV high versus 3,75 MV low x SV low).
In this case however, a post-hoc Bonferroni test
reveals that this apparent difference is not
significant. Nonetheless, for commercial web-
sites offering products low in symbolic value
it is obvious from our results that those selling
more expensive products utilize more social-
34 International Journal of E-Entrepreneurship and Innovation, 2(1), 26-45, January-March 2011

Figure 2. Overall adoption of social-media cues

Figure 3. Estimated marginal means of social-cue adoption

media cues than those selling cheaper products,
which partially confirms our expectations (av.
number of social-cues = 5,21SV low x MV high versus
3,71 SV low x MV low; post hoc Bonferroni p=.012).
In summary, rather remarkably, when there
appears to be ‘congruency’ between the mon-
etary and symbolic value of products offered
on the website, which can both either be low
or high, then there seems to be less usage of
social-media cues in the website than in the
case where there is some form of ‘incongru-
ency’ between both (av. number of social-cues
= 3.73Congruent Values versus 4.93 Incongruent Values; t-test
p<.001). It is as if the adoption of social-media
cues should mend the issue of ‘incongruency’.
In a subsequent analysis cross tabulations
and χ2 analyses are carried out in order to com-
pare the utilization of individual features across
groups. Table 2 presents the detailed results of
this analysis.
‘Facial photo-cues’ are used in 64% of
all the websites investigated. They appear to

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is prohibited.
 International Journal of E-Entrepreneurship and Innovation, 2(1), 26-45, January-March 2011 35
be used more in websites offering cheaper
products as compared to those selling more
expensive products (71% versus 54%, χ2-test
p=.006), which seems logical considering the
low cost needed for the implementation. Facial
photo-cues are also used more in websites of-
fering products of high symbolic value than in
those offering more functional products (72%
versus 56%, χ2-test p=.012), which is in line
with expectations. As a matter of fact e-retailers
selling cheaper products of a high symbolic
value appear to make the most use of facial
photo-cues in their websites (82%).
‘Video-cues’ are used in only 27% of all
the websites investigated. Although we notice
some slight variations among website catego-
ries, these differences appear to be insignificant.
Websites making use of video-cues are not
limited to those demonstrating their product by
a representative through an embedded video-
stream, but there are also some which enable
their customers to upload user-generated video
clips showing their experiences with products
they purchased.
An ‘Avatar’ was only used in one of all
the websites examined (i.e., Ikea.com). While
Ikea does offer some relatively cheap decorative
products, it also sells more expensive built-in
kitchens, bedding and upholstered furniture.
In our categorization, e-tailers selling home-
furnishings were classified in general as selling
more expensive and more symbolic products.
It is in the line of expectations that some tech-
nologically more advanced social-media tools
would rather be adopted within this category
of online retailers.
‘Recommendation agents’ also appear to
be scarce as they were used in only 3 of all the
websites scrutinized (1,4%). The e-retailers
featuring RAs in their websites (i.e., SonyStyle.
com, HP Home & Home Office Store and Dell
Inc.) all can be categorized as selling more ex-
pensive products of a more functional nature,
which may require somewhat more technical
assistance.
‘Live-help’ can be found in 31% of all the
investigated e-commerce websites. They turn
out to be featured more by e-retailers selling
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is prohibited.
more expensive products (37% versus 24%,
χ2-test p=.029), which might be due to the cost
and human resource investments associated
with adoption. While there does not seem to
be a significant difference when the symbolic
value of the products sold is concerned, live-
help chat lines actually seem to be utilized
most by e-retailers putting expensive products
of low symbolic value on the market and least
by those vending cheap products of low sym-
bolic value (44% versus 16%; χ2-test p=.018),
demonstrating a clear interaction effect. Only
a few websites utilized the instant audio-chat
feature (5.7%).
