The effects of influencer type,regulatory focus,and perceived authenticity on consumers' purchase intention

Companies often use influencers to promote their products, and many celebrities have expanded their activities on social media as influencers. In this work, we classified influencers into celebrity and noncelebrity groups and analyzed how they affect consumers' purchase intention. We also analyzed how psychological variables, such as regulatory focus and perceived authenticity affect this process. We conducted three studies with consumers in China, South Korea, and the United States who participated in each between-subjects experiment. The results showed that people have higher purchase intention for products recommended by noncelebrity influencers than those recommended by celebrity influencers. We also found that regulatory focus moderates the relationship between the influencer type and consumers' purchase intention. Purchase intention for products recommended by noncelebrity influencers were stronger among prevention-focused consumers. However, no significant difference in the effect of influencer type was found among promotion-focused consumers. We found that perceived authenticity mediated this moderating effect. The results of this study provide effective marketing strategies and implications for companies when they use influencers as a tool for marketing activities.     

Age-related effects on environmentally sustainable purchases at the time of COVID-19: Evidence from Italy

The present research investigates whether the novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic has modified consumers' spending on environmentally sustainable products by focusing on the role of age. An empirical study conducted in Italy during the first wave of the pandemic finds that consumers' age affected their reaction to the COVID-19 outbreak, and such age-related effects may have led to an increased propensity to spend on sustainable products. Indeed, the results show that consumers' age is inversely related to their negative affective reaction to the rise of contagion, which, in turn, is inversely related to their level of optimism experienced when the contagion slowed down due to public health interventions. Furthermore, this level of optimism is positively related to consumers’ pro-environmental attitude and, thus, to their tendency to increase sustainable purchases.     

Metaverse mingle: Discovering dating intentions in metaverse

The present work represents a mixed-method investigation to redefine Elaboration Likelihood Model (ELM) using some innovative variables to investigate dating-partner behaviour in the metaverse. In addition, it seeks proof that realistic threat and perceived trust have a moderating role in this proposed model. The research is split into two parts: in the first stage, dating app users' responses have been collected from online reviews posted on social media sites. Python have been used to find out the constructs from the content analysis. Then using the constructs second phase have been started where the model has been validated by confirmatory analysis. Perceived trust moderates the association between perceived attitude and dating intention in Metaverse whereas realistic threat don't have. Our research showed that apart from perceived accuracy of information all the other factors are having significant association towards perceived attitude. Our findings highlight the importance of both channels in persuading consumers to try out metaverse dating. In order to earn the users' trust, they must resolve their concerns over privacy and security in the online world. To achieve this, strict user verification and security procedures should be implemented.     

Psychological antecedents and risk on attitudes toward e-customization

Consumers can experience relatively low prices with the dramatic diffusion of online shopping even with customized products, which are commonly more expensive than regular products, due to unique functions of customized product order processes in online environments. This paper investigates how two psychological antecedents, (1) need for uniqueness and (2) status aspiration, can influence consumers' attitude with regard to forming procedures toward e-customized products and how perceived risk, another psychological factor, on purchasing e-customized products plays a role of moderating factor. A self-administered online survey of 321 Japanese consumers is conducted to examine a proposed conceptual model with Structural Equation Modeling (SEM). The analysis using results indicates that the need for uniqueness directly impacts on attitude toward e-customized products while it mediates the effect of status aspiration. A multi-group analysis to test a moderating effect of the perceived risk on purchasing e-customized products highlights the significant effects of psychological factors. The result also provides potential guidelines to e-tailors on possibility of segmenting markets as well as promoting their customized products using these psychological criteria of their target consumers.     

Now that's a Bright Idea: The Influence of Consumer Elaboration and Distance Perceptions on Sustainable Choices

Integrating theory related to psychological distance and elaboration on potential outcomes, hypotheses are offered that predict that consumers’ elaboration levels moderate the effect of temporal distance on choice of energy efficient products. In three experiments, the authors examine the influence of temporal and psychological distance and the moderating effect of a consumer's propensity to elaborate on potential outcomes (EPO) in retail choice-based situations. Results support these predictions with consumers lower in elaboration more likely to choose an energy efficient product when perceived distance is proximal versus distal, while the distance effect has less of an influence on consumers prone to higher elaboration. We test the effect of distance perceptions within a retail lab environment, as well as across ad and retail contexts. These results will help marketers better understand how to promote products in ad versus retail-based contexts and across different consumer groups. Findings offer implications for theory, retailers, product marketers, and NGO's interested in promoting energy efficient choices.     

