Analysing cognitive emotional and behavioural engagement to interactive retail websites using electroencephalogram (EEG) technology and surveys

Online retailing has increased exponentially within the last decade (Mintel, 2014), and websites are becoming more interactive as technology advances. This demand of interactivity encourages retailers to understand how their consumer behaves in order to increase or maintain sales. The online shopping environment consists of many levels of interaction, this thesis looks at three in particular; browsing, videos and social media which have been modeled from Manganari et al., (2009) Online Store Environment Framework (OSEF). Consumer engagement is a fairly new construct implemented in marketing theory (Van Doorn, 2010) and has been evidenced to contain cognitive, emotional and behavioural components constituting to a Cognitive Behavioural Engagement framework (Cognitive Behavioural Engagement) (CBE). This thesis measures CBE within the OSEF through developing a revised theoretical framework. Methodological tools used to measure engagement in UK female shoppers (aged 18-30) is that of three distinct surveys (N=261, N=266, N=264) and Electroencephalogram (EEG) (N=21) to an online fashion pure-play (online only) retailer. Structural Equation Modelling (SEM) is used to confirm the revised theoretical framework. The results of survey data shapes the hypotheses of the EEG experiment. ANOVA and correlations are used to analyse engagement and emotions from brain activity data. Findings from study one (surveys) reveals that ‘involvement’ and ‘absorption’ were present in every survey. Browsing a website did not evoke ‘attention’ (not predicted), watching a video had a predicted relationship with ‘involvement-arousal-re-visit intention’ and participating in Instagram had an unexpected relationship with ‘involvement-focused attention- re-visit intention’. Findings from study two (EEG experiments) demonstrated high levels of emotion overall when participating in social media and high levels of engagement were present overall with videos. Correlations were not in parrallel with survey results, the only congruent result between EEG and Surveys was the result of absorption having an assosiation with purchase intention in the website browsing task. Overall engagement is present in an online interactive shopping environment, this study sheds light on differing website elements linked to different levels of engagement for retailers, practitioners and marketers in the field of marketing and neuro-marketing.