The results show that numerous top
e-commerce websites try to create a social-
presence by utilizing different kinds of ‘Online
Social Networks’. Among many, Facebook.
com (60%) and Twitter.com (53.3%) are the
most utilized ones compared to MySpace.com
(11%) or Flickr.com (3.8%) which are adopted
to a far lesser extent. Although we notice some
slight variations in adoption among website
categories, these differences appear to be
insignificant. For YouTube on the other hand,
which is adopted by 20% of e-retailers, we
can reveal a significant difference in adoption
among e-retailers depending on the cost of the
products sold, with 27% of those selling expen-
sive products featuring YouTube as compared
to only 13% of those selling cheaper products
(χ2-test p=.006). While there does not seem to
be a significant difference when the symbolic
value of the products offered is concerned,
YouTube actually seems to be utilized most by
e-retailers putting more expensive products of
low symbolic (i.e., more functional) value on
the market and least by those vending cheaper
products of low symbolic value (35% versus 6%;
χ2-test p=.002), demonstrating a clear interaction
effect once again. Especially, e-retailers which
sell technically complicated and expensive
products are trying to show video clips of their
products via YouTube.
‘Support forums, discussion boards, and
blogs for sharing ideas’ were available in
29% of all the websites investigated. Results
indicate that especially websites offering more
36 International Journal of E-Entrepreneurship and Innovation, 2(1), 26-45, January-March 2011
functional products appear to feature support
forums in comparison to those selling products
with a more symbolic value (39% versus 19%;
χ2-test p=.001). When the monetary value of the
products on sale is concerned, no significant
differences can be discerned in the adoption
of support forums among website categories.
‘Customer reviews’ were featured in 67%
of all the websites inspected and ‘customer
ratings’ were available in 62% of them. Thus,
most web based companies are allowing their
customers to post their experiences about the
products or services they have purchased.
Although we cannot reveal any main effects
with regard to the monetary or symbolic value
of the products sold in the websites, a clear
interaction effect becomes apparent. When
there appears to be ‘congruency’ between the
monetary and symbolic value of products of-
fered on the website, which can both either
be low or high, then customer reviews appear
to be less featured in the website than in the
case where there is some form of ‘incongru-
ency’ between both (76% Incongruent Values versus
55% Congruent Values; χ2-test p=.002). The same
is true for the display of customer ratings
(74% Incongruent Values versus 47% Congruent Values; χ2-test
p<.001). It seems as if the issue of ‘incongru-
ency’ needs to be resolved by the adoption of
customer reviews and customer ratings.
Finally, only a few websites allow ‘User
customization’ (8.6%). Although we can see
some slight variations among website cat-
egories, they do not appear to be significant.
Product personalization appears to be offered
most by merchants selling gift cards, apparel
and computers.
DISCUSSION AND
CONCLUSION
While some social-cue features seem to be
readily adopted by online retailers (e.g., facial
photographs, customer reviews & ratings and
some online social-networks such as Facebook
and Twitter), we see that certain, more advanced
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is prohibited.
social-cues (such as video-streams, avatars,
recommendation agents, live-help and sup-
port blogs) are still applied rather scarcely (cf.
Figure 2), demonstrating that there is still room
for enhancing social-presence in a majority of
top B2C e-commerce websites. This finding
is consistent with a recent Forrester Research
report which states that online retailers are
lagging with social-media marketing (Sains-
bury, 2010), which might be due to the cost
of adoption or the relative immaturity of the
technology which supports these social-media
features (Qiu & Benbasat, 2005).
In this paper we also examined more
specifically how online retailers differ in their
utilization of these social-media cues depend-
ing on the ‘monetary’ and ‘symbolic’ value of
the products they sell. While we could identify
some significant differences, the findings are not
straightforward. In some cases there appears to
be an important interaction effect. When there
is ‘congruency’ between the ‘monetary’ and
‘symbolic’ value of products offered on the
website, which can both be either low or high,
then there seems to be less usage of social-media
cues in the website than in the case where there
is some form of ‘incongruency’ between both.
It is as if the adoption of social-media cues
should resolve this issue of ‘incongruency’.
