• Asia pacific journal of information systems
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• v.22 no.1
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• pp.29-52
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• 2012

Consumers differ in the way they make a purchase. An audio mania would willingly make a bold, yet serious, decision to buy a top-of-the-line home theater system, while he is not interested in replacing his two-decade-old shabby car. On the contrary, an automobile enthusiast wouldn't mind spending forty thousand dollars to buy a new Jaguar convertible, yet cares little about his junky component system. It is product involvement that helps us explain such differences among individuals in the purchase style. Product involvement refers to the extent to which a product is perceived to be important to a consumer (Zaichkowsky, 2001). Product involvement is an important factor that strongly influences consumer's purchase decision-making process, and thus has been of prime interest to consumer behavior researchers. Furthermore, researchers found that involvement is closely related to perceived risk (Dholakia, 2001). While abundant research exists addressing how product involvement relates to overall perceived risk, little attention has been paid to the relationship between involvement and different types of perceived risk in an electronic commerce setting. Given that perceived risk can be a substantial barrier to the online purchase (Jarvenpaa, 2000), research addressing such an issue will offer useful implications on what specific types of perceived risk an online firm should focus on mitigating if it is to increase sales to a fullest potential. Meanwhile, past research has focused on such consumer responses as information search and dissemination as a consequence of involvement, neglecting other behavioral responses like online merchant selection. For one example, will a consumer seriously considering the purchase of a pricey Guzzi bag perceive a great degree of risk associated with online buying and therefore choose to buy it from a digital storefront rather than from an online marketplace to mitigate risk? Will a consumer require greater trust on the part of the online merchant when the perceived risk of online buying is rather high? We intend to find answers to these research questions through an empirical study. This paper explores the impact of enduring product involvement and perceived risks on required trust level, and further on online merchant choice. For the purpose of the research, five types or components of perceived risk are taken into consideration, including financial, performance, delivery, psychological, and social risks. A research model has been built around the constructs under consideration, and 12 hypotheses have been developed based on the research model to examine the relationships between enduring involvement and five components of perceived risk, between five components of perceived risk and required trust level, between enduring involvement and required trust level, and finally between required trust level and preference toward an e-tailer. To attain our research objectives, we conducted an empirical analysis consisting of two phases of data collection: a pilot test and main survey. The pilot test was conducted using 25 college students to ensure that the questionnaire items are clear and straightforward. Then the main survey was conducted using 295 college students at a major university for nine days between December 13, 2010 and December 21, 2010. The measures employed to test the model included eight constructs: (1) enduring involvement, (2) financial risk, (3) performance risk, (4) delivery risk, (5) psychological risk, (6) social risk, (7) required trust level, (8) preference toward an e-tailer. The statistical package, SPSS 17.0, was used to test the internal consistency among the items within the individual measures. Based on the Cronbach's ${\alpha}$ coefficients of the individual measure, the reliability of all the variables is supported. Meanwhile, the Amos 18.0 package was employed to perform a confirmatory factor analysis designed to assess the unidimensionality of the measures. The goodness of fit for the measurement model was satisfied. Unidimensionality was tested using convergent, discriminant, and nomological validity. The statistical evidences proved that the three types of validity were all satisfied. Now the structured equation modeling technique was used to analyze the individual paths along the relationships among the research constructs. The results indicated that enduring involvement has significant positive relationships with all the five components of perceived risk, while only performance risk is significantly related to trust level required by consumers for purchase. It can be inferred from the findings that product performance problems are mostly likely to occur when a merchant behaves in an opportunistic manner. Positive relationships were also found between involvement and required trust level and between required trust level and online merchant choice. Enduring involvement is concerned with the pleasure a consumer derives from a product class and/or with the desire for knowledge for the product class, and thus is likely to motivate the consumer to look for ways of mitigating perceived risk by requiring a higher level of trust on the part of the online merchant. Likewise, a consumer requiring a high level of trust on the merchant will choose a digital storefront rather than an e-marketplace, since a digital storefront is believed to be trustworthier than an e-marketplace, as it fulfills orders by itself rather than acting as an intermediary. The findings of the present research provide both academic and practical implications. The first academic implication is that enduring product involvement is a strong motivator of consumer responses, especially the selection of a merchant, in the context of electronic shopping. Secondly, academicians are advised to pay attention to the finding that an individual component or type of perceived risk can be used as an important research construct, since it would allow one to pinpoint the specific types of risk that are influenced by antecedents or that influence consequents. Meanwhile, our research provides implications useful for online merchants (both online storefronts and e-marketplaces). Merchants may develop strategies to attract consumers by managing perceived performance risk involved in purchase decisions, since it was found to have significant positive relationship with the level of trust required by a consumer on the part of the merchant. One way to manage performance risk would be to thoroughly examine the product before shipping to ensure that it has no deficiencies or flaws. Secondly, digital storefronts are advised to focus on symbolic goods (e.g., cars, cell phones, fashion outfits, and handbags) in which consumers are relatively more involved than others, whereas e- marketplaces should put their emphasis on non-symbolic goods (e.g., drinks, books, MP3 players, and bike accessories).

