Search results

Over the last few decades, consumers’ concerns for healthier lifestyles and the environment have become the driving forces for forming food-buying intentions. The purpose of this paper is to investigate the impact of product attributes regarding nutrition and health benefits of products, the environmental impact of production and social responsibility of producers on consumers’ food and wine choices.

The empirical analysis is based on an online survey conducted in the USA, the UK and Germany, and incorporates a discrete choice experiment with visual shelf simulations.

Price and nutrition information are much more influential on consumers’ food choices than information about social responsibility of producers or the ecological impact of production. Product attributes emphasizing the ecological impact of production and social responsibility of food producers are specifically valued by consumers with high levels of environmental consciousness and by those concerned about goods production. Consumers who are health conscious regarding their lifestyle and diets derive high utility values from the nutritional information of the product.

The study contributes to an understanding of how to promote healthier food and wine choices and social and environmental responsibility of food and wine producers in various markets.

The study offers a comparison of product attributes concerning ecological, social, nutrition and health benefits of the product; as well the investigation of congruent interrelationships between the consumers’ values and related product attributes in three culturally distinct consumer groups.

Examines various problems concerning the practical implementation of the principle of free choice. These are exemplified in a specific everyday context – the consumer′s freedom to choose food and drink products. Identifies a number of actual constraints on that freedom before the main question is tackled: what further restrictions might be considered justifiable and desirable? Suggests three categories of factor which might justify such restrictions – psychological factors associated with the maximizing of freedom of choice; safety factors concerned with the minimizing of risk; and ethical/social factors involving such issues as animal welfare and socio‐economic needs. Concludes that certain restrictions on the consumer′s freedom of choice may at times be justified by an appeal to other principles and considerations.

Independent travelers are those vacationers who have booked only a minimum of their transportation and accommodation arrangements prior to departure on the vacation. Independent travel is an important and growing sector of worldwide tourism. Choice of vacation itinerary for the independent vacation represents a complex series of decisions regarding purchase of multiple leisure and tourism services. This chapter builds and tests a model of independent traveler decision-making for choice of vacation itinerary. The research undertaken employs a two-phase, inductive–deductive case study design. In the deductive phase, the researcher interviewed 20 travel parties vacationing in New Zealand for the first time. The researcher interviewed respondents at both the beginning and the end of their New Zealand vacations. The study compares pre-vacation research and plans, and actual vacation behaviors, on a case-by-case basis. The study examines case study narratives and quantitative measures of crucial variables. The study tests two competing models of independent traveler decision-making, using a pattern-matching procedure. This embedded research design results in high multi-source, multi-method validity for the supported model. The model of the Independent Vacation as Evolving Itinerary suggests that much of the vacation itinerary experienced in independent travel is indeed unplanned, and that a desire to experience the unplanned is a key hedonic motive for independent travel. Rather than following a fixed itinerary, the itinerary of an independent vacation evolves as the vacation proceeds. The independent traveler takes advantage of serendipitous opportunities to experience a number of locations, attractions and activities that they had neither actively researched nor planned.

People often look to the opinions and actions of others to guide their food choices, especially when they are uncertain or unfamiliar with a particular food. This influence can be positive or negative depending on the context and can have an impact on food consumption and health outcomes.

The paper analysed data from 500 young adult consumers in China and employed a multi-study design to examine various aspects of social proof and herd behaviour in food choices. Experiment 1 examined the influence of testimonials from an influential person on buying decisions and eating behaviour. Experiment 2 explored whether herd behaviour drives food options. Experiment 3 assessed the influence of social proof on food choices. Chi-square tests of independence were conducted to examine the relationship between social proof and food choice, as well as herd behaviour and food decision-making. Several logit regression analyses were performed to identify the factors that drive consumers' susceptibility to social proof and herding.

The results indicated that the source of feedback, whether from an influential person or a family member, did not have a statistically significant effect on the likelihood of following the food guide recommendations. The preference for a healthier food option was stronger than following the herd. In contrast, social proof in the form of reviews and ratings influenced participants' choices. The paper highlights the usefulness for stakeholders and policymakers seeking to promote healthier eating habits.

