How do shoppers behave online? An observational study of online grocery shopping

The pace of online shopping revenue growth means it is important for retailers and manufacturers to understand how consumers behave online compared with their behaviour in brick and mortar stores. We conducted a study in which the detailed behaviour of 40 shoppers was screen recorded while they each undertook an online shopping ‘trip’. The shopping trip comprised purchasing a basket of 12 commonly bought grocery categories at one of two major retailers. The shoppers were all inexperienced in online grocery shopping. Results show that online grocery shopping is fast, even for these consumers who were new to it – half of the online shoppers spent less than 10 seconds purchasing from a category. This result is very similar to that of past studies in physical stores. Indeed, half of all the 12 item‐shopping trips took less than 10 minutes. Also, most purchases were made from the first category page displayed in the retailer's online store. Shoppers also consistently used the default display options chosen by the retailers but used a combination of navigational tools to find their products. We conclude that online shoppers do not behave differently from those offline in terms of time spent or effort expended. Online shopping, in the grocery context at least, seems to primarily reflect a desire for time efficiency on the part of the shopper. In that regard, online shopping seems very similar to in‐store shopping. The study begins the job of documenting shopper behaviour into this new channel and provides practical knowledge for retailers and manufacturers. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

睡眠剥夺与购物后悔：来自大规模个体层面数据的证据

睡眠剥夺正在成为人们面临的一种普遍问题,但是已有研究很少将睡眠剥夺与消费者行为联系起来。本文采用真实购物情境下的大规模消费者个体层面数据(N=1625472),通过建立计量经济学模型来研究睡眠剥夺与购物后悔的关系。结果表明,睡眠剥夺显著地增加了消费者的购物后悔倾向,具体在行为上表现为增加了商品的退货概率和加快了商品的退货速度。此外,商品的价格正向调节了睡眠剥夺对购物后悔的影响,而促销优惠金额的比例则负向调节了睡眠剥夺对购物后悔的影响。     

Online shopping hesitation.

This study was designed to understand which factors influence consumer hesitation or delay in online product purchases. The study examined four groups of variables (i.e., consumer characteristics, contextual factors perceived uncertainty factors, and medium/channel innovation factors) that predict three types of online shopping hesitation (i.e., overall hesitation, shopping cart abandonment, and hesitation at the final payment stage). We found that different sets of delay factors are related to different aspects of online shopping hesitation. The study concludes with suggestion for various delay-reduction devices to help consumers close their online decision hesitation.     

Tomorrow's consumer — the shifting balance of power

What are the prospects for consumerism? Often despised as self‐indulgent, consumers are frequently motivated by altruism and their needs to express their identity, to build relationships, to obtain fulfilment and even to find a substitute for religion. Mass‐customisation is producing fundamental change, revolutionising attitudes to choice, with a key role for agents (human and online) in helping people choose. Consumer power will grow and brands will be under pressure from rising consumer expectations. While retailers fight back with targeted marketing and special offers, brands will need to serve consumer needs as much as suppliers. Online shopping could transform consumer behaviour, driven by cost saving and convenience and spurred on by competition. Will retailers protect their traditional channels or go online because they are afraid not to? ‘Etailing’ will need to create consumer trust, so regulation will be critical, possibly leading to legal responsibilities for quality on Internet service providers (ISPs) and portals and with systems to help new entrants build a track record of reliability, thereby increasing competition, choice and consumer power. Copyright © 2002 Henry Stewart Publications.     

