Impulse buying and variety seeking: Similarities and differences

Impulse buying and variety seeking seem to emerge from similar personality traits, yet the similarities and differences in the manifestation of these behaviors have not been fully explored. Despite the common origin, research on the two constructs has diverged as definitions of the phenomena have become more elaborate. Previous research on the two constructs shows that they are classifiable as low-effort, feeling-based behaviors with hedonic undertones. A middle-range theory that provides a more comprehensive depiction of how variety seeking and impulse buying are theoretically related is necessary. One way toward such a theory is the addition of a fourth “hidden” socio-normative dimension to the three-dimensional typology of purchase behaviors that Baumgartner (2002) proposes.     

The competing roles of variety seeking in new brand adoption

We examine how consumers' attribute-level variety-seeking behaviors can explain their propensity to adopt a new brand in the consumer packaged goods (CPG) market. We leverage consumers' purchase history among extant brands prior to a new brand introduction as an indicator of the new brand adoption upon its launch. We incorporate variety seeking at two product attribute levels – brand and flavor – and find that variety seeking along these two dimensions predicts different outcomes for new brand adoptions. The estimation results of our discrete-time hazard model show that consumers' brand-level and flavor-level variety-seeking behaviors affect their likelihood to adopt a new brand in different manners: consumers who purchase various brands are more likely to adopt a new brand, whereas those who choose various flavors are less likely to adopt a new brand. The results also show that the new brand's price promotions and in-store displays can affect the role of variety seeking in consumers' new brand adoption. We assess the robustness of our findings by replicating our empirical model with an additional measure of variety seeking as well as a variety-seeking measure in another product category.     

The effect of spicy gustatory sensations on variety‐seeking

Can spicy gustatory sensations increase variety‐seeking in subsequent unrelated choices—and if so, how? The present research explores these questions. Based on the metaphor “variety is the spice of life,” and drawing on research on metaphors and embodied cognition, the authors propose that spicy gustatory sensations may activate a desire to be interesting that leads to greater variety in subsequent unrelated choices. Specifically, the first study demonstrates that tasting spicy vs. mild potato chips results in greater variety‐seeking in candy bars—but only when there is a time delay between the gustatory sensation and the variety‐seeking choice task, suggesting an underlying motivational process. Further, the effect of spicy gustatory sensations on variety‐seeking strengthens as the time delay increases, consistent with a motivational account. The second study provides evidence for a metaphor‐based explanation of the effect by demonstrating that while there is no difference in variety‐seeking among consumers who have tasted a spicy candy and those merely primed with the metaphor “variety is the spice of life,” variety‐seeking is lower among consumers who have tasted a mild candy. This study also rules out taste‐related factors as an alternative explanation.     

解非线性电路稳态响应的一种有效算法

本文提供一种计算非线性电路的稳态响应的有效算法,在多频信号激励的强迫振荡电路和耦合振荡电路都可使用。该方法可称为“代换算法”。因为,它每一步的变量都是用残留误差的各个频率分量解关联时不变电路,该电路是用“松弛法”将时变电路转换而来。此算法非常简单而有效,并且可应用于各种非线性电路。     

Brand switching in clothing: the role of variety‐seeking drive and product category‐level characteristics

The study explores the impact of internal factors such as variety‐seeking drive, loyalty, involvement, perceived risk, pleasure and similarity perceptions on brand‐switching propensity in clothing purchases using multiple regression. The model derived shows that five internal factors including involvement, perceived risk, loyalty and variety‐seeking drive have an impact on brand switching propensity. The findings highlight that highly involved and loyal consumers are likely to show brand‐switching propensities in their clothing purchases, thus buying from a repertoire of brands and stores. These findings imply that retailers should ensure that their clothing brands or stores are among those in the multi‐brand repertoire of the consumer.     

Store environment's impact on variety seeking behavior

This paper explores the influence of store environment on variety seeking behavior with a model incorporating various components of store environment (music, light, assortment, employee, and layout) and personality variables, optimum stimulation level (OSL) and deal proneness. Using a mall survey with shoppers in Dubai, the study establishes that store environment, OSL and deal proneness affect variety seeking positively. This paper extends extant literature by studying comprehensively the impact of store environment on variety seeking. This research suggests that retailers need to invest in the components of store environment to enhance variety seeking. Methodologically, the model incorporates the Schmid–Leiman factor structure to address the limitations posed by reflective models.     