The originality lies in its comprehensive approach, combining multiple experiments and analytical methods.

The purpose of this study is to examine the impact of key decision-making attributes on consumers’ choice of accommodation among and between hotels and Airbnb.

The study used a choice-based conjoint approach using 21 key decision-making factors that impact consumers’ choice of accommodation across five segments ranging from economy to luxury. Latent class estimation was used to identify segments of respondents who tend to have similar preferences for accommodation.

The results showed the presence of a consistent pattern of decision-making across the five accommodation segments, culminating in a hierarchy of importance in accommodation choice. The 21 key decision-making attributes comprised three tiers in order of decreasing importance: quality and service, amenities, and accessibility and safety. Further, latent class analysis indicated the presence of a hotel group and an Airbnb group of customers, which allowed us to identify how both types of providers might maximize the value of their offers to encourage customer switch.

The accommodation landscape is extremely dynamic (particularly as the COVID-19 pandemic unfolds) and complex. The present study cannot capture all of its intricacies but provides an invaluable foundation for future research on the topic of consumer choice in an evolving and competitive accommodation market.

Extant research on accommodation choice has focused on hotels or Airbnb only. Moreover, research that has considered both types of accommodation simultaneously is limited in its conceptual and methodological scope. The present study synthesizes the fragmented literature on consumers’ accommodation choices and offers a holistic and coherent schematic – the hierarchy of importance in accommodation choice – that can be used by future researchers and practitioners alike.

This paper aims to find out what product features become salient when consumers are exposed to many market offerings, demonstrating how choice set size influences construal mindset, which then affects the type of product consumers choose.

Experiment 1 provides preliminary evidence that being exposed to a large (vs small) choice set may drive people to focus more on the feasibility (i.e. a secondary feature) of a product and less on the desirability (i.e. a primary feature) when making a choice. Experiment 2 unveils the serial mediating roles of construal level and importance of price/design.

Consumers are more likely to select feasible (i.e. affordable) market offerings and not desirable (i.e. well-designed) ones when choosing from a large (vs small) choice set. This effect is serially mediated by mental construals and by the importance of price or design. Choosing from a large (vs small) choice set leads to low-level mental construals, which increase the importance of price (a feasibility attribute) while decreasing the importance of design (a desirability attribute), resulting in choice of feasible (affordable) market offerings over well-designed ones.

Although consumers generally focus on the desirability of a choice or an action, choosing from large choice sets makes them focus more on the feasibility of market offerings because of low-level mental construals.

In today’s era of e-commerce, as consumers are exposed to too many product offerings, retailers should emphasize the feasibility of their market offerings (e.g. affordability) to increase the chance that consumers purchase their products. This research shows that people rely very much on product price to make selections when provided with a large choice set.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this research is the first to show that large choice sets make consumers choose affordable products over well-designed ones and introduces the serial mediation effect of construal level and importance of price/design. Accordingly, this research establishes that large choice sets activate low-level mental construals, which associate with a feasibility mindset that ultimately makes consumers choose an affordable product instead of a well-designed one. It adds to the literature on choice overload by showing that the importance of price overshadows the importance of design (aesthetics) when people are exposed to large choice sets.

This study aims to introduce the duration of uniqueness, an important dimension of unique products. It studies how choices between products with long versus short duration of uniqueness are influenced by the interaction between pressure and consumers’ need for uniqueness (NFU).

This research uses a multi-method study approach. A pilot field-study tested the novelty and importance of the research by asking retail professionals to predict the choice of a hypothetical consumer. A retrospective study assessed the importance of duration of uniqueness in unique product choices, by asking consumers about a real and recent unique product purchase. Four additional experimental studies directly tested hypotheses by manipulating pressure and by measuring or manipulating uniqueness motivations.

The pilot field-study showed the novelty and relevance of this research for professionals. Study 1 revealed that, retrospectively, uniqueness duration was considered important for the choice of unique products, by high-NFU consumers under pressure. Studies 2 and 3 demonstrated that pressure increases the tendency of high-NFU, but not low-NFU, consumers to choose products with long over short uniqueness duration. Study 4 provided initial evidence for the process behind the effect. Study 5 showed that considerations of uniqueness duration when choosing mediated the effects.

