The impact of informational incentives and social influence on consumer behavior during Alibaba's online shopping carnival

The study of female college students' consumer psychology mechanism toward male celebrity endorsed products: Tempted or coerced?

The trend of male celebrities endorsing female products is increasing. However, research is lacking on whether this influence is due to the positive emotions generated by the male celebrity's attractiveness or the peer pressure due to mass purchases by the celebrity's fans, and how these effects differ across products with different attributes. This study aims to fill the gap in the existing literature by investigating the influence of male endorsers on female consumers purchase intention, and to deepen the understanding of the mechanisms by which attractiveness and conformity jointly influence purchase decisions. This study used a mixed-design text experiment to investigate the impact of male endorsers' attractiveness and conformity on female college students' positive product attitude and purchase intention for gender-neutral product, female skincare product, and female intimate product, based on the Theory of Planned Behaviour (TPB). The data collected from 456 female college students were analyzed using bootstrap analysis. The study found that both male endorsers' attractiveness and conformity can enhance female college students' positive product attitude and promote their purchase intention for gender-neutral product. However, for female skincare product, male endorsers' attractiveness affects their positive product attitude and purchase intention. Nevertheless, when conformity was present, attractiveness no longer had an effect. Furthermore, for individuals with high levels of loneliness, attractiveness had a detrimental effect on their positive product attitude. On the other hand, conformity had a positive effect by promoting positive product attitude and increasing purchase intention. For female's intimate product, attractiveness did not affect positive product attitude and purchase intention, but the positive effect of conformity remained significant, and both relationships were not moderated by loneliness. It enhances our comprehension of the intricate dynamics underlying the influence of male celebrity endorsements on consumer purchasing decisions, and also offers theoretical justification for the selection of male endorsers for diverse female product.

Motivation crowding effects on the intention for continued use of gamified fitness apps: a mixed-methods approach

It has become an emerging idea for fitness apps to be gamified to intrinsically and extrinsically motivate user's usage intention or behavior. For the long-term success of gamified fitness apps, understanding what and how various motivations affect continued use is critical. A combination of qualitative and quantitative methodologies was used to explore two research questions concerning gamified fitness applications. Specifically, the research questions focused on understanding the impacts of intrinsic and extrinsic motivations on continued usage. Additionally, the study aimed to investigate whether extrinsic motivations enhance or diminish the influence of intrinsic motivations. Results from qualitative study identified three intrinsic motivations (self-development, self-control and hedonic motivation) and two extrinsic motivations (social recognition and financial reward) in gamified fitness apps. Results from quantitative study indicated that intrinsic motivations (formed by self-development, self-control and hedonic motivation), financial reward and social recognition could significantly improve intention for continued use; and further, both financial reward and social recognition could crowd-in intrinsic motivations. This research offers insights into the phenomenon of motivation crowding effects on the intention to continue using gamified fitness apps.

A new perspective to promote sustainable low-carbon consumption: The influence of informational incentive and social influence

In the era of internet-based information, how to promote sustainable low-carbon consumption by residents through information incentives and social influence is a pressing question that needs to be solved urgently. This study develops an explanatory model to explain how information incentives and social influence affect sustainable low-carbon consumption by residents. Data were collected from residents by large-scale online surveys in China. Partial least squares (PLS) regression was used to evaluate the model in its theory-mediated model scope to make it better than multiple regression. The empirical results show that purchase behavior, daily use behavior, waste disposal behavior, and public participation behavior define sustainable low-carbon consumption behavior; information incentives and social influence are two important predictors for low-carbon consumption behavior; at the level of information motivation, emotional information has a greater impact on low-carbon consumption behavior than rational information; and at the level of social influence, the influence of peer imitation is greater than that of endorsements and social norms. This study provides interesting insights into the important role of information and social networks for promoting low-carbon consumption behavior. Finally, we propose an information-based guidance policy to promote low-carbon consumption behavior based on social influence.

Early different cognitive processes evoked by carnival vs. general promotions when shopping online: An ERPs study

Introduction

The booming development of online shopping has intensified market competition. In addition to general sales promotions, online shopping has introduced new changes including artificial carnival promotions.

Method

This study aims to investigate cognitive processes to an unknown e-commerce platform after exposure to carnival and general promotion activities using event-related potentials. Thirty-three participants were recruited in this study to probe how consumers perceive carnival and general promotion information using event-related potentials (ERPs). Carnival or general promotion posters were presented first, then an unknown e-commerce platform brand was presented in the second stage, at which time the subjects' cognitive process to the brand were observed in an implicit paradigm.