Exploring the role of the Amazon effect on customer expectations: An analysis of user-generated content in consumer electronics retailing

While Amazon's disruption of the retail market has been associated with significant changes in consumer behavior, empirical studies on how interacting with Amazon has changed customers' expectations toward other offline/online retailers remain scarce. Such Amazon-driven perceptions of service attributes are sometimes referred to as the ‘Amazon effect’. After clarifying the meaning of the Amazon effect and reviewing the studies on consumer complaints online, this paper aims to identify key triggers for the Amazon effect from consumer comments on social media. Based on natural language processing techniques, a content and sentiment analysis of users' comments drawn from the Facebook pages of three leading consumer electronics retailers in Italy over a two-year span (2016–2018) was used to evaluate the dissatisfaction toward these retailers associated to Amazon-related service attributes. The findings show that there is a wide diffusion of consumer comments and service complaints related to the Amazon effect on consumer electronics retailers, especially regarding price, customer service, in-store staff, and post-purchase support. Compared with corresponding evaluations on the Italian Amazon website, the negative sentiments revealed in consumers' comments on Facebook suggest that the Amazon's service standards have raised consumer expectations and have made consumers less satisfied when they interact with other retailers. We argue the need for further research to better clarify Amazonification in terms of customer impatience and dissatisfaction in general, also going beyond price and logistics issues, which are usually considered as the main constitutive factors.     

Satisfaction in the context of customer co‐production: A behavioral involvement perspective

Consumers increasingly subscribe to community‐supported agriculture (CSA) programs as an alternative retail channel for fresh produce. Compared with supermarket retailers, CSAs are built around an ethos of community rather than efficiency and economies of scale; and CSA programs demand far greater customer co‐production than supermarket retailers. For instance, CSA members (customers) assume responsibilities for physical distribution, market timing, and financial risk taking—activities that, for customers of traditional supermarkets, are assumed by the retailer or other market intermediaries. Service‐dominant logic suggests that such co‐production activities provide value for consumers. And the expanding demand for CSA programs anecdotally supports the notion that consumers find value in co‐producing fresh produce. However, whether or not co‐production leads to greater satisfaction with a product category remains largely untested. We draw on community theory to test if engagement in co‐production activities leads to satisfaction with a product category. By examining product satisfaction, we test an outcome of co‐production that is consumer‐centric. Results from an exploratory field study suggest that two types of value co‐creation—commitment to co‐production and behavioral involvement in product‐related activities—are positively correlated with product satisfaction. Our results support the notion that value co‐creation provides value for consumers. Interestingly, these findings are antithetical to studies that suggest service convenience constitutes non‐monetary value for consumers. Our study suggests that the community theory is a viable theoretical frame for consumer research on co‐production. Further, our findings suggest that consumer research into the co‐creation of value should incorporate measures of product satisfaction and draw on behavioral as opposed to exclusively attitudinal assessments of co‐production activities. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Consumption systems: Unveiling bi-residential and delegated consumption

Based on an exploratory study of 29 semi-structured interviews followed by a grounded theory analysis, this research explores the circulation of local products and brands enacted by bi-residential consumers with geographically dispersed networks across two places. The results show that two new consumption systems are emerging at the frontier between conventional and collaborative consumption: bi-residential and delegated consumption. In these two consumption systems, the bi-residential consumer mediates the relationship between the retailer and the final consumer, thus informally extending the retailer's downstream value chain. Bi-residential and delegated systems partly overlap but also differ from conventional or collaborative consumption systems in two ways: (a) they are linked in a modelized process sustained by the perception of ‘access’ and the ‘logistic role’ of the bi-residential consumer; (b) they are embedded in a hybrid exchange system intertwining gift-giving and monetary exchange. These consumption systems occur at the interstice between conventional and collaborative consumption. Local retailers and brands could benefit from knowledge in this area with a view to opening up new opportunities in value co-creation with bi-residential consumers.     

Experiential tourist shopping value: Adding causality to value dimensions and testing their subjectivity

