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The purpose of this paper addresses the issue of inconsistent findings regarding the impact of consumers' need for touch (NFT) on webrooming behavior. It investigates the moderator of maximization by drawing on maximizing mindset theory.

Three studies were carried out to test the hypothesized relationships. The first study investigated the impact of autotelic NFT on webrooming intention. The second study examined the impact of instrumental NFT on webrooming intention. The third study tested all hypotheses by the structural equation modeling approach.

The results confirm moderation by consumers' maximizing mindset. The moderated mediation analyses show that the interaction effect of autotelic NFT and maximization influences webrooming intention indirectly via anticipated sensory pleasure. Likewise, the interaction effect of instrumental NFT and maximization influences webrooming intention indirectly via product fit uncertainty.

The study draws on maximizing mindset theory to show that consumers' autotelic NFT and instrumental NFT drive their webrooming intentions depending on the activation of their maximizing mindset. The nonsignificant relationship between autotelic NFT and webrooming intention in the context of satisficers explains the conflicting findings reported in the literature. Consumers' affective and cognitive responses were also studied to uncover the underlying mechanisms of their webrooming intention. This research contributes to the literature by enhancing the understanding of webrooming behavior.

With the growth of online shopping, during which consumers are not able to touch products, there is much for researchers and marketers to learn about the underlying role of the need for touch (NFT) in driving online shopping decisions. Consumers' emotional state prior to purchase is considered a situational variable that affects their attitude and behaviour. This study explores the effects of consumers' NFT and pre-purchase emotional states on their online decision-making behaviour, examining perceived quality, confidence in product judgment and intention to purchase.

A field experiment was conducted using a scenario presenting buying a sweater as a real purchase opportunity available to participants. A convenience sample of two hundred ninety-eight university students at a university in the southeast of France was used in this study. A 2 (NFT: high/low determined by a median split) × 2 (emotional states: high/low level) analysis of variance (ANOVA) was used to further examine the interaction of NFT and emotional states in consumer decision making.

The results indicate that autotelic NFT and positive emotional states experienced before shopping have an impact on consumers' decisions in relation to perceived quality, confidence in product judgment and intention to purchase. Furthermore, this study demonstrates that instrumental vs autotelic NFT affects consumer decision making, with mixed support found for negative emotional states acting as possible moderators.

This study advances the NFT field and leads to insights regarding online consumer purchase decision making by exploring instrumental vs autotelic NFT and pre-purchase emotional states as antecedents of consumer decisions.

This paper aims to examine the effects of purchase environment, product type and need for touch (NFT) on cognitive response, affective response and overall product evaluation in the USA and India.

Two experiments were conducted in two different consumer markets. In Study 1, participants evaluated haptic and non-haptic products and gave responses on cognitive response, affective response and overall product evaluation measures in the US market. In Study 2, the authors replicate Study 1 in a culturally different market of India and extend Study 1 by examining the moderating role of instrumental and autotelic dimensions of NFT on the effect of purchase environment on cognitive and affective responses.

Research findings suggest that cognitive and affective responses are the underlying mechanism between the purchase environment and overall response only for haptic product among Indian consumers. In contrast, affective response is the underlying mechanism explaining this relationship among US consumers. Furthermore, the instrumental dimension of NFT moderates the impact of purchase environment on cognitive but the autotelic NFT moderates the effect of purchase environment on affective response only for the haptic product but not for the non-haptic product.

The study uses a relatively homogenous sample in the Indian market in contrast to the US market.

Results advance the understanding of the importance of haptic information processing in consumer decision-making across different purchase environments, product types and NFT using psychological distance (proximity) as a theoretical underpinning. With non-haptic shopping environments (i.e. online and mobile) growing rapidly, the results have critical implications for development of marketing strategies in Asian and US markets.

Empirical research examining the underlying mechanism by which purchase environment influences overall evaluation for haptic product is scarce. Additionally, understanding of the differential roles of instrumental and autotelic dimensions of NFT on cognitive and affective responses is very limited. This research fills this void and provides an understanding of the specific environment in evaluating haptic and non-haptic products in two distinct markets.