Results

The results showed that after priming with carnival promotion posters, the unknown e-commerce platform stimuli elicited larger P2 and N2 components than were observed after the presentation of general promotion posters; however, the P3 component did not show a significant difference. These findings indicate that the target identification and cognitive control mechanism with regard to an unknown e-commerce platform are likely influenced by the implicit memory of different promotion activities when shopping online.

Discussion

The results suggest that ERP components may have the potential to be employed as indices to estimate the effectiveness of promotion methods for an unknown brand.

How online shopping festival atmosphere promotes consumer participation in China

Despite the immense success of China’s Double Eleven online shopping festival (OSF), research on how OSFs’ unique atmosphere relates to customer behavior has been scarce. This study investigates the influence of the OSF atmosphere on consumers’ participation behavior based on the stimulus–organism–response framework. Based on the data from 239 young Chinese consumers (in their 20 s and 30 s) and using structural equation modeling, this study explores the influence of three OSF atmosphere types—promotional, entertaining, and social interaction—on consumers’ continuous participation intention. All three types are found to influence consumers’ excitement, which strengthens their continuous participation intention. Additionally, the moderating effect of perceived time pressure is the highest for the relationship between entertaining atmosphere and excitement, followed by that between social interaction atmosphere and excitement. The greater the time pressure perceived by consumers, the stronger is the relationship between entertaining/social interaction atmosphere and excitement. This study bridges the gaps in the literature on atmosphere, consumer sentiment, and festival consumption.

Does online food shopping boost dietary diversity? Application of an endogenous switching model with a count outcome variable

Increasingly, rural households in developing countries are shopping for food online, and the COVID-19 pandemic has accelerated this trend. In parallel, dietary guidelines worldwide recommend eating a balanced and healthy diet. With this in mind, this study explores whether online food shopping boosts dietary diversity-defined as the number of distinct food groups consumed-among rural households in China. Because people choose to shop for food online, it is important to account for the self-selection bias inherent in online food shopping. Accordingly, we estimate the treatment effects of online food shopping on dietary diversity using the endogenous switching model with a count outcome variable. The results indicate that online food shopping increases dietary diversity by 7.34%. We also find that education, asset ownership, and knowing the government's dietary guidelines are the main factors driving rural households' decisions to shop for food online.

Understanding the formation mechanism of consumers’ behavioral intention on Double 11 shopping carnival: Integrating S-O-R and ELM theories

Double 11 shopping carnival, celebrated by the most successful electronic-commerce (e-commerce) Chinese company, Alibaba, has always been the online shopping festival with the highest turnover and involves the largest number of consumers and enterprises in China. This study integrates the elaboration likelihood model (ELM) and stimulus-organism-response (S-O-R) theory to study the dual-processing path of information, which drives customers’ behavioral intention on Double 11. There are 454 valid samples of data are collected, and the research model is tested using the partial least squares method. Results show that in the Double 11 context, two different processing mechanisms affect consumers’ behavioral intention. Thereinto, consumers’ behavioral intention is more affected by the peripheral path than the central path. The affective experience affected by the information stimulus has a greater impact on the behavioral intention than cognitive experience. Furthermore, we find situational involvement have different moderating effects on the relationship between two experiences and behavioral intention.

Sustainable Economic Development, Digital Payment, and Consumer Demand: Evidence from China

In this era, the global COVID-19 pandemic has hit the economy hard. In the context of great challenges to sustainable economic development, it is of great practical significance to study how digital payment can promote consumer demand and sustainable economic development. From the perspective of sustainable economic development, this paper selects panel data of various provinces in China from 2011 to 2020 to test the correlation between digital payment and consumer demand by constructing econometric models and selecting relevant indicators, so as to reveal the impact of digital payment on consumer demand and sustainable economic development. Research shows that: (1) in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic, digital payments play a special and very important role in promoting household consumption and sustainable economic development; (2) the empirical results show that digital payment has a significant positive impact on consumer demand, which indicates that digital payment has an obvious promotion effect on consumer demand; (3) further research shows that the impact of digital payment on consumer demand has obvious heterogeneity. From the perspective of regional differences, digital payment has a significant positive impact on consumer demand in the eastern and western regions, while the impact is not obvious in the northeast and central regions, even though it also has a positive impact. From the perspective of urban-rural differences, digital payment has a significant impact on consumer demand in both urban and rural areas, and this impact is greater in rural areas than in urban areas. However, from the perspective of development stage, the stage characteristics of digital payment's impact on consumer demand in each region are not obvious, which may be caused by the short sample range. In addition, this paper also puts forward relevant suggestions for other countries to learn from.