• Journal of the Korean Society of Clothing and Textiles
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• v.21 no.7
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• pp.1124-1138
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• 1997

This study intended to investigate the concept of Clothing Involvement and Brand and to provide useful basic data for building on affective brand strategy. The purpose of this study is as follows: first, It is to measure the result of Brand Extension attitudes and Brand Extension items by clothing involvement (high involvement/low involvement). Second, It is to classify the factors of Clothing Involvement which suggested in theoretical research and to clarify correlation between clothing involvement factor and brand evaluation, brand extension attitudes. Third, It is to investigate the affect that clothing involvement, demographic variable and brand type on Brand Extension Evaluation. Subjects of this study were the adult women in Seoul, who were extracted by sampling randomly during the fall of 1995. Questionnaire was used as major method of gathering data. They were analyzed by the SAS method such as Frequency, Anova, Duncan, Correlation, multiple regression, Factor analysis. Main result of this study were as follows : 1. In brand extension attitude evaluation by high-involve group and low-involve group, quality, reputation and buying intension of brand extension attitudes showed significant difference. B brand extension attitudes and items of high-involve group was high compare to low-involve stoup. High-involve group evaluated watch, underwear, shoes and stocking of extension items highly, and there is no involvement difference of perfume, parasol, cushion. 2. In order to classify the dimension of Clothing Involvement, it was carried out factor analysis. 1 found that Clothing Involvement was composed of 4 factors, namely, interest - fashion.perceived risk symbolism. Correlation between clothing involvement and brand extension attitude was as followed; Interest factor of clothing involvement was correlated the existing brand attitude. Brand preference of the existing brand attitude was related the image of brand extension attitude, interest of advertising was the quality and the reputation-image was the buying intension. 3. For evaluation of a factor influenced on Brand Extension, it was produced multiple -regression test. Demographic variables and brand types had some influence of Clothing Involvement and Clothing Involvement had on brand extension. 27% of interest, 26% of symbolism was explained by brand types and 15% of fashion, 6% of perceived risk was explained by brand types, demographic variables. And, 10% of brand extension was explained by interest, fashion and symbolism.

• Asia Marketing Journal
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• v.18 no.4
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• pp.139-160
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• 2017

Despite widespread awareness of the importance of a middle-aging and older consumer market, it is surprising that very little research has been conducted on their in-home shopping behavior. Therefore, this study focused on middle-aging and older female television home shoppers and examined the effects of persuasive mentions of the show host and parasocial interaction on social involvement, perceived loneliness, mood, perceived risk and unplanned buying tendency. A total of 109 middleaged and older female television shoppers responded. Results of path analysis revealed that persuasive mentions did not influence parasocial interaction. However, as middle-aging and older consumers more para-socially interacted with the host, they were likely to use television shopping for alleviating loneliness. Practical and theoretical implications were discussed.

