Live chats can increase sales on e-commerce sites by 16%: Study

Live chat tools allow for communication between sellers and buyers. They are popular instruments for e-commerce sites that don’t have the advantage of face-to-face communication, but these live chats can actually increase sales and boost profits, a new study suggests.
According to the findings, published in the journal Information Systems Research, the research team from Indiana University, Fudan University and University of Washington, looked at data from Chinese e-commerce giant — Alibaba, on consumers’ purchase decisions of Apple and Samsung tablets from March through June 2013.
“We found live chat can increase purchase probability of tablets by 15.9 per cent, and we see that human interaction results in better sales performance,” said study researcher Xue (Jane) Tan from Indiana University in the US.