International Journal of Consumer Studies最新文献

Product quality is essential for companies' success because it is integral to meeting customers' expectations. In this context, blockchain technology (BT) offers potential solutions for tracking products' origins and flows, eliminating or reducing fraudulent activities efficiently and effectively. Drawing upon signaling theory, this study investigates how BT's traceability and transparency attributes can enhance consumers' urge to buy impulsively and impulsive buying behavior. The results reveal that transparency positively affects perceived product quality and trust in BT-enabled e-commerce platforms. Moreover, traceability positively affects perceived product quality and product affection. The study also identifies that perceived product quality positively affects the urge to buy impulsively and product affection. In addition, product affection and consumers' trust positively affect the urge to buy impulsively and impulsive buying behavior. Furthermore, the urge to buy impulsively positively affects impulsive buying behavior. Finally, consumers' situations moderate the relationship between the urge to buy impulsively and impulsive buying behavior. The findings provide insight for e-commerce platforms and sellers to refine marketing strategies by providing BT-related signals.

The current study explores the intersection of personal values theory, consumer culture, and compulsive buying behavior theories. By examining the importance of different values types, we aim to understand the extent to which specific values influence individuals' tendency to either embrace or resist maladaptive behaviors like compulsive buying. This study postulated that one's values can both contribute to the development of compulsive buying tendencies and act as a protective factor. Importantly, we explored this values-compulsive relationship within the contrasting consumer cultures of the United States characterized by individualism, and Poland, which predominantly exhibits collectivistic trends. In this work, we utilized two distinct samples/studies of American (n = 367) and Polish (n = 370) consumers and employed two key measurement tools: the Portrait Values Questionnaire and the Richmond Compulsive Buying Scale. The research findings revealed that values such as self-direction, stimulation, hedonism, power, and achievement tend to promote compulsive buying tendencies irrespective of the cultural context. However, the prevalence of compulsive buying is more pronounced among American consumers compared to their Polish counterparts. Furthermore, the impact of hedonism and achievement on compulsive buying was twice as large in the United States as it was in Poland. On the other hand, values such as tradition, security, conformity, benevolence, and universalism appeared to help individuals in preventing or mitigating compulsive buying behavior. This study underscores the critical role of personal values, cultural variations, and their impact on compulsive buying tendencies among consumers. It highlights the presence of specific personal values that can either inhibit or facilitate the development of compulsive buying behaviors.

Scant research has explored how the emotions of gift-givers influence their gift selection, particularly negative emotions. Addressing this gap, this research examines how guilt impacts gift-giving, capitalizing on the conceptual link between guilt, power, and size. Through four experiments, we demonstrate that, compared with gift-givers in a control condition, guilty gift-givers are more likely to choose conspicuously branded gifts—items with highly noticeable, large brand logos. We observe this effect using different scenarios and the autobiographical recall procedure to elicit guilt, as well as a variety of operationalizations of brand conspicuousness. We find that the sense of power and power restoration provided by the gift account for the results. Moreover, the preference for a conspicuously branded gift diminishes when guilty gift-givers engage in reparative actions to alleviate their guilt prior to gift-giving. This research contributes to the literature on guilt, power, and conspicuous consumption by revealing a novel consequence of guilt on consumer choice in gift-giving contexts and expanding our understanding of conspicuous brand usage. The findings have practical implications for marketers, particularly in using guilt appeals and promoting conspicuously branded gifts. Finally, we suggest future research directions related to positive emotions and other outcomes of interest in gift-giving.

