Tone of Writing on Fashion Retail Websites, Social Support, e-Shopping Satisfaction, and Category Knowledge

Quality customer-company dynamics contributes to a satisfactory in-store shopping experience, and lacking this social element in virtual retail contexts can be a critical negativity. In attempting to address the social role of the text-based content in fashion e-tail contexts, this study tested the effect of tone of writing of web content on website socialness and e-shopping satisfaction, the intervening mechanism of social support, and the moderating effect of customers' category knowledge. A fictitious e-tail site selling women's fashion accessories was developed as the stimuli for the main study to reflect two different tone of writing conditions (conversational versus formal). The results indicated the positive, significant effect of conversational tone of the text-based content on website socialness, which subsequently increased e-shopping satisfaction through the social support benefits. The positive effects of emotional and informational supports on e-shopping satisfaction were stronger with the participants of low category knowledge than high category knowledge. Implications and ideas for future research are discussed.