More specifically, websites selling products
with incongruent ‘monetary’ and ‘symbolic’
values (i.e., expensive and functional or cheap
and symbolic) are found to feature customer
review and customer rating features more often.
On average, websites selling more expensive
products of a more ‘functional’ (i.e., less ‘sym-
bolic’) nature seem to feature the most social-
media cues. More specifically, such websites
appear to utilize more live-help (e.g., chat lines),
make more use of YouTube media-stream and
make exclusive use of recommendation agents.
In general, when the impact of the ‘monetary’
value of products sold is concerned, we can
conclude that websites selling cheaper products
make more use of facial photo-cues, while
websites selling more expensive products use
 International Journal of E-Entrepreneurship and Innovation, 2(1), 26-45, January-March 2011 37
live-help and YouTube media-stream. When
the impact of the ‘symbolic’ value of products
traded is concerned, we can conclude that web-
sites selling products of a more functional (i.e.,
less symbolic) nature utilize support forums,
discussion boards and blogs for sharing ideas
more often. Websites selling more symbolic
products, on the other hand, appear to make
more use of simple facial photo-cues.
Having portrayed the current situation of
social-media adoption among online retail-
ers, we would like to take the opportunity to
speculate a little about future developments. As
the lack of social contact with store employees
as well as with other shoppers is still one of
the main factors holding back consumers to
purchase online (Lowry et al., 2010), we feel
that further application of new media-rich
technologies conveying social-presence can
be an important factor contributing to the
future success of e-retailers. The integration
of such social-media cues into retail websites
has actually been demonstrated to positively
affect consumers’ online experiences, trust,
loyalty, perceived usefulness, enjoyment and
purchase intentions (Cyr et al., 2007; Dash &
Saji, 2007; Wang et al., 2007; Gefen & Straub,
2003). The findings of our research clearly
indicate that there is still considerable potential
to enhance social-presence in a majority of top
online retailer websites. As we expect that the
technology behind these social-media features
will further evolve and mature and that the costs
involved in adopting more advanced social-
media features will reduce correspondingly, we
anticipate an increased adoption of social-media
in e-commerce websites and predict a bright
future for online retailing.
Obviously, the supporting technologies are
in constant evolution and it is not an easy task
to imagine what the future might bring. One has
to bear in mind that online social-networking
sites, for example, such as Facebook and Twitter,
did not even exist just a couple of years ago.
Today, new Web technologies allow the use of
social-networking tools which are becoming
an essential part of our daily life that cannot
be ignored or simply turned off (Badawy,
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is prohibited.
2009). Since the boom of ‘Web 2.0’, online
social-networking websites have been on the
rise (Van den Eede, 2010). As a result, every
day more people are getting connected through
popular OSNs to express themselves, and share
content (Mislove et al., 2010). Most e-commerce
companies are recognizing the importance of
this trend and have started utilizing OSNs at a
fast pace. Simultaneously, the usage of virtual
communities such as ‘Second Life’ is grow-
ing for activities like dating, sharing ideas and
education as well as for purchasing products
from e-retailers (Berthon et al., 2010; Salmon,
2009). We expect that in the future the social-
networks as well as virtual communities will
continue to grow and that businesses will invest
more in community building applications as a
marketing driver.
The current study also revealed that cus-
tomer reviews and ratings have been readily
accepted by top online retailers. As they have
been demonstrated to positively impact sales
(Chen et al., 2004; Chevalier & Mayzlin,
2006; Mudambi & Schuff, 2010), we expect
that in the future e-retailers will utilize Web
technologies which allow customers to post
not only text but also their own photos as well
as user-generated audio and video comments
to share individual product experiences. In the
future, more powerful streaming and advanced
technology will enable more e-retailers to adopt
these features. This would definitely engender
more social atmosphere in the websites and will
add value for prospective consumers, lowering
their perceived risks and thus increasing their
purchase intentions (Mudambi & Schuff, 2010;
Williams et al., 2010).
