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The study aims to examine fast fashion consumers' negative in-store experiences focusing on the effect of the two store environment factors, product overload and store ambiance, on their confusion and consequent shopping avoidance behavior.

A research model of fast fashion consumers' confusion and store avoidance behavior is proposed using the Stimulus–Organism–Response framework. A pretest and the main online survey with 281 samples are analyzed, and the structural equation modeling (SEM) is conducted to test the proposed model.

The SEM results support the proposed paths statistically. Consumers' confusion, measured with the two dimensions, inefficiency and helplessness, is significantly influenced by their perceived product overload and negative perception of store ambiance in the fast fashion shopping environment. Subsequently, fast fashion consumers' confusion results in less time spent in the store.

The study sheds light on utilitarian shopping value in the fast fashion shopping environment by focusing on the fast fashion consumers' confusion in association with overloaded information caused by too many products and store ambiance.

The study implies that improving fast fashion stores' inherent issues with too many products and store ambiance might help consumers mitigate their confusion and prevent customer attrition. However, the study includes only two factors. Future studies may include other various fast fashion store factors. Additionally, one of the dimensions of confusion, irritation, did not emerge in this study. More work is needed to investigate fast fashion consumers' confusion, such as using a multigroup analysis by age.

Time pressure may change how people behave. The multiplicity of options and the nature of the products, hedonic or utilitarian, might increase the complexity of the choice and alter the effects of time pressure. Combining both factors, the purpose of this paper is to verify the moderating role played by the nature of the products observing the relationship between interaction (time pressure × multiplicity of options) and choice delay.

A two-level factorial experimental design was applied (time pressure: with; without) × 2 (number of alternatives: two; six) × 2 (type of purchase: hedonic; utilitarian), with mixed design, considering the purchase delay a dependent variable.

The results signal that the nature of the products moderates the effects of the interaction between time pressure and choice overload in purchase delay. Utilitarian purchases are more susceptible to the effects of time pressure and options overload than hedonic purchases.

The interaction between time pressure and choice overload, researched in previous works, influences in different ways the purchase of utilitarian or hedonic products. This differentiation, taking into consideration the type of product, brings new perspectives on the purchase decision process and provides theoretical and practical information on the effects of information overload and time pressure over the consumer decision-making process.

In the growing information systems (IS) literature on metaverse, augmented reality (AR) technology is regarded as a cornerstone of the metaverse which enables interaction services. Interaction has been identified as a core technology characteristic of metaverse shopping environments. Based on previous human–technology interaction research, the authors further explicate interaction to be multimodal sensory. The purpose of this study is thus to better understand the unique nature of interaction in AR technology and highlight the technology's benefits for shopping in metaverse spaces.

An experiment has been conducted to empirically examine the authors' research model. The authors use the structural equation modeling (SEM) approach to analyze the collected data.

This study conceptualizes image, motion and touchscreen interactions as the three dimensions of multimodal sensory interaction, which can reflect visual-, kinesthetic- and haptic-based sensation stimulation. The authors' findings show that multimodal sensory interaction of AR activates consumers' intention to purchase via a psychological process. To delineate this psychological process, the authors use feelings-as-information theory to posit that experiential factors can influence cognitive factors. More specifically, multimodal sensory interaction is shown to increase multisensory experience and spatial presence, which can effectively reduce product uncertainty and information overload. The two outcomes have been considered to be key issues in online shopping environments.

This study is one of the first ones that shed light on the multimodal sensory peculiarity of AR interactions in the extant IS literature. The authors further highlight the benefits of AR in addressing major online shopping concerns about product uncertainty and information overload, which are largely overlooked by prior research. This study uses feelings-as-information theory to explain the impacts of AR interactions, which reveal the essential role of the experiential process in sensory-enabling technologies. This study enriches the existing theoretical frameworks that mostly focus on the cognitive process. The authors' findings about AR interactions provide noteworthy guidelines for the design of metaverse environments and extend the authors' understanding of how the metaverse may bring benefits beyond traditional online shopping settings.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the tendency of some consumers to use the purchase behavior of unknown other consumers as a purchase decision heuristic, by first developing a measure of the consumer propensity to observe. The effects of likely individual consumer factors are then tested.

A total of 356 consumers participated in the study by completing a questionnaire containing items measuring the constructs of interest. The modeled relationships of variables were tested using structural equation modeling with interaction terms.

The specified model was found to explain 43 per cent and 44 per cent of consumers' propensity to directly and indirectly observe, respectively. Key antecedents identified as significant influencers of propensity to observe are consumer risk aversion, brand choice overload, self‐confidence, and propensity to conform to group norms. Additionally, moderating effects are identified, indicating that propensity to observe is higher when certain contingencies interact.

The results of this research suggest that: observation is an important heuristic in choice decision for many consumers; specific consumer characteristics define observational consumers for targeting purposes; and retailers should consider observational tendencies of consumers when marketing and merchandising products.

This study is designed to fill this void in the literature by creating and validating a measure of the tendency to be observational; and by examining influencing factors of the one particular heuristic where consumers look to the purchase behavior of other consumers to resolve their own product choice dilemmas.

The purpose of this paper is to examine young consumers’ general tendency to become confused and its effect on the word of mouth, trust, and consumer satisfaction in Indonesia – the largest smartphone market in Southeast Asia.

A combination of convenience and purposive sampling were used to select the sample of young adults in Daerah Istimewa Yogyakarta (DIY), Indonesia.

The results confirm that consumer confusion proneness comprises three dimensions; similarity confusion, overload confusion, and ambiguity confusion among young consumers in the smartphone market. Furthermore, each dimension has different consumer behavioural implications.

