Abstract
In a world overwhelmed by choices, firms invest in virtual shopping agents helping their customers find the products that best match their needs, therefore providing personalized shopping advice.Identified by research as a key element for the future of online commerce, important questions remain about the impact of virtual shopping agents on customer behavior and attitude. Sometimes the agents are studied as social actors providing a pleasing conversation, other times they are considered as mechanical tools that should provide shopping advice as efficiently as possible, splitting research in parallel academic streams that would gain to be brought together. In addition, the perception of personalization triggered by shopping agents remains complex to understand. Beneficial most of the time, it can also backfire and trigger negative attitudes towards the brand or the recommended product.
This thesis adopts several viewpoints on virtual shopping agents to enhance understanding on customer adoption, perception and response to their personalized shopping advice. It brings together two conceptions of virtual agents - as social actors or mechanical tools – along with various theories from information systems, digital and services marketing as well as customer behavior.
Funded by Win4Doc program of Wallonia, hosted by the company SkalUP, this thesis benefits from industrial collaborations, allowing to confront the academic results directly to the market and providing managerial implications.
| Date of Award | 24 Jan 2024 |
|---|---|
| Original language | English |
| Awarding Institution |
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| Sponsors | SPW Service public de Wallonie |
| Supervisor | Pietro Zidda (Supervisor), Jean-Yves Gnabo (President), Wafa Hammedi (Jury), Patrick Heymans (Jury), Nadia Steils (Jury) & Yuping Liu-Thompkins (Jury) |
Keywords
- Shopping agents
- Personalization
- Digital Marketing
- Information Systems
- Customer Behavior