‘Support forums, discussion boards, and
blogs for sharing ideas’ are currently offered by
about one third of top online retailers. As Web
information sharing technology is evolving at
a fast pace, enabling people to connect through
shared interests and engaging them in knowl-
edge sharing, reflection and debate concerning
certain topics of interest within a community
(Lindahl & Blount, 2003; Boulos et al., 2006),
we anticipate that such social-media features
will be eagerly adopted by online retailers in the
38 International Journal of E-Entrepreneurship and Innovation, 2(1), 26-45, January-March 2011
future. They can be used to engage consumers
and can provide a way to ‘draw in’ online shop-
pers. Particularly, we see a positive evolution in
the adoption of multi-media chat-room features
where customers can instantly socialize with
each other, not only through text-chat, but also
through live audio and video-streams.
‘Live-help’ features also appear to be
utilized somewhat less commonly by online
retailers. As this might be due to the cost and
human resource investments associated with
proper adoption, we feel that this will initially
stay an important obstacle and that its use in the
near future will stay a privilege for online retail-
ers selling more expensive products. However,
as conversational interface devices (such as
Spoken Dialog Systems) and humanlike agents
that can “talk” to customers using data-rich se-
mantic protocols will probably become readily
accessible in the somewhat further future, this
obstacle should be overcome easily, making
the prospect of daily interactions with hundreds
of millions of people within the system over
mobile devices or communication networks
actually feasible (Höge et al., 2008; Pieraccini,
2009). While most online retailers currently only
feature text-chat help, for the future we see an
evolution towards audio- and video-chat help
features. It has actually been demonstrated that
voice-chat has a significantly better effect on
trust and cooperation than text-chat (Åberg &
Shahmehri, 2001). As the competition among
online businesses is becoming more intense,
we can therefore, expect that in the future more
instant multi-media (i.e., including audio and
video) feedback and sharing opportunities will
be provided, integrating different social-media
cues which are designed to enhance customer
involvement.
The adoption of recommendation agents
(RAs), as means to enhance social-presence,
appears still very uncommon. Only three top
retailers in the current study have already
adopted this technology. Considering that this
social-media cue can induce trust towards the
Web retailer, that the technology behind it is
advancing at a fast pace, and that it will become
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is prohibited.
a necessity for any e-commerce website that has
a large amount of products or services to offer,
we speculate that its utilization by e-retailers
will rise considerably in the near future. Empiri-
cally, it has been demonstrated that online RAs
are actually able to provoke consumer trust to-
wards e-retailers (Qiu & Benbasat, 2009; Wang
& Benbasat, 2007). The technology behind
recommendation systems is also in full evolu-
tion and has shifted from characteristic-based
recommendation algorithms to social-based
recommendation algorithms (Ochi et al., 2010).
Because of their positive impact on the online
shopping experience we expect that especially
this last type of RAs will become popular.
Our findings also show that current use
of ‘avatar’ technology by top e-retailers is
almost non-existent. An avatar was only used
in one of all the websites examined. As recent
empirical literature emphasizes the positive
effects of such a virtual salesperson on percep-
tions towards the Web retailer, we assume that
this social-presence enhancing feature will be
utilized more frequently by e-retailers in the
future. Avatar sales agents have actually been
demonstrated to engender more satisfaction with
the e-retailer, a more positive attitude towards
the products, and a greater purchase intention
(Holzwarth et al., 2006). In addition, avatar
presence has been shown to induce consumer
trust towards e-retailers (Keeling et al., 2009;
Luo et al., 2006). While at moderate levels of
product involvement, featuring an attractive
avatar appears most effective, at high levels of
product involvement, an expert avatar turns out
to be a more successful sales agent (Holzwarth
et al., 2006). Due to the current technological
advancements, which will become commonly
available at a lower cost, we also expect that
high quality personalized 3D avatars will be-
come soon accessible and will be adopted by
e-retailers enabling customers to use virtual
fitting rooms to try on fashion products (cf.,
OptiTex fashion design software featured in
Tim Gunn’s Guide to Style). The online shop-
per’s personal avatar wearing the new clothes
and accessories can subsequently be revealed
 International Journal of E-Entrepreneurship and Innovation, 2(1), 26-45, January-March 2011 39
to friends or other shoppers for advice and
confirmation regarding likeability and fit. This
will reduce the online shopper’s cognitive dis-
sonance and will enhance his online shopping
experience considerably, which should give a
boost to e-tailers in the fashion industry.