Sustainability seen from the perspective of consumers

An important step in promoting sustainable consumption is to find out how consumers understand the concept of sustainability. In this paper, we report on a study among Norwegian consumers in which we explored their understanding of sustainability at two levels. First, we investigated consumers' understanding of the general sustainability concept; specifically, we studied how important the following five sustainability dimensions are in consumers' conception of sustainability: the environmental, social, economic, temporal and the developmental dimension. Second, we investigated how consumers' understanding of sustainability manifests itself in consumption decisions: We studied consumers' opinions about how important various attributes are for sustainable products and which product labels they consider indicative of sustainable products. We found that all five sustainability dimensions occurred as elements of consumers' understanding of the sustainability concept. The environmental dimension, the social dimension and the developmental dimension were particularly outstanding. With regard to attributes that are important for sustainable products, consumers placed high emphasis on recyclability of the packaging, fair payment of producers, low energy use and low carbon dioxide emissions during production and shipping. Humane animal treatment was also considered an important attribute of sustainable products. The product labels that were considered most indicative of sustainable products were the Nordic Swan and the Norwegian Debio label. Consumers' judgments of how indicative the labels are of sustainable products were related positively to familiarity with the labels.     

Staging luxury experiences for understanding sustainable fashion consumption: A balance theory application

Increasingly, sustainable fashion products consumption (SFPC) receives attention from both academic scholars and practitioners. While fashion consumers profess concerns about sustainability issues, the extant literature demonstrates a gap between such concerns and actual consumption decisions and behaviors. This study illustrates how marketers can encourage contemporary consumers to become strongly oriented toward sustainable fashion product consumption (SFPC). Heider's balance theory and consumer luxury brand experiences explain and reveal how a state of psychological imbalance causes the attitude–behavior gap between sustainable fashion and SFPC behaviors. This report includes new propositions explaining SFPC that receive support via focus group interviews and direct observations and post-behavior interviews of staged shopping trips— each participant was given money (approx. USD $180) to spend in the two eco-fashion stores. Developing and staging memorable consumer-centered experiences that orient consumers toward SFPC encourages the consumers achieving desired balance states.     

Consumer perceptions of monetary and non-monetary introductory promotions for new products

Abstract

Little research has examined how consumers respond to sales promotions in new product categories. This article fills this gap by integrating research on reference prices with literature on sales promotions for new product categories. Existing research suggests that consumers respond more favourably to non-monetary promotions (e.g. extra free promotions) than monetary promotions (e.g. price discounts) because non-monetary promotions are framed as segregated gains rather than reduced losses. However, both kinds of promotions are widely used in practice, suggesting the importance of other contributory factors. With a consumer experiment on a national panel of consumers, this research demonstrates that extra free product promotions are most preferred for existing products, and introductory low-price promotions are preferred for innovative products. The moderating effect of a product's innovativeness is explained via a new relationship in the marketing literature, whereby perceived risk mediates the relationship between perceived innovativeness and a consumer's tendency to stockpile.     

Uniqueness and luxury: A moderated mediation approach

Luxury consumption has become a worldwide phenomenon. Irrespective of consumers’ need for uniqueness being considered as an important psychological factor impacting luxury consumption intention, research seldom investigates the impact of CNFU dimensions on luxury consumption. This study investigates how CNFU dimensions (i.e. creative choice counter-conformity, unpopular choice counter-conformity and avoidance of similarity) drive luxury consumption intention in light of the mediating role of social comparison and the moderating role of materialism. Four hundred twenty-eight surveys completed by high-income consumers in India were used for analysis. The findings showed that social comparison mediates the effects of creative choice counter conformity and avoidance of similarity on luxury consumption. Materialism moderates these mediation effects. This study contributes to the luxury consumption literature by explaining how the interplay of psychological and social factor affects luxury purchase intention among the people driven by different uniqueness dimensions. Practically, the findings will be useful to the retailers and marketers of fashion luxury items and brands.     

Time is money: Field evidence for the effect of time of day and product name on product purchase

By analysing over 8000 sales transactions from one UK bakery, this paper suggests that consumers' preferences for products with names that are perceived as having “locomotion qualities” (i.e. qualities associated with vitality and movement) can change depending on the time of purchase. In the morning, consumers preferred products with names that were perceived as being high in locomotion qualities with this reducing as the day progressed. Interestingly, the seasonal shift in sunrise moderated these effects. The conceptual explanation suggests a role for a circadian rhythm in how consumers respond to the locomotion qualities of a product name. Our research contributes insights into the biological basis of consumer behaviour and expands locomotion as a concept to describe the perception of products rather than people's individual differences.     

Managing the effectiveness of e-commerce platforms in a pandemic

Given the severe impacts of the Covid-19 pandemic on business activities, this study presents a systematic framework to examine the effect of the perceived effectiveness of e-commerce platforms (PEEP) on consumer's perceived economic benefits in predicting sustainable consumption. This study adopted uses and gratification theory to base the conceptual model while adding a boundary condition of pandemic fear. The primary research method of this study is a quantitative survey and analysis. Using a sample of 617 online consumers with PLS analytical technique, this study finds a positive moderating effect of pandemic fear on the relationships among PEEP, economic benefits, and sustainable consumption. The contribution of this study is its examination of how economic benefit mediates the PEEP and sustainable consumption relationship which is dependable on the levels of pandemic fear. Implications for managers and theory are also discussed.     