Divergence in Variety Seeking: An Exploratory Study Among International Travelers in Asia

ABSTRACT

Variety seeking is a tendency in consumer behavior in which the consumer alternates between different makes of the same item in the quest for diversity. Variety seeking and exploratory behaviors help explain tourists’ consumption behavior and choice-making methods. Some studies have focused on the choice of food, restaurants, theme parks, travel activities, or destinations, but only a few have taken place within an international context. In this study, the influence of variety seeking and exploratory buying on travelers’ consumption behavior within an international context is analyzed. In essence, Asian travelers are compared with Western travelers. Several factors, which help explain divergence in variety seeking, are included in the analysis. The results demonstrate that variety seeking and an exploratory tendency have a significant relationship with travelers’ consumption behavior (for both Asian and Western travelers). In general, customers who have a high tendency for variety seeking are less loyal; however, there is no discernible difference between Asian and Western tourists in this regard.     

Opinion leaders and followers: A replication and extension

Opinion leadership has been a central construct in studies of new product diffusion models. Flynn, Goldsmith, and Eastman (1996) introduced the related concept of opinion seeking and documented its measurement properties. This replication and extension paper examines these two concepts, using their original scales and placing them in a nomological model that includes innovativeness and computer and software use as antecedents. The research model is tested empirically using a convenience sample of 123 Israeli consumers, with regression models and a multiple discriminant analysis. Innovativeness and computer usage were found to explain opinion leadership and opinion seeking. Opinion leadership and opinion seeking predicted several computer‐related outcomes. The findings can be used to identify and utilize the differing information search profiles for opinion leaders and seekers. The former use a variety of sources, such as store visits and category‐specific newspapers and magazines. In contrast, seekers rely more on expert advice from opinion leaders. © 2008 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

Do consumer perceptions matter in measuring choice variety and variety seeking?

This research marries scanner panel choice data of consumers in single member households to their survey-based perception data and draws upon behavioral and modeling research to contribute to the variety seeking literature. It presents a new consumer-based measure of choice variety based on inter-product similarity perceptions and illustrates that others-based (i.e., researchers, managers, and retailers) measures of choice variety such as number of brand switches underestimate choice variety. Moreover, incorporating the consumer-based measure instead of others-based measures in latent class models improves their efficiency of classifying households into high versus low variety seeking. The consumer-based measure of choice variety is valid in terms of its positive relationship with consumer's intrinsic or trait-based variety seeking tendency. Theoretical (market structure, consideration set) and managerial implications (targeting of price promotions to reduce spending, product design, cross-price elasticity) of the findings are offered.     

Variety seeking,market partitioning and segmentation

This paper ties together hierarchical partitioning of product markets, segmentation and variety seeking. Individual variety seeking is shown to be a more meaningful partitioning criterion than simple aggregate brand switching. Variety seeking is attribute dependent and thus should not be directly related to the consumer's socio-economic and demographic characteristics. Alternatively, the consumer's way of partitioning the market is suggested as a useful criterion for segmentation.     

The relationship between packaging uniformity and variety seeking

This research explores the effect of product packaging uniformity on variety seeking. It is shown that the incidence of variety seeking is greater in product categories where packaging is similar among competitors, and thus the packaging display has relatively low arousal potential, as compared to categories where the packaging is less uniform across brands and therefore has higher arousal potential. Two experiments test and support these propositions. © 2010 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

Examining Variety Seeking Behavior–A Study With Reference to Fast Moving Consumer Goods (FMCG)

Many attempts have been made to study consumer variety seeking behavior (VSB) in various contexts in the past. This research aims to study the influence of determinants on VSB in fast moving consumer goods (FMCG) in the Indian context. Questionnaires were administrated through direct contact method, to collect data from variety seeking consumers. Multiple linear regression (MLR), ANOVA, independent t test, and general linear model (GLM) techniques were used to analyze both demographic and behavior variables. The influences of moderators were also analyzed. The managerial implication and direction for future research had been discussed.     

A nested logit model of brand choice incorporating variety-seeking and marketing-mix variables

We model the effects of variety-seeking and marketing-mix variables on consumers' purchases of coffee using a nested logit model. We premise that on any given purchase occasion, the utilities of brands other than the one purchased on the previous occasion may be correlated due to the consumer's tendency to seek variety or to avoid variety. This results in a two-level hierarchical model where choice on any purchase occasion is conditioned on the brand purchased on the immediately preceding occasion. Such a structure accounts for variety seeking and inertia tendencies of consumers and is consistent with a hierarchical decision process, where consumers first decide whether or not to make a repeat purchase and then decide which brand size to purchase. The assumed hierarchical structure is shown to be consistent with observed coffee purchase behavior, and the model is shown to outperform a nonhierarchical logit model in predicting consumers' brand choices.     