Previous literature on consumer behavior has tackled the experiential approach in retailing services in depth; however, most of the previous studies have concentrated on the simultaneous but not concatenated effects of value dimensions on satisfaction and/or loyalty. Furthermore, tourists' shopping behavior remains an underdeveloped area of study from the experiential perspective. This work explores experiential tourist shopping value, aiming to (a) explain tourists' loyalty to retailers by adding causality to experiential dimensions and (b) prove the subjectivity of these values. After a diachronic and synchronic review of the literature on experiential shopping value, a structural model with a chain of effects consisting of product quality, service quality, self‐esteem and shopping enjoyment on loyalty, and a multidimensional index as a second‐order model were built with partial least squares and tested on a purposive sample of 374 tourists in Valencia (Spain). Our findings revealed a sequential approach to tourists' shopping experiences where utilitarian values led to social and hedonic ones, all of which were antecedents of loyalty to retailers. Furthermore, the index showed differences by gender and nationality. Although our results are context specific, they add to the value creation process as they show a sequence of effects, and a fully subjective value provision, which changes according to demographics. The originality of this work is that it contributes to the suitability of the experiential paradigm in explaining tourists' shopping behavior by promoting interest in this specific, underdeveloped target area, and also by adding causality and proving the subjectivity of experiential value dimensions.     

Taking sustainable fashion mainstream: Social media and the institutional celebrity entrepreneur

There is a growing imperative to address the negative environmental impact of fashion and an increased awareness of sustainability issues: the sustainable fashion concept (SFC). However, while consumers are becoming more aware and concerned about sustainability, this is not resulting in the purchase of sustainable fashion products in preference to “mainstream” goods. This so‐called attitude–behaviour gap is well documented in academic literature, and yet there is a lack of research into potential methods of disrupting this phenomenon. This study seeks to redress this by examining the potential influence of celebrity institutional entrepreneurs (CIEs) to raise awareness of the SFC and to therefore guide and change consumer behaviour towards more sustainable practice. CIEs are celebrities who use their social position to espouse their values with the intention of influencing institutional habits and behaviours. In this case, Emma Watson is identified as an appropriate and credible proponent, and her @the_press_tour Instagram account was used to examine her influence. A netnographic investigation of this account was conducted in combination with eight in‐depth interviews with account followers to examine attitudes and actions towards sustainable fashion. Findings showed that the account had partial impact on consumer engagement with the SFC in that it led to the participants being more likely to discuss and consider the issues around sustainable fashion; however, it had no significant impact on purchases of sustainable fashion. The study concludes that CIEs can impact the attitudes of mainstream consumers towards sustainable fashion; however, further research is required to determine any long‐term influence.     

B2C电子商务中消费者的风险来源及其影响

研究目的是通过考察B2C(Business to Consumer)电子商务中消费者知觉到的风险来源来验证电子商务交易中的虚实界面假设。通过访谈法和问卷法调查了337名被试,探讨了B2C电子商务中消费者认知到的风险来源结构,以及这些风险来源对消费者认知风险的影响。结果表明：消费者在B2C电子商务中的认知风险一部分来源于虚实界面     

The Long‐Term Predictive Validity of the Consumers’ Need for Uniqueness Scale

This research examines the long‐term ability of the consumers’ need for uniqueness measure to predict consumers’ valued possessions, shopping behaviors, and experiences. Consumers’ need for uniqueness reflects individual differences in counterconformity motivation (i.e., the pursuit of differentness relative to others) that is manifest in consumer responses. This research reports on 2 longitudinal assessments of the scale's predictive validity using data collected at 4 stages from a consumer mail‐survey sample. One year following initial responses to the trait measure, respondents participated in a second survey in which they photographed and rank ordered their valued possessions. In a third survey, the photographs served as cues to obtain responses to ratings of possession benefits and to questions regarding acquisition of the possession. Overall, the results support a number of hypotheses regarding the relation of consumers’ need for uniqueness to salient possession benefits, types of goods comprising consumers’ valued possessions, and shopping behaviors associated with acquiring valued possessions. Two years following initial responses to the trait measure, members of the consumer mail panel completed a fourth survey, indicating their participation in various uniqueness‐enhancing consumer activities. Results support the stability and predictive validity of the measure over the 2‐year period. Because the design of possessions and endorsed uniqueness‐enhancing activities considered in the consumer mail panel studies varied across individuals, an additional study was conducted that demonstrated the scale's ability to predict individuals’ counterconformity responses to the same choice situation.     

Click it,and increase hedonic consumption ratio: How does online shopping improve the long-term subjective well-being of consumers?

