Visual e-commerce: Cross-cultural differences between India and Europe

Visualization is important in online shopping. This study investigates the effect of visual product reviews in web shops, with a special interest for cultural differences between online consumers in India and the Netherlands. Two web shops were designed with the same sport shoes. One web shop showed the sport shoes with a visual review. The other web shop showed the same sport shoes with no visual review. 160 consumers from the Netherlands, and 183 consumers from India (mean age 23.4 yrs.) evaluated the products in the two web shop conditions. The Indian consumers had a higher purchase intention than the Dutch consumers. Adding a visual review to the products in the web shop did not result in a higher purchasing intention. The Indian consumers also had a higher (utilitarian) attitude towards the web shop than the Dutch consumers. The recommendation is to include social presence information. This will enhance the persuasive effect of visual product reviews.