While providing user customization pos-
sibilities involves increased costs, Web mer-
chants should realize that it can be a perfect
way to generate more customer value and to
differentiate their offer from that of the com-
petition. Therefore, we are also positive on our
expectations for its future adoption. Finally,
considering these trends and evolutions, we
predict that current advancements which make
the Internet more social might help online shop-
ping to displace traditional shopping behavior
to some extent in the next decades.
LIMITATIONS AND
SUGGESTIONS FOR
FURTHER RESEARCH
This study is based on a sample of ‘top’ e-
retailers. Because these most probably have
the necessary resources to invest in their web-
sites, the findings of this study will most likely
give a more positive impression with regard
to the adoption of social-media cues than if
we would look at the general population of
B2C e-commerce websites. As, based on this
sample, we can already reveal a huge potential
for improvement, we can only assume that this
potential will be even bigger in reality. It would
be interesting if the adoption of social-media
cues could actually be compared between higher
and lower ranked online retailers.
Based on our investigations, carried out at
a certain point in time, we have tried to depict
the current adoption of different social-media
cues by online retailers, in order to be able to
make some predictions about the future. It would
be fascinating to actually track the evolution of
the adoption of social-media cues in the web-
sites investigated by performing a longitudinal
study. This would allow us to get a better view
of the actual diffusion of social-media among
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is prohibited.
e-retailers. The fact that supporting social-media
Web technologies are in constant evolution will
make such longitudinal research all the more
challenging.
As this research focused specifically on
B2C online retailers, it would also be interesting
to look at the adoption of social-media cues by
B2B e-vendors or C2C e-commerce portals. In
future studies also a comparison could be made
of the adoption of social-media features by pure
plays versus bricks and clicks retailers, as it
could be assumed that the need for integration
of social-presence will be even higher for pure
plays as they lack physical stores altogether.
In the current research paper a categoriza-
tion of online retailers was proposed, classifying
them according to the ‘monetary’ and ‘symbolic’
value of products sold, because we expected that
the need for social presence and consequently
also the adoption of social-media cues would
be different between these online merchants.
Understanding such differences should contrib-
ute to a better comprehension of social-media
diffusion among the variety of e-retailers. Nev-
ertheless, categorizing e-commerce companies
based on the products they sell is not always
straightforward as often they sell different kinds
of products. For example, e-retailers selling
office-supplies may offer simple inexpensive
goods such as a variety of office-stationery as
well as expensive customized office furniture
or multi-function laser printers. While the
proposed categories were not conceived to be
clear-cut but rather to represent a continuum
with two axes from ‘less’ to ‘more expensive’
and from ‘more functional’ to ‘more symbolic’,
we categorized different industries representing
a variety of retailers in each of the categories.
We acknowledge however that also within these
industries there can be a huge variety between
e-retailers which was not really taken into ac-
count in the present study (e.g. Ikea.com versus
Restorationhardware.com, both offering home
furnishings but to a diverse audience and clearly
with a different price-positioning). Further
research should investigate how consumers
experience the need for social-presence among
different kinds of online retailers and whether
40 International Journal of E-Entrepreneurship and Innovation, 2(1), 26-45, January-March 2011
the proposed e-tailer classification is adequate
in this regard or whether it should be refined.