The reliance on animal husbandry for protein has caused environmental, social and ethical challenges worldwide, yet the demand for animal-based food continues to rise. Despite the increasing attention from scholars and professionals on the potential of cultured meat (CM) as a viable alternative protein source, the ensuing scholarly work still lacks coherence and is incomplete and fragmented. Its success also depends heavily on customer acceptance. This study therefore examined peer-reviewed literature on consumers' perceptions and acceptance of CM. A comprehensive search was conducted on ScienceDirect, Google Scholar and Scopus databases between 2017 and 2022, yielding 54 papers that met the selection criteria. The qualitative synthesis conducted revealed seven themes that had the highest influence on consumers' acceptance of CM. The themes identified were (i) attitudes and traits, (ii) situational impact, (iii) information and nomenclature, (iv) CM properties, (v) risk–benefit perception, (vi) familiarity and awareness and (vii) competition with other alternative proteins. This review also identified demographic predictors of consumers who are most likely to accept CM. The review found that although consumers are curious and willing to try CM, failure to address personal attitudes and traits may lead to failure in adoption. It was also found that strategies that include emotional responses are more effective in the long run.

Over the last decade, luxury consumers have become more aware of the adverse environmental impacts associated with their lifestyles and are transitioning toward more responsible consumption patterns. Circular economy and sustainability business strategies have become crucial for this and have attracted the attention of scholars and brands. This paper aims to assess the current state of research concerning the circular economy and sustainability within luxury fashion consumer behavior. It focuses on relevant studies published in leading peer-reviewed English-language journals in business, management, and economics, using keywords such as luxury, consumer, circular economy, and sustainability. This review emphasizes the substantial impact of the 9Rs of the circular economy on luxury fashion consumers while also noticing the lack of consumer-focused research in the areas of the circular economy and sustainability. It presents a critical and thorough assessment, categorization, and analysis of the emerging literature in this field. The authors propose a deeper and more specific research agenda exploring the relationship between the circular economy, sustainability, and luxury fashion. The paper suggests potential directions for future research, emphasizing the need for theoretical, educational, and communication-oriented studies to address the distinctive circular economy and sustainability issues within luxury fashion consumption.

The significance of product attributes, as reflected in online reviews during the initial purchase, may undergo changes following positive or negative product usage experiences. The purpose of this research was to investigate whether positive or negative product consumption experiences influence shifts in the perceived importance of product attributes and subsequent product choices, based on online quality ratings by attributes. A series of experiments demonstrated that the importance associated with an attribute's expectation in the pre-purchase process shifted after a negative consumption experience with that attribute. The results showed that a change in both attribute importance and product choice following a negative attribute experience. A less important attribute that malfunctioned during the consumption experience became more crucial in the subsequent purchase (Study 1). However, this shift in importance may not be universal for all attributes; it was observed only when the attribute was moderately important (Study 2). This study contributes valuable empirical findings to the existing literature on online reviews by highlighting dynamic shifts in the importance weight of product attributes. E-commerce practitioners are encouraged to allow formal purchasers to leave product reviews without time constraints, providing a platform for reflecting users' lifelong consumption experiences.

Marketers are concerned about how consumers' readings of product reviews and product rating statistics affect product evaluations. Previous studies generally regard product review content and rating statistics as affecting product evaluations independently. This may not be true. Typically, consumers enter a review section with pre-existing positive expectations about a product. When they see a negative average rating in this section, their expectancies are disconfirmed. Their surprise stemming from the disconfirmation makes them read the reviews more carefully. Thus, review reading affects product evaluation more strongly when viewing a negative average rating. Conversely, a positive average rating results in expectancy confirmation, which weakens the effect of review reading. An eye-tracking experiment using a mock-resort review section supported these predictions. These findings have implications for marketers in behavioral advertising, responding to reviews, and consumers writing reviews.

Social support is paramount to people's well-being. Yet little is known about how such support influences individuals' consumption decisions in retail contexts. This multi-method research featured five quantitative studies and showed that receiving social support can reduce consumers' variety seeking in subsequent consumption situations. Specifically, Studies 1A and 1B employed secondary data analysis, consistently revealing a negative association between social support and variety seeking. Studies 2–4 adopted experimentation approaches. Study 2 (N = 125) confirmed the proposed effect by experimentally manipulating social support. Study 3 (N = 299) shed light on the underlying mechanism by presenting a mediation model (i.e., social support → increased sense of satisfaction → decreased variety seeking). Besides, Studies 3 (N = 299) and 4 (N = 288) identified two moderators (i.e., individuals' trait gratitude and the chance to pay it forward) of the proposed effect.