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This study, a systematic literature review, aims to review the state-of-the-art literature on choice overload from 2000 to 2023.

The paper reviews 53 research articles published in peer-reviewed journals, using thematic and descriptive analyses. The literature was selected using the PRISMA framework.

Recent research in consumer behaviour has found that too many choices can be detrimental to decision-making. This paper reviews the development of choice overload literature, methodologies used by researchers to study choice overload, small and large choice sets, antecedents, moderators and outcomes of choice overload and the contexts in which choice overload exists.

Limited literature coverage because of the strict adherence to inclusion/exclusion criteria. The theory challenges the conventional choice models in psychology and economics according to which expanding a choice set cannot make decision-making worse and violates the regularity axiom, a cornerstone of classical choice theory. This review also identifies avenues for further research in the field.

A significant decrease in satisfaction or motivation because of too many choices would require marketers and public policymakers to rethink their practice of providing ever-increasing assortments to choose from because they could possibly boost their success by offering less.

This systematic review makes distinctive contributions by classifying the existing studies based on evidence “for” and “against” the existence of choice overload. The review also combines cross-context insights on assortment sizes, moderators and methodological commonalities and gaps to understand the multi-faceted nature and contextual nuances of choice overload.

This study attempts to encapsulate the idea of influencer marketing in the food sector and the vital role played by food influencers in shaping the dietary preferences, tastes and decisions of their social media followers and turning them into brand advocates.

An online survey of 383 social media users, utilizing a self-administered questionnaire, was undertaken to validate the proposed research design. The partial least squares structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM) methodology was used to analyze the data and test the relationships between the constructs.

The results confirm the validity and reliability of the research model. The research revealed the positive influence of influencer–follower demographics and attitude congruence on followers’ food choices, which in turn leads to followers’ delight and significantly impacts their brand advocacy. It also depicts how followers’ perceived trust in an influencer mediates the relationship between their similarity with the influencers, their food choices and brand advocacy.

The study proposes a new theoretical framework and empirically tests the effectiveness of influencer marketing in influencing social media users’ food choice behavior and brand advocacy through the medium of followers’ congruence with social media influencers. The findings offer noteworthy theoretical and managerial implications for academicians as well as marketing practitioners.

Utilizing the theoretical foundation of the stimulus-organism-response framework, the present work developed and investigated a conceptual model. The work explores the effects of perceived risk of COVID-19 on tourists' choice hesitation and choice confidence. Furthermore, it examines the impacts of choice hesitation and choice confidence on psychological distress, which, in turn, influences purchase intentions and risk-protective behavior. Additionally, the study assesses the boundary effects of vulnerability on the association between choice hesitation, choice confidence, and psychological distress.

An online survey was administered in China during COVID-19 to assess the postulated hypotheses. We collected 491 responses using purposive sampling, and covariance-based structural equation modeling (CB-SEM) was performed to investigate the relationships.

Results show that the perceived risk of COVID-19 positively influences the choice hesitation and negatively impact choice confidence. It was also found that choice hesitation and choice confidence positively developed psychological distress, which, in turn, negatively triggered purchase intentions and positively developed risk-protective behavior. Additionally, perceived vulnerability had a significant moderating impact on the proposed relationships, strengthening psychological distress.

In the current context, this study measures bipolar behavioral outcomes using the S-O-R model. Because cognitive processes influence participation in health preventative behavior during the spread of diseases, we highlighted how the perception of risk and vulnerability to a pandemic serves as a reliable indicator of certain behaviors. This study advances understanding of how the psychological mindset of tourists copes with such circumstances. Due to the pandemic, tourists face limitations in their choices and are placing greater emphasis on adopting protective measures to mitigate associated risks.

A meat quality grading system is essential to meet consumers' increasingly diversified demand for food quality in the global market. This study aims to determine the effectiveness of the upcoming Chinese quality grading labels and examine the information effect of labeling standards on pork consumption choices.