In the context of Indonesia and when targeting young consumers, companies should focus on defining unique product features instead of simply imitating competitor offerings, because similarity confusion negatively affects consumer trust. Moreover, managers should consistently emphasize unique and value-adding features to overload the product. This will lead to increased positive word of mouth, especially with the growing trend of social media usage among young consumers in Indonesia.

This paper represents a replication of Walsh and Mitchell's (2010) study. It is unique in that it is set in the context of the Indonesian smartphone market – the largest smartphone market in Southeast Asia, and concentrates specifically on the young consumer market. It provides valuable insights into the impact of consumer confusion proneness on the word of mouth, trust, and consumer across this age group and in this market.

The choice overload (CO) phenomenon, whereby having many options leads to negative consequences, has been studied widely in psychology and marketing. However, empirical evidence of CO in the tourism context is limited, even though people often encounter numerous choices (e.g., vacation destinations, airfares, hotels, tours) at different stages when planning their holidays. Investigating CO in tourism and hospitality is important because (online) travel advisors are providing tourists with numerous choices, yet they do not know whether or not these decision makers are content after choosing from these large choice sets. This chapter proposes to review and apply insights garnered from the CO literature to tourism research. Accordingly, the chapter proposes five groups of solutions for tourists and travel advisors to avoid CO effects: reducing decision task difficulty, reducing choice-set complexity, reducing preference uncertainty, focusing on decision goals rather than the means to achieve those goals, and adopting appropriate decision-making styles.

Drawing on conservation of resources theory, this study aims to examine how employees’ experiences of excessive workloads may direct them away from efforts to share knowledge with other organizational members, as well as the circumstances in which this process is more or less likely. To untangle the process, the authors predict a mediating role of job dissatisfaction and moderating roles of two complementary resources that help employees cope with failure: resilience as a personal resource and organizational forgiveness as an organizational resource.

Survey data were gathered from employees of an organization that operates in the construction retail sector. The Process macro provides an empirical test of the moderated mediation dynamic that underpins the proposed conceptual framework.

The statistical findings affirm that an important channel through which employees’ perceptions that their work demands are unreasonable escalate into a diminished propensity to share knowledge is their lack of enthusiasm about their jobs. Their ability to recover from challenging work situations and their beliefs that the organization does not hold grudges against people who commit mistakes both mitigate this harmful effect.

For organizational practitioners, this research shows that when employees feel frustrated about extreme work pressures, the resource-draining situation may escalate into diminished knowledge sharing, which might inadvertently undermine their ability to receive valuable feedback for dealing with the challenges. From a positive perspective, individual resilience and organizational forgiveness represent resources that can protect employees against this negative spiral.

This study explicates an unexplored harmful effect of strenuous workloads on knowledge sharing, which is explained by employees’ beliefs that their organization fails to provide satisfactory job experiences. This effect also is mitigated to the extent that employees can draw from valuable personal and organizational resources.

The purpose of this paper is to provide response around three commentaries: Lowe’s view on key mechanisms through which greater transparency could influence consumer product evaluations (Lowe, 2015); Kuah and Weerakkody’s critical assessment on whether cost transparency is good for consumers (Kuah and Weerakkody, 2015); and Singh’s perspective on what is behind the price tag and why companies should embrace cost transparency (Singh, 2015).

This is a response to the aforementioned commentaries, from the authors of “Should Consumers Request Cost Transparency?”.

The authors call for empirical studies to shed light on issues, including, but not limited to, drivers and challenges/barriers of making unit cost available; appropriateness of unit cost information for different category of products; information overload caused by cost transparency; effect of availability of unit cost on the consumer decision-making; empowerment of consumers through unit cost information; impact of cost transparency on realisation of fairness, differentiation, competitive advantage and sustainability for businesses; and impact of cost transparency on market dynamics and consumer behaviour.

Given its potential impact on both theory and practice, the arguments presented for and against provisioning of unit cost information to consumers is an issue worthy of further debate and empirical investigation.

This study used both qualitative and quantitative data to test hypotheses related to consumers’ motivations to engage in impulse buying. A grounded theory approach was used to develop hypotheses from in‐depth interviews. These hypotheses were tested by the collection and analysis of survey data. Data support the theory that impulse buying is a common method of product selection, in part, because the shopping act and impulsive product selection provide hedonic rewards. Further information‐processing overload confounds product selection, reinforcing the rewards to be obtained from alternative section heuristics, like impulse buying.

The purpose of this paper is to introduce the new construct online shopper confusion and to identify online confusion causes and consequences.

Data obtained from a projective technique and a quantitative study were analyzed to identify online shopper confusion causes. Two experiments employing different stimulus materials tested the conceptualized consequences of online shopper confusion.

Confusing online store elements are classified into three online confusion causes. Data yielded from two experiments using fictitious and real shopping scenarios as stimulus material show that a confusing internet retail process leads to negative consumer reactions.

The resulting taxonomy of confusing online store elements offers guidance on the creation of non-confusing online shopping trips, and highlights the relevance of a non-confusing internet retail process. Online shopper confusion is linked to negative behavioral reactions. Consequently, this research offers an explanation for undesirable consumer reactions in internet retailing.

The findings provide practitioners with concrete insights into how the internet retail process confuses shoppers which help to assess the confusion potential of their existing online stores and consider confusion issues in the development of new online stores.

This research is the first to explore confusion during the internet retail process. The multi-method approach offers highly valid insights into the causes and consequences of online shopper confusion.