The effect of digital nudging on the users of eCommerce websites in South Africa

Chihota, Tapiwa

The effect of digital nudging on the users of eCommerce websites in South Africa

Thesis / Dissertation

2025

Publisher

University of Cape Town

Department

Department of Information Systems

Faculty

Faculty of Commerce

Abstract

Post pandemic, online shopping applications have seen a rise in consumer traffic over the past three years. E-commerce sales have grown by 35% year over year, with online penetration remaining 30% higher than pre-Covid levels (McKinsey & Company, 2021). In South Africa, e-commerce is driven by high and fast-growing internet usage, pushing e- commerce growth from 27 million to 38 million by 2027. Given the ubiquitous use of e-commerce applications, it has become increasingly important for e-retailers to optimize the design of their web stores to attract consumers and gain a competitive advantage. Usability concerns affect transactional websites (e-commerce), as they need to enable users to achieve their goals efficiently, effectively, and satisfactorily (Díaz et al., 2017). Many e-commerce applications have incorporated digital nudging techniques to change consumers' online choice environments and influence their purchase decisions. This thesis aims to understand the effect of digital nudging on the users of e-commerce websites in South Africa. Specifically, this study investigates the effect of timed promotions, shipping information, and returns information nudging on customer response based on an experimental e-commerce platform. The responses were recorded using a questionnaire with a specific focus on three dependent variables to measure the customer responses between the nudge variants. Online experiments were conducted with the e-commerce clothing store “Superbalist” which is the second most popular e-commerce site in South Africa generating 220 million in annual revenue. This study employed a one-way between - subjects ANOVA (Analysis of Variance) ,to analyze the quantitative data. The results of the study show that the individual digital nudges examined (timed promotions, shipping information, and returns information nudges) result in more positive customer responses to most of the variable questions than no nudging. Moreover, combination nudges created by combining individual nudge variants have shown interesting insights into the negative backfiring effect of having too many nudges, resulting in a less positive customer response than no nudging at all.