Promoting Healthier Drinking Habits: Using Sound to Encourage the Choice for Non-Alcoholic Beers in E-Commerce

Important institutions, such as the World Health Organization, recommend reducing alcohol consumption by encouraging healthier drinking habits. This could be achieved, for example, by employing more effective promotion of non-alcoholic beverages. For such purposes, in this study, we assessed the role of experiential beer packaging sounds during the e-commerce experience of a non-alcoholic beer (NAB). Here, we designed two experiments. Experiment 1 evaluated the influence of different experiential beer packaging sounds on consumers’ general emotions and sensory expectations. Experiment 2 assessed how the sounds that evoked more positive results in Experiment 1 would influence emotions and sensory expectations related to a NAB digital image. The obtained results revealed that a beer bottle pouring sound helped suppress some of the negativity that is commonly associated with the experience of a NAB. Based on such findings, brands and organizations interested in more effectively promoting NAB may feel encouraged to involve beer packaging sounds as part of their virtual shopping environments.

Pavlov’s Buzz? Mobile Vibrations as Conditioned Rewards

People spend a large portion of their day interacting with vibrating mobile devices, yet how we respond to the vibrotactile sensations emitted by these devices, and their effect on consumer decision-making is largely unknown. Integrating recent work on haptic sensory processing and classical conditioning, the current research examines: (1) the relationship between vibration duration and reward response, (2) to what extent rewarding vibrations modify consumer decision-making, and (3) the underlying mechanism of this effect. We find that mobile vibrations of intermediate length (400ms) evoke a reward response, particularly among younger and more impulsive consumers, which in turn boosts purchasing in ecological online shopping environments. We examine mobile vibration in a variety of experimental settings, drawing on a diverse participant pool, leveraging both controlled experiments and a large, country-wide field experiment to assess theoretically- and practically-important boundary conditions. We further examine the mechanism of this effect, providing direct evidence that vibrations influence consumers due to classical conditioning, such that vibrations become rewarding due to their learned association with positive mobile events. Our findings have important implications for the effective design of haptic interfaces in marketing and the role of mobile vibration stimuli as a novel form of reward.

Exploratory Shopping: Attention Affects In-Store Exploration and Unplanned Purchasing

A fundamental function of retailing is to bring products into the view of shoppers, because viewing products can activate forgotten or new needs. Retailers thus employ various strategies to entice shoppers to explore the product assortment and store environment, in the hopes of stimulating unplanned purchasing. This article investigates consumers’ breadth of attention as a mechanism of such in-store exploration and hence of unplanned purchasing. Specifically, attentional breadth is the focus that is directed to a wider or more limited area in processing visual scenes. Across several lab and field experiments, the authors show that shoppers’ attentional breadth activates an exploratory mindset that stimulates visual and physical exploration of shopping environments, ultimately affecting their product choices and unplanned purchasing. The results also show that more impulsive buyers are more susceptible to these effects. The present article thus complements and constrains prior theorizing on mindset theory, attention, store exploration, and unplanned purchasing, all of which are of practical importance to both retailers and consumers.

Eye-Tracking-Based Classification of Information Search Behavior Using Machine Learning: Evidence from Experiments in Physical Shops and Virtual Reality Shopping Environments

How can we tailor assistance systems, such as recommender systems or decision support systems, to consumers’ individual shopping motives? How can companies unobtrusively identify shopping motives without explicit user input? We demonstrate that eye movement data allow building reliable prediction models for identifying goal-directed and exploratory shopping motives. Our approach is validated in a real supermarket and in an immersive virtual reality supermarket. Several managerial implications of using gaze-based classification of information search behavior are discussed: First, the advent of virtual shopping environments makes using our approach straightforward as eye movement data are readily available in next-generation virtual reality devices. Virtual environments can be adapted to individual needs once shopping motives are identified and can be used to generate more emotionally engaging customer experiences. Second, identifying exploratory behavior offers opportunities for marketers to adapt marketing communication and interaction processes. Personalizing the shopping experience and profiling customers’ needs based on eye movement data promises to further increase conversion rates and customer satisfaction. Third, eye movement-based recommender systems do not need to interrupt consumers and thus do not take away attention from the purchase process. Finally, our paper outlines the technological basis of our approach and discusses the practical relevance of individual predictors.

Moderating Effect of Career on Women Online Shopping Behaviour in South-South, Nigeria

The study examined the moderating effect of career on women online shopping behaviour. Data for the study were gathered from 330 career women in South-South, Nigeria through structured questionnaire. The study is explored five constructs and evaluated a proposed model explaining the moderating effect of career and the relationship between them. SPSS version 25 was used for preliminary analysis while WarpPLS 7.0 was used in testing the hypothesized relationships. The findings revealed that career moderates the influence of perceived risk, perceived usefulness, performance expectancy and internet self-efficacy in online shopping behaviour among career women while social influence is partially supported and validated from the analysis. The study concludes that the proposed model would serve as a relevant theory that will be helpful in understanding the adoption decisions of career women in working and shopping environments. The study recommends that continuous patronage of online shops by career women can only be guaranteed with improvements in online shopping sites in order to attract and increase traffic to them.