Factors Influencing Watching and Purchase Intentions on Live Streaming Platforms: From a 7Ps Marketing Mix Perspective

Previous studies have investigated how customer purchase intention is influenced by live streaming. However, no study has investigated the effect of service marketing mix (7Ps) on consumer shopping behavior from sellers’ perspectives. The present study is designed to shed light on the relationships among the 7Ps and the customers’ purchase intention through watching the broadcasters’ show. An integrative marketing-oriented model is proposed and tested using data collected from 330 customers (including 237 shoppers for apparel and 93 customers for seafood) through Facebook live shopping platforms. The research results reveal that promotion, placement, and physical evidence have positive effects on customers’ purchase intention. In addition, the watching intention had a positive effect on purchase intention. It is also found that watching intention has a full mediation effect on the relationship between the 7Ps marketing mix and the purchase intention. The implications of the findings and issues for future research are also discussed.

Internet use and pro-environmental behavior: Evidence from China

Solving environmental problems relies upon cultivating pro-environmental behavior in the society. While the internet has been widely used to facilitate information transmission and communication, it's important to understand its function in promoting pro-environmental behavior. Using the data from the China General Social Survey 2013, the relationship between the use of internet and the individual's pro-environmental behavior is investigated, and overall positive effects are found. The results show that, the influence of internet use is more pronounced on the private pro-environmental behavior when further dividing pro-environmental behavior into private and public types. Moreover, the positive effect of internet use on pro-environmental behavior is more pronounced among low-income and female groups, compared to middle to high income and male counterparts, respectively, when considering the heterogeneity across different groups of individuals. We further explore the plausible channels of providing information, encouraging participation in pro-environmental campaigns and improving social relationships through which internet use facilitates pro-environmental behavior.

The Influence of Industry Leaders’ Behavior on the Decisions of Common Enterprise Leaders in Enterprise Clustering: An Event-Related Potential Study

Purpose

This study aims to explore the influence of industry leaders’ behavior on common enterprise leaders’ decisions in enterprise clustering by recognizing top executives’ cognitive processes of brains.

Methods

Twenty-one real top executives from twelve textile enterprises were recruited in the lab experiment, and decisions about whether entering an industrial zone under two conditions of following an industry leader or a common enterprise were designed as the experiment task. Throughout the formal experimental task, participants’ electroencephalograms were recorded.

Results

The behavioral results preliminarily proved the effect of industry leaders’ behaviors on the real top executives’ decisions in common enterprises: participants had a higher acceptance rate with a shorter reaction time in the condition of following an industry leader rather than that in the condition of following a common enterprise. Event-related potential results indicated that choices of following an industry leader led to a more positive perception of emotional valence (reflected by a smaller P2 amplitude) and better evaluation categorization and greater decision confidence (reflected by a larger late positive potential amplitude) than choices of following a common enterprise.

Conclusion

Top executives from common enterprises tend to evaluate industry leaders’ behaviors better than other common enterprises’ behaviors, and they tend to make a similar business decision to keep their enterprises consistent with these industry leaders.

What Influences Physicians' Online Knowledge Sharing? A Stimulus-Response Perspective

During the COVID-19 pandemic, online health platforms and physicians' online knowledge sharing played an important role in public health crisis management and disease prevention. What influences physicians' online knowledge sharing? From the psychological perspective of stimulus-response, this study aims to explore how patients' visit and patients' consultation influence physicians' online knowledge sharing considering the contingent roles of physicians' online expertise and online knowledge sharing experience. Based on 6-month panel data of 45,449 physician-month observations from an online health platform in China, the results indicate that both patients' visit and patients' consultation are positive related to physicians' online knowledge sharing. Online expertise weakens the positive effect of patients' consultation on physicians' online knowledge sharing. Online knowledge sharing experience weakens the positive relationship between visit of patient and physicians' online knowledge sharing, and enhances the positive relationship between patients' consultation and physicians' online knowledge sharing. This study contributes to the literatures about stimulus-response in psychology and knowledge sharing, and provides implications for practice.