The inability to touch products online is the top reason consumers list for preferring to shop in traditional brick and mortar versus e-commerce stores (Havas Worldwide, 2013). Need for touch (NFT) comprises autotelic and instrumental motives, which, respectively, relate to enjoyment and utility. This study aimed to examine how consumers’ NFT motives affect loyalty intentions toward e-commerce websites, both directly and as mediated by consumers’ level of technology acceptance (ease of use, enjoyment and perceived usefulness [PU]). The moderating effect of synchronous versus asynchronous two-way communication with sellers on the relationships among consumers’ NFT, acceptance of technology and loyalty intention was also examined.

An online survey was conducted among consumers who had shopped from popular e-commerce websites chosen by this study within the 12 months prior to data collection.

Both types of NFT motives affected loyalty and technology acceptance. Specifically, autotelic NFT positively impacted perceived ease of use (PEOU) and perceived enjoyment (PE), whereas instrumental NFT negatively impacted PEOU, PE and loyalty intentions. Among the technology acceptance variables, PU had the strongest effect on loyalty intention. Tests of moderation revealed that high-quality, text-based synchronous communication (i.e. live chatting) with sellers can compensate for both autotelic and instrumental NFT.

This research shows how the inherent inability of e-commerce to meet consumers’ NFT stymies consumers’ e-commerce acceptance and affects their loyalty toward online retailers and examines strategies that e-commerce sites can use to compensate for this need.

Online shopping has become a commonplace thing nowadays as people can buy products from the comfort of their home. But such environments do not offer a complete sensory interaction as consumers are unable to touch products which is quite important for certain categories of products such as apparels. Therefore, in order to find whether every individual seeks touch equally, the purpose of this paper is to deal with the differences in an individual’s preferences for touch. The study also evaluates customer responses towards the introduction of touch-enabling technology which can, to some extent, compensate for the lack of touch. Lastly, the study includes customers’ views regarding showrooming and webrooming.

A total of 203 responses were received through online and offline questionnaires. The data were analysed using ANOVA, correlation and regression analysis through SPSS version 23.

The results revealed that gender influenced the Need for Touch (NFT) with women having higher NFT. The people who were high in NFT preferred to buy in-store, whereas their low NFT counterparts were comfortable with both online and in-store options. Lastly, it was found that there was a significant impact of NFT on online buying behaviour. The new technology when used by online retailers would break the barriers that exist between real touch and virtual touch.

Although previous authors have given several options like mental representations, verbal details and brand image as alternatives to touch but the use of touch-enabling technology can revolutionise the way online products are perceived. The study adds value by relating NFT with online preferences, showrooming and webrooming.

The purpose of this paper is to address the potential impact of need for touch (NFT) on perceived product quality and the possible roles of purchasers’ social (subjective norms), personal (buying impulsiveness) and epistemic (e-commerce orientation) factors, as well as the likely interaction effect of the shopping channel.

The empirical study is based on 540 observations, analysed in a partial least squares structural equation model.

The link between the NFT and perceived quality tends to be negative, especially for online purchases. E-commerce orientation reduces the need to touch products, but subjective norms and buying impulsiveness have no significant effects.

The NFT scale might be improved by adding more items. Some of the structural model coefficients indicate a low effect size. Finally, the results are limited to Spanish purchasers of the focal product.

Firms should appeal to purchasers’ e-commerce orientation to reduce the negative implications of a need to touch products among consumers shopping online.

The need to touch a product may be an obstacle to online purchases, yet few studies deal with its impact in online, relative to offline, contexts to evaluate product quality. This study also integrates personal, social and epistemic factors.

This study aims to examine whether gender, fashion innovativeness and opinion leadership, and need for touch have effects on consumers' multi‐channel choice and touch/non‐touch shopping channel preference in clothing shopping.

A survey was conducted using a convenience sample of 123 male and 154 female US college students. Data were analyzed using PASW Statistics 18 and Analysis of Moment Structure (AMOS) 18.