Impulse buying and variety seeking: A trait-correlates perspective

Impulse buying and variety seeking are low-effort feelings-based behaviors, yet the similarities and differences in their socio-psychological origin are under-explored. This article addresses this gap with a conceptual framework incorporating several individual and situational factors with a focus on three relevant consumer traits — consumer impulsiveness (CI), optimum stimulation level (OSL), and self-monitoring (SM). Findings from a survey with retail shoppers about their actual purchase decisions show that both CI and OSL have a positive association with the level of impulse buying and variety seeking. However, CI is more strongly associated with impulse buying and OSL with variety seeking. Moreover, SM relates negatively with impulse buying and positively with variety seeking; it also moderates the influence of CI and OSL on both the behaviors in opposite directions. Finally, the article discusses the contribution of this research, its limitations and some directions for future research.     

Print Advertising Context Effects

Abstract

An expanded view of the advertisement credibility construct will offer a more complete representation of the factors that contribute to credibility and its outcomes. Based on recent proposed revisions to the advertising communication process model, a revised model of advertisement credibility is offered. A test of a portion of the model supports the inclusion of media credibility as a dimension of advertisement credibility and as an influence on attitude toward the ad, on attitude toward the brand, and on purchase intentions.     

When Satisfied Consumers Do Not Return: Variety Seeking's Effect on Short‐ and Long‐Term Intentions

Even satisfied consumers frequently do not come back, which challenges loyalty theory and marketing practice. It is reasoned that variety‐seeking tendencies will significantly affect short‐term revisit intentions, whereas satisfaction and regret will mostly determine long‐term revisit intentions. Thus, the influence of satisfaction on loyalty is hypothesized to be critically dependent on the time perspective of the intentions, now or later, and variety seeking. A representative survey (N = 400) in eight Spanish cities supported these predictions. Multivariate moderated‐mediation analyses revealed that indeed the influence of satisfaction, regret, and variety seeking critically depends on the time perspective of the behavioral intentions.     

A typology of consumers' variety-seeking disposition based on inherent needs

Abstract

Consumers' variety seeking has preoccupied many researchers over the last three decades, and many explanations and models have been produced. The concept is relevant to market segmentation, but it has not been fully explored. This study explores variety seeking in order to derive a consumer typology based on the strength of the disposition to seek for variety, and the intrinsic needs that trigger this disposition. A quantitative methodology is adopted using a sample comprising customers of a large UK-based clothing retailer. Factor and cluster analyses are used to derive a variety-seeking disposition (VSD) typology. Findings indicate four distinct clusters, which differentiate in terms of the strength of VSD and the built-in needs that drive VSD. Clusters also discriminate in terms of behavioural, attitudinal, and demographic variables, including attitude to clothes, brand commitment, interest in fashion, age, gender, education, and occupation. A number of implications derive from this study in relation to targeting and marketing strategy.     

Constituency building: Determining consumers’ willingness to participate in corporate political activities

Recently, firms have increasingly approached their own customers for assistance with corporate political activities—a strategy known as constituency building. While constituency building efforts targeting shareholders and employees have been well-studied, relatively little is known about the impact of approaching consumers. Hence, this paper examines why consumers participate in corporate political activities on behalf of a brand, and we present three studies to explore this increasingly popular practice. First, Study 1 utilizes qualitative interviews with actual campaign participants to provide initial insights to develop our theoretical model, which we subsequently test in two experiments. Study 2 finds that brand loyalty is a key driver of consumer activism, with both direct and indirect effects through its impact on issue salience, information seeking behavior, and its interaction with the issue type. Finally, Study 3 finds that consumer activism is associated with increased brand loyalty, indicating that this may be a relationship building activity and an important dimension of the longer process of social exchange between the brand and consumer.     

The Effects of Person–Organization Ethical Fit on Employee Attraction and Retention: Towards a Testable Explanatory Model

An exploratory model is presented as a heuristic to indicate how individual perceptions of corporate reputation (before joining) and corporate ethical values (after joining) generate specific individual organizational senses of fit. The paper suggests that an ethical dimension of person-organization fit may go some way in explaining superior acquisition and retention of staff by those who are attracted to specific organizations by levels of corporate social performance consonant with their ethical expectations, or who remain with them by virtue of better personal ethical fits with extant organizational ethical values. Specifically, the model suggests that individual misfits that arise from ethical expectations that either exceed or fall short of perceived organizational ethical performances lead to problematic acquisition and retention behavioural outcomes.     

Shopping motives as antecedents of e-satisfaction and e-loyalty

Abstract

Customer loyalty is fundamental to the profitability and survival of e-tailers. Yet research on antecedents of e-loyalty is relatively limited. This study contributes to the literature by investigating the effect of motives for online shopping on e-satisfaction and e-loyalty. A structural equations model is developed and tested through data from an online survey involving 797 customers of two UK-based e-tailers focussing on hedonic products. The results suggest that convenience, variety seeking, and social interaction help predict e-satisfaction, and that social interaction is the only shopping motive examined with a direct relationship to e-loyalty. Data also show that e-satisfaction is a strong determinant of e-loyalty. These findings are discussed in the light of previous research and avenues of future research are proposed.