The Continued Use of Social Commerce Platforms and Psychological Anxiety-The Roles of Influencers, Informational Incentives and FoMO

Why does the continued use of social commerce platforms fail to promote consumer wellbeing? This study explores the roles of influencers, informational incentives and fear of missing out (FoMO) in the relationships between social commerce platform use and consumer mental health. Data were obtained through questionnaires, as well as constructing a research model. Statistical analysis and path analysis of the structural equation model were performed by the software IBM SPSS and AMOS, and the following results were obtained. (1) Influencer expertise and interactivity, informational incentives and FoMO have a significant impact on consumers’ continued use of social commerce platforms. (2) Materialism has no significant effect on consumer social commerce platform use. (3) FoMO mediates the relationships between informational incentives and continued use of social commerce platforms. (4) Consumers’ continuous use of social commerce platforms has a strong relationship with mental health. (5) Continued use of social commerce platforms can lead to intense social engagement, as well as more severe outcomes such as psychological anxiety and compulsive buying. The findings of the paper have important implications for the development of social business theory and management practice.

Merging the Social Influence Theory and the Goal-Framing Theory to Understand Consumers' Green Purchasing Behavior: Does the Level of Sensitivity to Climate Change Really Matter?

This study explored the formation of consumers’ green purchasing behavior (GPB) and investigated the moderating effect of sensitivity to climate change (SCC) to address this current knowledge gap. An integrated model merging the Social Influence Theory and the Goal-framing Theory was developed with the Stimulus-Organism-Response (S-O-R) paradigm. An empirical study was conducted, surveying 583 respondents and analyzing the questionnaire results using structural equation modeling. The results show that media, family, and peer influence (PEI) can effectively activate the consumers’ goal frames. Hedonic and normative goals had significant positive influences on GPB, while gain goals had no significant effect. SCC was found to significantly moderate social influence on GPB through the consumers’ goal frames. This research provided strong empirical support on understanding the relationship between social influence and GPB through three goal frames. In addition, the potential differences of the GPB formation process in two subgroups (high SCC and low SCC) are also investigated. The results of this study can help green practitioners develop more effective marketing strategies and incentives targeted to consumers with varying levels of environmental consciousness or sensitivity.

Social support, source credibility, social influence, and solar photovoltaic panels purchase intention

Solar photovoltaic panels are green products that can alleviate the threat of global warming, but the rate of adoption remains low. This research explores the social influence on consumers' purchase willingness or intention of solar photovoltaic panels in the online context. According to social influence theory, we identify two social influence dimensions: informational social influence and normative social influence. Moreover, we analyze the antecedents of social influence: source credibility and social support and the moderating effects of perceived monetary benefits and environmental concerns. Data were collected from individuals, and A.M.O.S. is used to analyze the data. The results reveal that both informational social influence and normative social influence positively affect purchase willingness. When perceived monetary benefits or environmental concerns are higher, the positive relationships are stronger. Moreover, we find that source credibility (including expertise and trustworthiness of peers) and social support (including informational social support and emotional social support) positively affect two social influence types. The findings provide insights into enhancing individuals' willingness or intention to purchase solar photovoltaic panels.

Examining online health community users’ sharing behaviour: A social influence perspective

Online health communities (OHC) provide a platform for users to exchange health-related information and seek emotional support. However, users often lack the intention to share their knowledge, which may lead to the failure of OHC. Drawing on the social influence theory, this research examined OHC users’ sharing behaviour. The results indicated that users’ sharing intention is influenced by three social influence factors, which include subjective norm, social identity and group norm. In addition, social support and privacy concern have effects on these three social influence factors. The results imply that OHC need to leverage social influence in order to facilitate users’ sharing behaviour.

Young Generation’s Mobile Payment Adoption Behavior: Analysis Based on an Extended UTAUT Model

Younger generations comprise an essential segment for the mobile payment market to prosper. However, empirical evidence of the drivers/barriers of the young generation’s adoption of mobile payment has been inconclusive. This study intends to advance the body of knowledge on this subject based on the extended Unified Theory of Acceptance and Use of Technology (UTAUT), incorporating the young generation’s risk perception and bonus/rewards provided by the mobile-pay firms. To this end, 295 samples with the majority being more tech-savvy, namely generation Y and generation Z, were collected from an online survey in Taiwan. The empirical results in this study demonstrate the uniquely positive effect of social influence on the young generations’ behavioral intention to adopt mobile payment. While behavioral intention and promotional activities are the drivers of the young generation’s actual usage of mobile payment, perceived risks are found to exert a negative impact, reflecting the risk-averse preferences of the young generation in Taiwan. The ignorable moderation effect of gender, on the other hand, suggests the absence of a gender gap in the use of mobile payment among the young generations. The findings in this research have important implications for the development of promotion programs motivating the young generation’s adoption of mobile payment.