Using an online survey with choice experiments, this study estimates consumer valuation for the fat thickness of different pork primal cuts by simulating three scenarios. Generalized mixed logit models in WTP space are used to analyze the choice experiment data.

Chinese consumers prefer lean pork to fatty pork and this preference does not vary significantly between primal cuts. Consumer valuation for ungraded high-quality (lean) pork increases after the implementation of the quality grading. Meanwhile, they are willing to pay high premiums for labeled pork (including level 1, 2, 3), and there are higher premiums for pork with higher levels. Besides, incomplete information on labeling standards could achieve more premiums for pork than relatively complete information.

This study pays attention to essential but few-noticed pork quality grading. The findings provide references for pork industry practices and policy-making of the meat quality grading system in China and globally by examining incomplete and relatively complete information effects on consumer choices.

Providing quality emergency supplies is crucial to mitigate and respond to emergencies. However, despite government and consumer oversight of emergency supplies’ quality, a troubling trend persists among some enterprises to sacrifice product quality for financial gain. This paper examines the influence of strategy selections among governments, enterprises, and consumers to enhance the quality of emergency supplies.

We develop a tripartite evolutionary game model consisting of three stakeholders: government, enterprises, and consumers, considering factors including subsidies and penalties. After analysing three stakeholders’ strategic choices to ascertain system stability, parametric analyses were conducted.

Excessive or insufficient subsidies are not conducive to encouraging enterprises to adopt an authentic production strategy; excessive subsidies may result in consumers enduring counterfeiting. Furthermore, the government’s supervision strategy can stabilise the system quickly, suggesting that consumer reporting cannot replace government supervision. Additionally, incentivising enterprises to adopt an authentic production strategy can be achieved by increasing penalties and enhancing compensation while reducing consumer reporting, government supervision, and raw materials costs.

We present a preliminary exploration of how to promote the production of qualified emergency supplies in the early stages of an emergency event. The model and findings proposed in this paper can be generalised and applied to various emergency events, including epidemics and earthquakes.

Hospitality firms aim to increase their profits by implementing a variety of marketing activities, including using decoy pricing to provide alternative choices for consumers. Decoys are relatively higher-priced offerings that signal lower value than the other offerings in the consideration set. The purpose of this research is to investigate the influence of decoy pricing on consumer choices across various contexts in the foodservice and hotel industries.

Across the pilot and four main studies, the current research employs a sequential exploratory mixed-method design to investigate the influence of decoy pricing in the foodservice and lodging industries. The qualitative part of this research was based on two focus groups, followed by a pilot study and four main study experiments.

The results show that decoy pricing escalates consumers’ choices of more expensive product bundles in both restaurant and hotel cancellation policy contexts. However, decoy pricing does not increase the selection of more expensive hotel product bundles.

While decoy pricing has been utilized as an effective revenue maximization strategy for product placement in retail stores, less is known about how promotional advertisements with decoy offers influence hotel and restaurant customers to choose more costly options. Specifically, this is the first study that explores whether decoy pricing and product/service bundling can encourage customers to select more expensive offers in hotel and restaurant contexts, considering the types of hospitality bundles that may limit this effect.

Due to ginger holds a special and indispensable place in Chinese cuisine, understanding consumers’ preferences for organic ginger is of significance, especially given the growing interest in organic food products and sustainable agriculture. This study thus examines Chinese consumers’ preference for fresh ginger and the sources of their preferences heterogeneity for organic ginger consumption.

The study is using choice experiment (CE) method and mixed logit (MXL) modeling with 1,312 valid samples. The participants are regular consumers who are 18 years old or above and had bought fresh ginger within the past 12 months.

The results show that consumers prefer organic product certification labeling ginger to conventional ginger, preferred to purchase ginger at wet markets to at supermarkets or online, and preferred either ginger with regional public brand or private brand to unbranded ginger. Results also indicate that age, education level, income, purchasing experience of organic and branded ginger, and cognition of ginger health benefits are the sources of heterogeneity in consumer preferences for organic ginger.