Cents of self: How and when self-signals influence consumer value derived from choices of green products

Consumers choosing between green and conventional products often believe such choices imply trade-off decisions, such that green products provide morally-related advantages but embody price or quality-related disadvantages compared to standard products. We study the consequences of such trade-offs for consumer value in the context of privately consumed green products. To develop our theoretical model, we draw from the perspective of self-signaling – consumers' act of signaling information about their internal qualities to their own self through choice. We explore how and when self-signals from such trade-off decisions influence consumer value gained from comparative choices of green versus standard products. Six studies were conducted, using divergent measures of the dependent variable, multiple product categories, and measured as well as manipulated self-concept clarity (SCC). We find a joint effect of self-signals from comparative choices and self-concept clarity on consumer value, such that positive self-signals lead to incrementally higher satisfaction and willingness to pay for consumers with low SCC but not significantly so for those with high SCC. Results show that this joint effect may occur for consumers with low SCC because they gain incremental value from perceived self-concept alignment – a state that is construed from the perception that a self-signal is aligned with the consumer's self-concept. This study contributes to marketing research by proposing and testing a novel mechanism that can underlie self-signaling.     

The impact of COVID-19 on consumer evaluation of authentic advertising messages

This study investigates the relationship between the COVID-19 threat and consumer evaluation of a product with authenticity appeals in advertisements. We propose that threatening situations like COVID-19 motivate consumers to lower their uncertainty and increase their preference for products with authentic advertising messages. Because individuals react differently to threatening environments according to their early-life experiences, commonly reflected in childhood socioeconomic status, we examined whether childhood socioeconomic status moderates the relationship between threat and consumer evaluation of authenticity in advertisements. First, secondary data from Google Trends provided empirical support for our predictions. In additional experimental studies, participants evaluated different target products in four studies that either manipulated (Studies 2 and 3) or measured (Studies 4 and 5) COVID-19 threat. Our results provide converging evidence that consumers positively evaluate products with authentic advertising messages under the COVID-19 threat. Consumers' motivation to lower their uncertainty underlies the effect of COVID-19 threat on their evaluation of authentic messages (Study 3). This attempt to reduce uncertainty is more likely to occur for consumers with relatively higher childhood socioeconomic status (Studies 4 and 5). These findings suggest that using authenticity appeals during a pandemic could effectively reduce consumers' perceived uncertainty and generate positive consumer evaluations.     

The role of product history in consumer response to online second-hand clothing retail service based on circular fashion

The circular fashion system (CFS) posits that clothes not only need to be designed and produced sustainably but also need to circulate among consumers for as long as possible to minimize waste. Fashion industry experts believe that circular fashion will be the dominating future trend of the industry, and many brands and start-ups have launched platforms following the CFS where consumers can exchange or donate their used clothes. However, circular fashion still needs to overcome the negative images associated with second-hand clothes, such as contamination. What can decrease consumers' concerns with used clothes as well as promote circular fashion effectively among consumers? Based on the narrative competence theory, this study examines the effects of providing the product history of clothes on enhancing consumers' trust, perceived benefits, attitude, and usage intentions toward circular fashion service. An online experiment was conducted with 238 U.S. consumers. Results revealed that providing product history enhances consumers' trust toward the service and the perceived hedonic, social, and economic benefits of the service. Greater trust and hedonic benefits of the service enhance consumers’ attitude toward the service, which consequently increase their intentions to use the service. Implications and suggestions for future research are discussed in this paper.     

“A healthy outside starts from the inside”: A matter of sustainable consumption behavior in Italy and Pakistan

The aim of this research is to determine people's motives when purchasing organic food and how these motives are moderated by price sensitivity and ethical concerns in a cross-cultural setting. A highly structured questionnaire was used to collect the data from 673 Italian and 594 Pakistani consumers, using the convenience sampling technique. Based on the etic research approach, the measurement invariance tests were performed, and data were analyzed using structural equation modeling. The results indicate that environmental concerns and health-consciousness are significant predictors of subjective norms and purchase attitudes among Italian consumers. Food safety concern proved the strongest predictor of purchase attitude and perceived behavioral control among Pakistani consumers. The results also confirm the moderating role of ethical concerns and price sensitivity in buying organic food in both cultures. In terms of originality, this study fills significant gaps in the literature, particularly regarding the roles of attitude, behavioral control, and subjective norms in consumer buying motives and purchasing intentions in cross-cultural studies but more importantly, the results validate that consumer concerns across the globe are related to the Sustainability Development Goals and the U.N. 2030 agenda, which aptly provides a blue print for the development and developmental goals and concerns across nations.     