An integrated model of the younger generation's online shopping behavior based on empirical evidence gathered from an emerging economy

The younger generation is the largest Internet user group in China. They are the first generation to grow up with computers, the Internet, smartphones, online social media, and online shopping. The individuals that belong to this generational cohort have one thing in common-their online shopping behavior. To understand the shopping behavior of the younger Chinese generation, this study draws on the theoretical foundation of generational cohort theory. This study proposes an integrated model that examines the effects of information adoption, personalized service, perceived switching risk, and habitual behavior on purchase intention in the online shopping environment. Survey data have been collected from 407 Chinese people that belong to the post-90s generation. Structural equation modeling is used to analyze the data. Empirical findings show that information adoption, personalized service, and perceived switching risk are the most important predictors of online purchase intention. However, habitual behavior is negatively related to online purchase intention.

Exploring Determinants of Consumers’ Platform Usage in “Double Eleven” Shopping Carnival in China: Cognition and Emotion from an Integrated Perspective

There is a great deal of interest concerning how e-commerce in China can be developed in sustainable ways. Answering this question requires not only the strategic management at the aggregate level, but also developing a micro framework that can effectively understand the cognitive-behavioral pathway of consumers in various online contexts. This paper focuses on the “Double Eleven” Global Online Shopping Carnival (GOSC) in China and attempts to investigate the determinants of consumers’ behaviors of shopping platform usage. The distinguishing feature of this study is that we define GOSC as a unique scenario compared to normal online shopping context, where consumers’ emotional state towards such an event plays a larger role in determining behaviors. Based on Cognitive Emotion Theory (CET), the main findings of this paper suggest that (1) consumers’ behaviors of online platform usage can be affected by both cognitions related factors, including price value, gamification and personalized services, and by emotional state such as having arousal and being pleasured; (2) cognition has an effect on emotional state, such as the positive effect of price value on arousal and pleasure or gamification on arousal. Our study, therefore, has highlighted a number of key points to the sustainable development of GOSC. Limitations and further research directions are also discussed.

Utilitarian or hedonic: Event-related potential evidence of purchase intention bias during online shopping festivals

Online shopping festivals play a significant role in consumers' purchase decision and have been the focus of much research and many marketing practices. However, research has yet to explore which product categories can promote consumer purchase intention during online shopping festivals. This study carried out a neurophysiological experiment with event-related potentials (ERPs) to investigate the mechanism of participants' purchase intention for two classic product categories (utilitarian products (UP) and hedonic products (HP)) during online shopping festivals. The behavioral findings demonstrated that compared to HP, participants had a purchase intention bias towards UP. Neurocognitively, this purchase intention bias was reflected by a larger N2 component and a smaller LPC component for UP than for HP. N2 reflected attentional capture in the early cognitive stage, and LPC reflected the later stage of negative emotional perception. These findings provide a preliminary exploration of the mechanism of people's purchase decision of UP and HP during online shopping festivals, positively contributing marketing practices and future research.

Analysis on Consumers’ Purchase and Shopping Well-Being in Online Shopping Carnivals with Two Motivational Dimensions

The development of online shopping carnivals (OSCs) is in full bloom due to the support of logistics industry and information technology. More and more people are keen to participate in them. This study contributes to literature by exploring the role of motivational factors (based on utilitarian and hedonic shopping values dimension) of the intention to participate in the actual purchase behavior of consumers and their shopping well-being in OSC. A model is developed and tested to explain consumers’ shopping process in the context of OSC. Results show that hedonic shopping values are primarily influenced by entertainment construct, and utilitarian shopping values are positively related to monetary saving, selection, and convenience. Furthermore, the correlation between hedonic shopping value and intention to participate is higher than that between utilitarian shopping value and intention to participate. The findings indicate that intention to participate in OSC exerts a stronger influence on shopping well-being than the effect on actual purchases.

Examining User Adoption of Mobile Augmented Reality Applications

As an emerging service, mobile augmented reality (AR) applications have not received wide adoption among users. This may affect the successful implementation of AR. Integrating both perspectives of the unified theory of acceptance and use of technology (UTAUT) and flow theory, this research examined user adoption of mobile AR applications. The results indicated that performance expectancy and the flow experience consisting of perceived enjoyment, attention focus and perceived control significantly affect usage intention, which in turn affects actual usage behaviour. The results imply that service providers need to improve the perceived utility and user experience in order to facilitate user adoption of mobile AR applications.