The Effect of Digital Nudging Techniques on Customers’ Product Choice and Attitudes towards E-Commerce Sites

Digital nudging is receiving increasing attention by academics and practitioners in recent years. In this research, our main goal is to determine the relative impact of different nudging techniques on the customers’ product choice processes and their attitudes towards e-commerce sites employing these techniques. Specifically, we are interested in the interaction effects of defaulting, customer reviews (star ratings of products) and purchase pressure cues with the centrality choice bias. Prior research has predominantly investigated nudging techniques or positioning effects in separation. We try to fill this gap and explore possible interaction effects in an eye-tracking experiment. In our study, we plan to research not only the effects of digital nudging techniques on product choice, but also in how far they shape users’ attitudes towards an e-commerce site

Unlocking the Psychology of Online Travel Booking: How Price Expectations Affect Consumers

Price fluctuation is a major concern for consumers in making travel plans, such as booking flights or hotels. Thus, consumers tend to hesitate over whether to make a booking or not. Online travel booking platforms such as Kayak, Hopper, and Google Flights, have been adopting various digital nudges to influence consumers’ price expectations. For example, they may inform users that “Prices are unlikely to decrease within 7 days” (reassurance) or “Prices may rise within 7 days” (alert). Despite the pervasive adoption of reassurance and alert nudges in online travel booking, little is known about how they influence consumers’ price expectations and travel booking behavior, and why. We plan to conduct a lab experiment and a randomized field experiment in collaboration with a leading travel metasearch platform to investigate how digital nudges like reassurance and alert may affect individuals’ emotions, price expectations, and subsequent online travel booking behavior

Ethical Guidelines for the Construction of Digital Nudges

Under certain circumstances, humans tend to behave in irrational ways, leading to situations in which they make undesirable choices. The concept of digital nudging addresses these limitations of bounded rationality by establishing a libertarian paternalist alternative to nudge users in virtual environments towards their own preferential choices. Thereby, choice architectures are designed to address biases and heuristics involved in cognitive thinking. As research on digital nudging has become increasingly popular in the Information Systems community, an increasing necessity for ethical guidelines has emerged around this concept to safeguard its legitimization in distinction to e.g. persuasion or manipulation. However, reflecting on ethical debates regarding digital nudging in academia, we find that current conceptualizations are scare. This is where on the basis of existing literature, we provide a conceptualization of ethical guidelines for the design of digital nudges, and thereby aim to ensure the applicability of nudging mechanisms in virtual environments

How Digital Nudges Influence Consumers – Experimental Investigation in the Context of Retargeting

Retargeting is an innovative online marketing technique in the modern age. Although this advertising form offers great opportunities of bringing back customers who have left an online store without a complete purchase, retargeting is risky because the necessary data collection leads to strong privacy concerns which, in turn, trigger consumer reactance and decreasing trust. Digital nudges – small design modifications in digital choice environments which guide peoples’ behaviour – present a promising concept to bypass these negative consequences of retargeting. In order to prove the positive effects of digital nudges, we aim to conduct an online experiment with a subsequent survey by testing the impacts of social nudges and information nudges in retargeting banners. Our expected contribution to theory includes an extension of existing research of nudging in context of retargeting by investigating the effects of different nudges in retargeting banners on consumers’ behaviour. In addition, we aim to provide practical contributions by the provision of design guidelines for practitioners to build more trustworthy IT artefacts and enhance retargeting strategy of marketing practitioners

Impacts of Reminding Social Nudges on User Engagement Behaviors: Evidence from a Field Experiment

Social nudges are well recognized for their effectiveness in promoting desired behaviors. However, online information overload makes social nudges less appealing. Reminding people about social nudges may boost their efficacy. We investigate the treatment and persistent effect of a reminding social nudge on user engagement with a new function and the spillover effect on user engagement with an existing function through a large-scale randomized field experiment. Our results indicate that compared with a social nudge, the reminding social nudge reduces user engagement with the new function over the treatment period. Interestingly, after removing the nudges, users who received the reminding social nudge are more engaged with the new function than users received the social nudge. The reminding social nudges designed for the new function also have a negative spillover impact on user engagement with the existing function. Theoretical and practical implications about using nudges to introduce new functions are discussed