The moderating effect of individual level collectivist values on brand loyalty

In today's dynamic business environment the success of a firm often depends on its ability to create brand loyalty. While there is a large body of research exploring brand loyalty and its antecedents, little has been done to examine how the relationship between these antecedents and brand loyalty is moderated by consumer differences in individual level collectivist values. This understanding is important however as consumers high in individual level collectivist values have been found to make different brand choices than consumers low in individual level collectivist values. We develop and test theory that suggests consumer differences in individual level collectivist values have a significant moderating effect on the relationship between perceived value, perceived quality, brand trust and brand loyalty. The results show that consumers high in individual level collectivist values are significantly more loyal to a focal brand, especially when brand trust and perceived quality are at relatively low levels.     

Game meats: Consumption values,theory of planned behaviour,and the moderating role of food neophobia/neophiliac behaviour

Game meat can be considered an alternative to traditional meats and is growing steadily. Previous literature has not investigated why consumers choose or buy game meats. The study draws on the theory of Consumer Choice Value and the Theory of Planned Behaviour (TPB). The moderating influence of food neophobia/neophiliac behaviour is also examined. The data was analysed using Structural Equation Modelling, cluster-analysis, and multigroup analysis. Regarding consumer's choice value, epistemic and social value were found significant. TPB shows that perceived behavioural control was non-significant and to some extent, consumers with food neophobia/neophiliac behaviour moderated the purchase behaviour. Consumer's perceived well-being mediates the relationship between intention and purchase behaviour. It contributes to the breadth of the current theoretical-framework and provides useful insights for retailers and researchers.     

The impact of channel integration on consumers’ channel preferences: Do showrooming and webrooming behaviors matter?

This study investigates the relationships among channel integration and consumers' online and offline patronage intentions. The theoretical framework proposes perceived empowerment, perceived assortment, and perceived benefits as mediating variables in the channel integration–patronage intention relationship, with consumer showrooming and webrooming behaviors as moderating variables. Data was collected by means of two studies; that is, for search and for experience products, respectively. The proposed conceptual model was tested by employing variance-based structural equation modeling. The results of both studies confirm that channel integration significantly affects consumers’ channel preferences. The mediating roles of empowerment, assortment, and benefits were confirmed for all of the relationships except for the mediating effect of empowerment on the relationship between channel integration and offline patronage intention. Further, showrooming and webrooming moderated the positive impact of channel integration on online/offline patronage intentions. The study contributes to the multi-channel retailing literature by providing useful implications for academicians and practitioners.     

How a “China-made” label influences Chinese Youth's product evaluation: The priming effect of patriotic and nationalistic news

This study is to verify whether and how a “China-made” label can influence online consumers' product evaluation as adding labels to highlight products' attributes has become an acquainted measure online by e-tailers/firms to attract online consumers' attentions. For this purpose, we conduct a 2 (label of “China-made” vs. no label) x 3 (patriotism priming vs. nationalism priming vs. no priming) between-subject factorial design to verify hypotheses. The results reveal that when consumers' nationalism is primed, the label significantly enhances the product evaluation by increasing the perceived social value of the product. Priming consumers’ patriotism, on the other hand, does not play a moderating role for this effect. A follow-up study confirms such effects for both low involvement and high involvement products. Therefore, e-tailers/firms that own China-made brands/products are advised to signal the “Chinese identity” of their products to online consumers under the current circumstance when nationalism and domestic brands are rising in China. The results also indicate that although products produced in a developing country are marked with a negative country of origin effect, marketers can turn it into a strength in marketing in certain conditions.     

The effect of product touch information and sale proneness on consumers' responses to price discounts

Since price discounts are costly and can negatively affect consumers' perceptions of quality, it is crucial to identify the factors that make them effective in stimulating purchase behavior. Drawing on cue utilization theory, we examine price discount effectiveness in affecting consumers' reliance on the sale cue based on the provided product touch information as an intrinsic cue and individual consumer differences in sale proneness. Two experimental studies indicate that price discount information, product touch information, and sale proneness interact to determine consumers' responses. Perceived quality is the underlying mechanism behind the observed effects. For nonsale-prone consumers, product touch information favorably influences responses to large price discounts by addressing product quality concerns and enhancing purchase confidence, but has no effect for regularly priced or low discounted products. For sale-prone consumers, product touch information is not effective in increasing their responses regardless of the discount size. A qualitative study provides support for these results and highlights the role of perceived quality and purchase confidence. The research contributes to behavioral pricing, cue utilization theory, and sensory marketing and suggests that marketing managers should provide consumers with product touch information when implementing high discounts for products for which prepurchase touch is important.