The results of the pilot field-study and retrospective study might be affected by recall bias or lay theories. The findings need to be replicated with other sources of pressure and uniqueness. This calls for further research.

Results are important for companies marketing unique products and they suggest that pressure-based marketing appeals can be used strategically to increase sales of products with long uniqueness duration but decrease sales of products with short uniqueness duration. Although the research provides these guidelines, managers should consider the ethical implications of pressure strategies.

This is the first attempt to empirically investigate the duration of uniqueness. Although extant research has examined choices between products with different degrees of uniqueness, this research studies choice of products with similar degrees of uniqueness, but different uniqueness duration. Thus, this research adds to the scarce literature studying the duration of symbolic benefits. Moreover, although pressure and NFU frequently co-exist in uniqueness consumption settings, this study is the first to study their joint effects.

With channels of distribution changing rapidly and multi‐channeling becoming increasingly widespread, studies of consumers will need to focus not just on understanding product choice, but also on understanding the reasons for channel choice. Although the choice of individual channels and the adoption of new channels has been researched, there is little to suggest that we have a more general understanding of why consumers, although purchasing essentially similar products, use some channels rather than others. Using the example of financial services, where multi‐channeling has been the norm for some time, this paper reports on an exploratory study to identify those factors which influence channel choice. Based on the results of focus group discussions, the paper argues that channel choice in financial service can usefully be conceptualised as being determined by consumer, product channel and organisational characteristics, with product‐channel interactions and consumer‐channel interactions being particularly important.

The paper seeks to establish the effectiveness of social media advertising and participation by brands through incidental exposure. Using experimental design, in a social media environment, this paper aims to extend incidental exposure research in the context of social media.

This paper uses an experimental design with controlled image durations using MediaLab and DirectRT, allowing for precise image display times and randomization of screens. Participants were split between high-involvement and low-involvement product categories, and the brand choice exercise was administered in an on-screen experiment.

The paper provides support that incidental exposure influences brand choice. Further, it indicates that for low-involvement product categories, the type of social media exposure does not influence brand choice significantly between types. For high-involvement product categories, ads perform better than sponsored story executions; consumer-generated brand messages perform better than brand-generated messages; and the influence of reference group affects brand choice.

This paper tests one social media environment using a desktop Web environment. Additional studies would be needed to test other social media environments and mobile technology.

The paper provides evidence that brands benefit by simply participating and advertising in social media, but the execution style matters to a greater extent for high-involvement product categories in influencing brand choice.

Mere exposure to a brand message may influence consumers unknowingly. Repeated exposure as short as 5 s per viewing is related to increases in brand choice.

This paper extends research on incidental exposure and establishes a key positive brand outcome for practice and research, and it provides the first exploration on the outcome of incident exposure to brand messages in social media. The results suggest that social media and advertising by brands have positive impacts beyond traditional measures of success online.

The purpose of this paper is to understand the effect of online cross-recommendation of products from e-retailers on consumers’ instant cross-buying intention, and compare the effect between the contexts that the decision making on focal product is difficult and easy.

Based on the information adoption model, this paper develops a theoretical model to investigate how online cross-recommendation of products from e-retailers influence consumers’ instant cross-buying intention. Empirical data were collected from 224 online shoppers. The Partial Least Squares technique was used to test the proposed research model.

Choice confidence on focal product and perceived usefulness of cross-buying is the antecedents of instant cross-buying intention. Brand awareness of recommended product, one-stop shopping convenience, and perceived price advantage are the antecedents of perceived usefulness of cross-buying and choice confidence on focal product when the decision making on focal product is difficult, whereas brand awareness is not when it is easy to make focal product decision. Choice confidence on focal product positively affects perceived usefulness of cross-buying when it is easy to make focal product decision, whereas the effect is not significant when the decision making on focal product is difficult.

Knowledge about the effect of online cross-recommendation of products on instant cross-buying intention is scarce. This study reveals the psychological mechanism of the effect of online cross-recommendation of products on consumers’ instant cross-buying intention and finds that decision-making difficulty on focal product is an important moderator.