In the past few decades, consumers across the globe have become heavily reliant on e-commerce to purchase almost everything, from essential goods to hedonic goods. The prevalence of online shopping has significantly improved the consumption process and, by meeting consumers' needs, likely affects their long-term subjective well-being (SWB). Using individual-level data from the 2018 China Family Panel Studies, this study shows that online shopping enhances the long-term SWB of consumers by increasing their proportion of hedonic consumption. Consumer income can moderate the effect of online shopping on the long-term SWB of consumers, such that high consumer income can weaken this effect. In addition, the effect of online shopping on long-term SWB is stronger for rural consumers than for urban consumers. The authors close with a discussion of the implications of this study's findings for academics and policy makers.     

Differences in consumer preferences when facing branded versus non‐branded choices

Because brands can signal reputation and serve as proxies for trust, consumer preferences for credence attributes may differ for branded and non‐branded products. We test this hypothesis using data from a choice experiment conducted with US pork consumers. The results indicate that consumers are usually willing to pay more for a certification attribute in a non‐branded as compared to branded product. Additionally, greater variation in consumer willingness‐to‐pay for credence attributes is observed in the non‐branded case. This latter characteristic of the results may represent the increased uncertainty some consumers internalize concerning quality consistency when brand information is not provided. These results have interesting implications for producers, processors, retailers, and policy makers. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Online shopping orientations of Latino millennial generational cohorts

Latino consumers in the United States reached a collective buying power of nearly $1.72 trillion in 2020 with over 22% between the ages of 18 and 37, and 80% of the population on the internet. Although Latino Millennials represent a significant consumer group in the United States, scarce literature has examined their online shopping orientations. Furthermore, despite having indications that Millennials are not a homogenous consumer group, and differ in their shopping preferences, studies fell short in examining the online shopping orientations of the Millennial subgroup. Thus, the purpose of this study was to examine the shopping orientations of Latino consumers by segmenting the Millennial generation into three groups: younger Millennial (18–23), middle Millennial (24–30), and older Millennial (31–37). The study administered a web-based questionnaire survey to a convenience sample of 378 participants. A one-way multivariate analysis of variance (MANOVA) was conducted, and findings revealed that shopping orientations of Latino consumers differ significantly based on Millennial generational cohorts (MGCs) and ethnicity. Among Latino MGCs, younger Millennials were more brand-and fashion-conscious, impulsive, and confused by over choice. Furthermore, Latino Millennials were more brand conscious than Caucasian Millennials. Therefore, companies and marketers that target Latino Millennial consumers should create shopping experiences that meet the needs of the different generational cohorts.     

Mindsets,shopping motivations and compulsive buying: Insights from China

This study investigates how mindsets (i.e., the beliefs that individuals have about the nature of human characteristics) are associated with compulsive buying behavior (i.e., the tendency to buy impulsively and obsessively). In particular, we test the relationships between consumer mindsets, three shopping motivations (deal proneness, social comparison, and hedonic motives) and compulsive buying. Based on a survey of 421 respondents conducted in China, our findings reveal the mechanism through which mindsets affect compulsive buying. The results show that when consumers believe in the consistency of personal traits (fixed mindset), they tend to be more vulnerable to deal offers and social comparison. These motivations increase the desire to seek hedonic pleasure, which is associated with a greater propensity for compulsive buying. However, when consumers believe that personal traits can be changed and developed (growth mindset), they seek hedonic pleasure in shopping, which result in a greater tendency to engage in compulsive buying. The present study adds to the existing body of knowledge by unveiling how different mindsets are associated with compulsive buying. In terms of practical implications, this study provides policy makers and marketers with a better understanding of the different motivations that lead to compulsive buying.     