Results showed that participants' multi‐channel choice was influenced only by fashion innovativeness and opinion leadership such that consumers high in fashion innovativeness and opinion leadership tend to use more than one shopping channel. Touch channel preference was influenced by need for touch and multi‐channel choice such that participants who had higher need for touch and used more than one channel for clothing shopping preferred local and non‐local stores. Non‐touch channel preference was influenced by fashion innovativeness and opinion leadership and multi‐channel choice. Regardless of gender, those high in fashion innovativeness and opinion leadership who used more than one channel preferred TV retailers, catalogs, and online stores.

Results cannot be generalized to the larger population of other consumer groups. Future research should include other population groups.

This study is the first to investigate the effects of consumers' gender, fashion innovativeness and opinion leadership, and need for touch on their multi‐channel choice and touch/non‐touch shopping channel preference in clothing shopping.

There has been an increased interest in marketing literature in understanding the role of sensory experience. However, few researchers have addressed multisensory interaction of visual and tactile evaluation for products salient in single sensory modality. The purpose of this paper is to address this gap and investigate how multisensory evaluation influences overall attitude and purchase intentions. Further, the role of individual personality variable in influencing the interrelationship between sensory evaluation and behavioral outcomes are examined.

The data for this study were collected from 126 students who responded to attitude towards the product and purchase intentions after evaluating three experimental tasks. Repeated measures analysis of variance was carried out to test the multisensory interaction hypotheses.

The multisensory interaction of tactile and visual information was found to significantly increase the consumer attitudes for products dominant on single sensory modality of touch. Further, the multisensory evaluation led to greater purchase intentions than visual or tactile evaluation.

The paper is perhaps first to investigate multisensory interaction of tactile and visual sensory information in evaluation of products that are salient in touch properties. The current study further examines the role of individual personality variables in influencing interrelationship between sensory evaluation and purchase intentions.

This study was designed to investigate how the material properties of the tea-drinking receptacle interact with a participant's motivation and preference for extracting and using information obtained via haptic perception, namely the need for touch (NFT), to influence his or her tea-drinking experience.

72 blindfolded participants were instructed to sample room temperature tea beverages served in a cup that was made of ceramic, glass, paper or plastic. They were then asked to rate how familiar they were with the taste of the beverage, to rate how pleasant the taste was and to specify how much they would like to pay for it (i.e. willingness-to-pay ratings).

The material of the receptacles used to serve the tea exerted a significant influence over the pleasantness ratings of the tea and interacted with the participants' NFT, exerting a significant influence over their willingness to pay for the tea. Specifically, high-NFT participants were willing to pay significantly more for the same cup of tea when it was served in a ceramic cup rather than in a paper cup, whereas the low-NFT participants' willingness to pay for the tea was unaffected by the material of the receptacles.

Our findings suggest that consumers may not be equally susceptible to the influence of the receptacle in which tea, or any other beverage, is served. Our findings also demonstrate how the physical properties of a receptacle interact with a consumer's motivation and preference to influence his or her behavior in the marketplace.

This paper aims to analyze the effects of web communities vs company websites in providing tactile information considering different types of product in terms of touch diagnosticity (low- vs. high-touch products).

Three experimental studies were conducted to examine the effect of online information sources (i.e. web communities vs. company websites) in providing tactile information on consumer responses, considering the moderation role of product type in terms of touch diagnosticity (low- vs. high-touch products, Study 1), the moderating role of type of information (tactile vs. generic, Study 2a); and the moderating role of need for touch (NFT) (Study 2a and 2b).

While previous research converges on the idea that the provision of a written description of tactile properties deriving from the product usage is particularly effective for products for which tactile information is diagnostic and for individuals high in NFT, the results demonstrated that the presence (vs. the absence) of the description of the tactile properties provided by web communities (vs. company websites) matters for those products for which touch is not diagnostic and for individuals low in NFT.

The findings have particular relevance for emerging brands intending to commercialize their products in the digital environment. These companies should be present in web communities to describe a product’s tactile characteristics, especially if not diagnostic.

This paper significantly contributes to a better understanding of a little studied area, namely, consumer responses toward haptic compensational strategies providing haptic cues (e.g. written description of tactile information along with pictures of products) aiming at compensating for the absence of touch, underlining the differential influence of online sources of tactile information on consumer responses across different types of products.