This study contributes to ginger growers, marketers and policy makers. This study tracks how consumers' preferences change under different attribute combinations, capture the complex preference structure of consumers, and help reveal the motivations behind consumers' preferences for organic ginger. These findings will be crucial for developing marketing strategies, promoting organic products, and meeting consumer needs.

Given the importance of the growing segmentation of ageing consumers and their increasing interaction with the Internet, digital marketing scholars are becoming more interested in this market. Prior research needs to pay more attention to this market in many contexts of digital marketing. This study aims to provide insights into ageing consumers’ content usage, content typology choices, and online brand advocacy (OBA).

Semi-structured interviews were applied, and 16 consumers from Southern Europe aged 55+ were included. The interviews were transcribed and examined following the principles of content analysis.

According to the research, older consumers display their usage and concerns regarding online content. They have different decision-making processes depending on whether they are purchasing products or services. Likewise, their choices of content typology vary based on the utilitarian or hedonic product category.

This study contributes to the literature by providing insights into this growing segmentation and proposing an OBA framework for older consumers related to content marketing. Finally, the study suggests that older consumers are passive online and active offline brand advocates.

This study aims to reveal consumer purchase intentions for Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) lifetime deals and the role of service offerings in shaping these intentions.

Lifetime deals − an aggressive market penetration strategy − have the potential to allow startups to gain market share, user base and the cash necessary for growth. However, startups need to mitigate consumer concerns for which service offering design plays a key role. Drawing on expectancy-value and signaling theories, this study developed a research model and then conducted empirical research on 2,173 consumers via choice-based conjoint analysis to reveal the critical service offering attributes for consumer utility in lifetime deals in the SaaS presentation tool market context. After using the hierarchical Bayes model to derive each respondent’s part-worth utilities for service offering attributes, the hypotheses were tested via the factor score regression method.

The results show that the service offering attributes of low price, refund option, human support and feature updates enhance consumer utility in SaaS lifetime deals. Three of these four attributes, namely, low price, refund option and feature updates, enhance consumers' purchase intentions by reducing their concerns about the service’s performance, seller and lifespan, respectively.

This study elucidates consumer purchase intentions for SaaS services in digital marketplaces. By investigating a widespread market entry strategy − lifetime deals − it shows consumer preferences and behavior for these deals in the fast-growing online tools market. This study also shows how startups can use lifetime deals through a well-designed service offering to mitigate various consumer concerns.

This study aims to examine millennial consumers’ intentions towards purchasing eco-friendly products in the emerging Arab nation of Oman, focusing on the moderating role of eco-labelling (EL).

Environmental knowledge (EK) and environmental concern (EC) are integrated into the theory of planned behaviour (TPB) framework as independent variables, along with EL as a moderating variable. The data was collected through a self-administered survey and consisted of 705 random responses that was tabulated and analysed through the structural equation modelling technique.

ECs, subjective norms (SNs) and perceived behavioural control (PBC) significantly influence consumer attitudes towards green eco-friendly products. Consumers’ EK and attitudes positively influence the purchase intention (PI) to make green purchases. SNs and PBC substantially influence consumer attitudes towards adopting green products. However, the findings reveal a non-significant moderating influence of EL on the relationship between EC and PI for millennial Omani consumers.

The findings are limited to only one Arab country, Oman, which limits the scope of the study. This study contributes to the TPB by using additional dimensions to examine the green purchasing behaviour of millennials.

Marketers can use these insights to develop strategies that emphasise the environmental benefits of products, leverage social influences and empower consumers to make environmentally conscious choices. Incorporating EL and green packaging can enhance the visibility and attractiveness of green products.

Promoting environmental education, awareness campaigns and policy interventions that highlight the importance of eco-friendly product choices can foster more sustainable consumption patterns among Arab consumers.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first study to examine the green PIs of millennials in an Arab context, specifically focusing on the moderating role of EL.