信息模糊：消费决策领域中的有限理性

信息模糊（obfuscation）是行为经济学研究的重要领域,主要解释了在商品买卖过程中,销售商通过把商品信息复杂化等手段,让人们的消费过程变得更加复杂和困难,从而使消费者在购买商品时面对信息模糊做出种种不明智的选择的现象问题。本文从以往的研究成果出发,就信息模糊、有限理性和销售者的决策行为的关系进行了探讨,以期为信息模糊的跨学科研究提供可借鉴的思路和方法。     

The flip side of vanity sizing: How consumers respond to and compensate for larger than expected clothing sizes

Vanity sizing has become a popular retail trend and recent work shows it has a favorable impact on consumers. However, as the current research demonstrates, significant variations in sizing standards across retailers mean that consumers are as likely to encounter larger sizes as they are smaller, “vanity” sizes when shopping, highlighting the importance of understanding how consumers react to this potential threat in the marketplace. Across five studies we demonstrate that larger sizes result in negative evaluations of clothing and show that these effects are driven by consumers' appearance self-esteem. Importantly, we also find that instead of unilaterally lowering purchase intent as one might assume, larger sizes can actually increase spending, as consumers engage in compensatory consumption to help repair their damaged self-esteem. In so doing, this research reveals a dynamic and complex relationship between consumers and sizing labels, where shopping can serve to build, strengthen, threaten, and/or repair appearance self-esteem.     

Three Rs of Interpersonal Consumer Guilt: Relationship,Reciprocity, Reparation

This article explores the role of consumer guilt in a retail context. The results of a field study indicate that a consumer's lack of purchase can lead to a guilt response when social connectedness with a salesperson exists and the consumer perceives he or she has control over the purchase decision. A subsequent laboratory study established that when consumers experience guilt, they intend to pursue reparative actions during future purchase interactions with the salesperson to reciprocate the initial connection they established. This reparation is directed specifically toward the salesperson and not the firm.     

Spanish consumers' perceptions of US apparel speciality retailers' products and services

Apparel speciality retailers' success in international markets is contingent upon their knowledge of culturally‐defined values, norms and behaviour that influence consumer decision making and impact acceptance of products and services. An integrated theoretical framework of retail internationalisation guided this investigation of the viability of the Spanish market for US retailers. This study examined consumers' store patronage and apparel purchase behaviour, acceptance of US apparel brands, perceptions of retailers' products and services, and perceptions of the impact of foreign retailers on local communities. Data were collected from 375 consumers in Barcelona, Madrid and Valencia. The influence of retailer characteristics on consumers' store patronage varied by age and income. Product characteristics that influenced apparel purchases varied by gender, income and age, while acceptance of US brands differed by gender and age. The perceptions of Spanish, European and US retailers differed regarding quality, fashionability, product assortment, extent and quality of customer service, convenience of location, payment options, national brands and store layout. Consumers' acceptance of US apparel brands was a function of age, household income, apparel product country of manufacture and price. Perceptions of US retailers were a function of household income, selected apparel characteristics and consumer acceptance of US apparel brands. Differences among perceptions of the impact of retail development were found by city. The findings provide insights into the opportunities and challenges for US apparel speciality retailers as they contemplate entry into the Spanish market. The affinity for US apparel among young Spanish consumers, particularly males, suggests optimism regarding opportunities in this market. Copyright © 2005 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Involvement,attributions, and consumer responses to rebates

This paper examines effects of both purchasing involvement and product involvement on consumers' responses to rebates. In Part One, the study examines the effects of involvement on consumer responses to a rebate price promotion. Specifically, the study reports that consumers with high levels of purchasing involvement and consumers with high levels of product involvement are more likely to experience satisfaction with a shopping experience involving a rebate and, subsequently, are more likely to express intentions to engage in repeat purchase behavior and word-of-mouth communication about the product. High purchasing involved (but not high product involved) customers are also more likely to use rebates. In Part Two, the study examines effects of involvement on consumer attributions for satisfaction with the price deal and reports that high purchasing involvement is significantly related to a tendency to make internal, rather than external, attributions for satisfaction with a rebate shopping experience. Results of hierarchical moderated regression suggest that consumer responses to the rebate price promotion are moderated by these internal attributions. Implications of the findings for a theoretical understanding of involvement effects on attributions and for the effectiveness of price promotion strategies in the marketplace are discussed.