"Om det är förnuftet som formar människan, så är det känslan som leder henne" - En studie om hur atmosfären på en E-handelssida påverkar kunderna
The increased competition in e-commerce puts pressure on e-businesses which makes it even more important to influence the visitors on their e-commerce sites. An often overlooked marketing tool is atmospherics. With the increased focus on e-commerce from both traditional and new e-businesses this marketing tool becomes even more relevant. The aim of this thesis is to investigate how the atmosphere on an e-commerce site influences the customers' thoughts, emotions and behaviors. We examine the effects the level of stimulus on a website has on the customer's emotions, attitudes, intentions, behaviors as well as the relationship between these variables. Since previous studies have shown that the shopping goal affects the customers, we also examine how this aspect moderates the above mentioned relationships. To study this we built an e-commerce site, designed a survey completed by 140 respondents and interviewed four companies connected to e-commerce. The conclusions we draw are that atmospherics do affect the customers and that this differs depending on their shopping goals. Our recommendations are that you should design your website differently depending on preferred outcome. However, generally speaking an e-commerce site with higher level of stimulus is desirable but you should be careful not to exceed the customers' optimal stimulation level.