Incorporating social dimensions in Web-store design

Buyer-seller interactions have significant social dimensions. Shopping on the Internet is mediated by technological interfaces, which are thought of as tools that suppress the social nature of the shopping activity. However, Reeves and Nass argue that technological media, such as computers, are ‘fundamentally social and natural’. Thus it is both important and intriguing to understand the social characteristics being projected by the interface or perceived by the Internet shopper. We draw from three domains – theories of social psychology, retail theories and practices, and the concept of computers as social actors – to provide theoretical basis for this thesis. Specifically, we demonstrate our approach by furnishing theoretical arguments for the need to pay attention to the following social dimensions in Web-based stores: politeness, flattery, self-evaluation and other-evaluation, expertise and aesthetics.