Status Quo, Critical Reflection, and the Road Ahead of Digital Nudging in Information Systems Research: A Discussion with Markus Weinmann and Alexey Voinov

Research on digital nudging has become increasingly popular in the information systems (IS) community. In this paper, we overview the current progress of, critically reflect on, and discuss further research on digital nudging in IS. To do so, we reviewed the literature and interviewed Markus Weinmann from Rotterdam School of Management at Erasmus University, one of the first scholars who introduced digital nudging to the IS community, and Alexey Voinov, Director of the Centre on Persuasive Systems for Wise Adaptive Living at University of Technology Sydney. We uncovered a gap between what we know about what constitutes digital nudging and how we can actually put consequent requirements into practice. In this context, the original nudging concept bears inherent challenges about, for example, the focus on individuals’ welfare, which, thus, also apply to digital nudging. Moreover, we need to better understand how nudging in digital choice environments differs from that in the offline world. To further distinguish itself from other fields that already tested various nudges in many different domains, digital nudging research in IS may benefit from a design science perspective in order to go beyond testing effectiveness and provide specific design principles for the different types of digital nudges

Digital Nudge Stacking and Backfiring: Understanding Sustainable E-Commerce Purchase Decisions

Background: The consumption of ‘fast fashion’, which is expedited by cost-effective e-commerce systems, represents one of the major factors contributing to the acceleration of climate change. An emerging approach to steer consumers in the direction of more sustainable purchase decisions is digital nudging. This paper explores digital nudging in the context of green fashion e-commerce by testing the effectiveness of two nudging strategies on the decision to choose green fashion products (GFP) over regular fashion items. Method: This study was conducted as a between-subject online experiment (n=320) with four conditions simulating an e-commerce scenario. The participants were presented with different products: one was ecologically friendly, and another was the regular option. Depending on their randomized group allocation, the participants experienced a default nudge, a social norm nudge, a combination of both strategies, or no nudge. In addition, we conducted 10 qualitative interviews to gain a deeper understanding of consumers’ decision process. Results: Our experiment failed to demonstrate statistically significant relationships between the various nudging strategies and GFP purchase decisions. However, additional explorative analyzes confirmed a backfire effect for the combination of nudging strategies. This reveals the previously overlooked influence of participants’ identification on the effectiveness of digital nudging strategies. In addition, qualitative interviews revealed individual factors that influence sustainable e-commerce purchase decisions. Conclusion: This study contributes to information systems research by explaining the differences in the effectiveness of different nudging strategies regarding high-involvement compared to low-involvement products. Moreover, it provides empirical evidence of a backfire effect resulting from a combination of digital nudging strategies (i.e., digital nudge stacking). Finally, the study underscores the leverage that individual factors have on both GFP purchase decision and the effectiveness of nudges

Identification and assessment of opportunities and threats for the Circular Economy arising from E-commerce

The present study identifies, describes and assesses in detail opportunities and threats for the Circular Economy arising from E-commerce. A broad literature research and direct stakeholder input led to the identification of 18 opportunities and 23 threats for the Circular Economy, allocated to 7 different clusters. Most of the identified threats refer to “Logistics and transport”, while opportunities refer mainly to the topics “Accessibility of information” and “Digitalisation”. By means of a comparative assessment in the current situation and future optimistic and pessimistic potential developments, the direct and indirect effects of the opportunities and threats have been evaluated, with specific focus on 7 selected product categories. In total, 11 opportunities and 16 threats have been assessed as either medium or highly relevant. The assessment revealed that most of the threats classified as highly relevant belong to the cluster “Logistics and transport”, including induced parcel transport, parcel return and inefficient transport, while most of the highly relevant opportunities are to be found in the cluster “Accessibility of information”, as in the case of second-hand commerce or product portfolio.JRC.B.5-Circular Economy and Industrial Leadershi