Furthermore, it would be interesting to
investigate the impact of the implementation
of different social-presence enhancing techno-
logical features such as synchronous video-cue,
audio-cue and social-networks on consumer
trust and buying behavior. As the likelihood to
shop online depends on the consumer’s shop-
ping orientation such as price-consciousness,
risk-aversion, innovativeness, brand-loyalty,
variety-seeking inclination, impulsiveness as
well as information processing (Girard et al.,
2003), it should also be interesting to investigate
how different types of online shoppers vary
in their dependence on social-media cues in
e-retailer websites.
Finally, while the deployment of some of
these social-media tools still may be relatively
costly and require high financial and human
resource investments to utilize them effectively
(Whelen & McGrath, 2002), the challenge faced
is that their use can be quite tricky and may
require some new ways of thinking (Kaplan &
Haenlein, 2010). Making suggestions to users
via social-networks to increase their degree of
engagement is becoming a common practice,
but the most important task for e-retailers is
to know how to recommend the right content,
products, or ads to consumers (Machanavajjhala
et al., 2010). Thus, in adopting these emerging
e-business technologies internal capabilities
of a company may play a more influential role
than the environmental drivers (Chang, 2010).
Thus, the central concern is not whether to
utilize these new media tools but how to utilize
them. These new media tools can enhance the
shopping experience, but applications should
be tailored to meet the unique requirements
of product categories and consumer segments
(Burke, 2002). Further research has to investi-
gate how social-media should be used to lead
to optimal results.
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is prohibited.
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Farhod P. Karimov is a doctoral scholar at the Vrije Universiteit Brussel (Belgium). He received
his bachelor degree in business administration from Tashkent State Technical University (Uz-
bekistan) and master degree in marketing science from University of Ulster (UK). From 2002 to
2006, he was vice-president of Marketing at Ulugbek Textile joint-stock company where he was
responsible for leading, directing and mentoring marketing team to success. In 2006, he started
his academic career at Westminster International University in Tashkent (WIUT), where he has
been lecturing on Marketing Management, Marketing Research, and Creating and Delivering
Customer Value. As a guest lecturer he has also been teaching Marketing, Consumer Behavior,
and Pricing Strategies in Marketing at International Business School in Tashkent. His current
scientific research is focused on understanding the impacts of website atmospherics on online
consumers’ shopping motivations and behavior. The aim of the research is to capture the lessons
of successful models for e-businesses serving promising online segment. He is actively involved
in studying the role of social-media in e-commerce and specifically how it influences the ac-
ceptance of online shopping. In addition to his interest in Internet marketing, he also studies
entrepreneurial marketing and ICT research in transition economies.

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is prohibited.
 International Journal of E-Entrepreneurship and Innovation, 2(1), 26-45, January-March 2011 45

Malaika Brengman (PhD in Applied Economics, University of Ghent) (UG), is Associate Profes-
sor at the Vrije Universiteit Brussel (VUB), where she teaches Marketing, Strategic Marketing
Management, Consumer Behaviour and Market Research. She started her academic career as
Assistant Professor at Hasselt University, where she has also been lecturing in Marketing Com-
munications, e-Business, Services Management and Customer Relationship Management. She has
also been guest lecturing at other academic institutions such as Solvay Business School at the
Université Libre de Bruxelles and the International School of Management at the Leti-Lovanian
University in St. Petersburg, Russia. Guided by her strong interests in Retailing, Marketing
Communications and Consumer Behaviour, her scientific research generally focuses on the
impact of store atmospherics and consumers’ shopping motivations and behaviour, specifically
also with regard to alternative distribution channels such as e-commerce and shopping in Vir-
tual Worlds. She also studies marketing communications’ effectiveness, especially with regard
to new media. She has published her work in well-established journals, such as the ‘Journal of
Electronic Commerce Research’, the ‘Journal of Business Research’, the ‘Journal of Market-
ing Communications’, the ‘Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services’, the ‘Journal of Brand
Management’, the ‘Journal of Product and Brand Management’, and ‘Advances in Consumer
Research.’ She has presented her findings at numerous international conferences.

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