The Role of Social Presence and Basic Psychological Needs in Customers’ Intention to Return to Online Stores: A Case Study of Snapfood

The purpose of this study is to identify the factors affecting the intention of customers to return to online stores and attempts to show how basic psychological needs can strengthen the customers’ intention to return to the website directly or as a result of the influence of the variables of the technology acceptance model.

This research has used a survey strategy and a questionnaire was used to collect the data. All the questions were extracted from previous research questionnaires for measuring variables. Snapfood was selected as the sample in this study. The online questionnaire was sent to 657 randomly selected individuals from the database and 425 individuals responded to the questionnaire; 389 participants claimed that they had previously used Snapfood. Statistical analysis was performed using SPSS version 25 and LISREL 8.80 software. Correlation test was also used to examine the pair wise relationships of the main variables and Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) technique was used to test the model and test the hypotheses.

Based on the model hypotheses presented in this study, websites or software that provide their users with a greater sense of authority will be able to increase the users’ intention to return through increasing the users’ perceived usefulness. Therefore, it is possible to increase the usefulness of a store from the users’ point of view as a result of creating a supportive virtual environment by providing the right to choose, free and convenient search conditions, various payment facilities, and a wide range of stores. Users’ perception of competency which was measured by the belief in the self-efficacy of Internet and computer use, had a significantly positive effect on the users’ intention to return and their perception of the ease of purchasing which have been confirmed in previous researches. The third basic psychological need is the need of involvement, which is also positively correlated with the intention to return to the online store and the users’ perception of the usefulness. Nevertheless, the direct effect of satisfying the need for involvement is relatively weaker than its indirect effect through reinforcement of the usefulness belief.

The purpose of this study was to investigate the extent to which the theory of self-determination can explain the persistence of customers to go online shopping. More specifically, this study can claim that the use of technology, visiting a website, and in particular the purchase in cyberspace can occur as a result of the formation of individual motivations for these behaviors. Accordingly, based on the self-determination theory (SDT), the more an individual’s basic needs are met, the more internalized his motivation will be and the more persistent he will be in the desired behavior. For this reason, according to the hypotheses proposed by this study, the three basic needs of "need for autonomy", "need for competence", and "need for relatedness" can lead to the strengthening of the individual’s intention to return to the website.