E-Commerce Technology and Environment Influence on Consumer Decision-Making

How Unique Features of E-Commerce Technology and Environment Influence Consumer Decision-Making
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How Unique Features of E-Commerce Technology and Environment Influence Consumer Decision-Making
Introduction
E-commerce technology has rapidly grown worldwide in the past decade. Many people can now buy goods from the comfort of their homes. Besides, social media networks, such as Instagram, Facebook, and Pinterest, provide effective platforms for advertising different commodities and services, which have fueled e-commerce. The Internet offers an environment that enables millions of individuals to interact, share content, pictures, videos, blogging apps, and websites. In that light, e-commerce technology and the environment are crucial factors that affect consumer decision-making in the digital era. The paper focuses on the unique features of e-commerce technology and the environment. In addition, it defines and compares cognitive and habitual types of consumer decision-making. Based on theoretical explorations, the paper critically evaluates how e-commerce technology and environment features influence cognitive and habitual consumer decision-making.
Theoretical Background
In particular, the unique features of the e-commerce technology and environment include ubiquity, global reach, universal standards, richness, interactivity, information density, personalization and customization, and social technology. Ubiquity means that e-commerce is everywhere. Traditionally, the only way that individuals bought products is by going to physical stores. However, e-commerce has liberated the market, which is no longer restricted to a specific physical space. Currently, people can buy goods and services in the comfort of their homes, cars, or workplaces. Ubiquity has significantly decreased transaction costs. Global reach means that the e-commerce technology and environment allow commercial transactions across regional, national, and cultural boundaries (Laudon & Traver, 2020). Indeed, it makes transacting on the Internet cost-effectively and more convenient. In addition, universal standards mean that e-commerce technologies and the environment are shared by all countries worldwide. Users from a specific region can get products from another area. Universal technical standards reduce market entry costs, search costs, and makes price discovery faster, more accurate, and easier. Information richness entails the complexity of message content. E-commerce technologies and the environment are capable of providing more information richness. For example, online sellers can chat with their customers or video call them to clarify specific features of products that potential customers might not comprehend well.
Another unique characteristic of e-commerce technology and environment is interactivity. Interactivity refers to two-way communication between consumers and merchants. Specifically, it enables online merchants to engage potential consumers in similar ways as face-to-face communication. For instance, merchant websites have comment features, social networks, community forums, and social sharing functionalities, such as share and like buttons. Another crucial feature of e-commerce technology and environment is information density, which entails the amount and quality of the information available to merchants, consumers, and market participants (Laudon & Traver, 2020). E-commerce technology has significantly increased the accuracy, timeliness, and currency of information, making it more essential and useful. Personalization and customization make e-commerce technologies and environments more reliable. Specifically, personalization refers to the situation where merchants can advertise their products and services to a specific target market by adjusting the message to individuals’ interests, names, and buying behaviors. Customization involves changing the products or services delivered based on users’ buying patterns and preferences. The last unique feature of e-commerce technology and environment is social technology. Social technology allows individuals to create and share content in various fields with the worldwide community. E-commerce technologies enable users to come up with content and distribute it on large scale. For instance, users can code apps or software and share them with others in different parts of the world.
Consumer decision-making refers to a person’s evaluation in choosing to buy. The two primary types of consumer decision-making include cognitive and habitual. Cognitive decision-making involves deciding to purchase something based on a rational perspective. In particular, it says that individuals carefully and calmly integrate more information with what they know about a specific product before they make a satisfactory decision. Based on cognitive decision-making, people make deliberate decisions to buy products or services, which include scrutiny in financial planning and other things that affect their quality of life. The essential steps in cognitive decision-making include problem recognition, information search, alternatives evaluation, product choice, and outcome (Solomon, 2018). First, an individual must realize t...