• Journal of the Korea Fashion and Costume Design Association
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• v.10 no.3
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• pp.149-161
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• 2008

Internet shopping provides convenience to consumers, however, in recent years the consumer's return rate and return-related disputes continue to increase. This article examines the characteristics of return behavior through return experiences of internet clothing purchases. For an empirical study, questionnaires were handed out to 317 undergraduate male and female students, in which the results had been used for data analysis. Data were analyzed through SPSS 12.0 software, descriptive statistics, factor analysis, t-test, ANDVA analysis, Duncan test, and $x^2-test$. The results are the following: The analysis of consumers' return factor for clothes in Internet shopping showed there are five factors: product and quality, delivery, impulse buying, change of mind, and service. There is a significant difference in product quality of return factors depending on the availability of the return experience. Thus, consumers with return experience showed more return tendency owing to product quality factor than consumers without return experience. The availability of consumer's return experience was significantly related to information search. Consumers with return experience showed more consistent information search than consumers without return experience. There were significant differences in perceived risks depending on the availability and degree of consumer's return experience. In other words, consumers with return experience perceived more account related risk than consumers without return experience. Moreover, the more return experience the consumer has, the more risks consumers perceived in product performance.

• The Journal of Asian Finance, Economics and Business
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• v.8 no.2
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• pp.1063-1070
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• 2021

The study aims to investigate the role of consumer's social risk perceptions in retailing private label brands. Since private label brands are exclusively available at retail stores, consumers make their purchase decisions regarding them based on the image of that retail outlet. While buying them, risk perceptions are influenced by the retail store's image. The study identifies various retail store dimensions. For this purpose, primary data was collected using a survey questionnaire that was administered to a representative sample of retail store consumers in Riyadh. The data was analyzed and exploratory factor analysis was applied using SPSS 25 version to extract store image dimensions. The results showed six significant dimensions of retail store image namely 'Sales Staff', 'Promotion', 'Store Environment', 'Store Services', 'Product Assortment', and 'Customer Convenience'. Regression Analysis was performed and the effect of these retail store image dimensions was tested on social risk perceptions of consumers. Results indicate that store image dimensions significantly influence consumer's perceived social risk perceptions. However, the relationship is not consistent across all the six identified store image dimensions. The study brings forth several valuable consumer insights and the findings of the study have some very interesting and practical implications for retailers.

• Journal of the Korea Fashion and Costume Design Association
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• v.22 no.2
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• pp.1-18
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• 2020

The purpose of this study is to investigate the consumers' characteristics in terms of information source usage and purchase channel choice focusing on apparel purchasers in the multichannel retailing environment. The specific research objects are as follows: analyzing consumer's information source usage and purchase channel choice when buying their own clothing, examining the differences of consumers' characteristics according to the groups who are classified by their information source usages, and examining the differences of consumers' characteristics according to the purchase channel choice. The data was collected from adults over 20 years of age who had bought their own clothing within the last year. The questionnaire was carried out during September 2019, using a professional internet research panel, and 490 useful data sets were analyzed by utilizing descriptive statistics, factor analysis, reliability analysis, chi-squared test, ANOVA and a Duncan-test using SPSS 21.0. The findings showed that there were also significant differences of consumers' characteristics which included age, gender, monthly clothing expenditure, purchase price, shopping value and perceived risk according to the consumer's information source usage and their purchase channel choice.

• The Journal of Asian Finance, Economics and Business
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• v.8 no.3
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• pp.1361-1369
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• 2021

Recent technological advancements have had a substantial impact on consumer buying behavior. This research aims to determine the factors affecting consumer behavior related to the adoption of self-service technologies (SSTs). The intended findings of this study are expected to contribute to understanding consumer behavior towards the adoption of SSTs taking into account the logic of two main theories in this regard: the Technology Acceptance Model (TAM) and the assumptions of the Behavioral Perspective Model (BPM). This research follows a triangulation approach. Consequently, a number of semi structured interviews were conducted with experts and executive directors from selected SSTs providers in Jordan. In addition, the convenience sampling technique was employed focusing on current (or) previous users of SSTs in the public and private sectors in Jordan using a self-administrative questionnaire (66% response rate). The results confirmed the influence (direct and indirect) of previous experience and personal initiatives and characteristics on consumer intention to use SSTs. In addition, the results indicated the important role of the mediator variables namely: perceived ease of use (EOU), perceived risk (PR), and perceived usefulness (PU) on consumer attitude towards SSTs which in turn will positively affect consumer intention to use SSTs.

• Journal of the Korean Home Economics Association
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• v.36 no.5
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• pp.29-46
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• 1998

This study investigates how the consumers utilize the elements of information search and how consumers are satisfied with them. For this study, drives who have bought their own cars in two years were chosen for subjects of investigation. And samples were interviewed with an organized questionaire from July 8 to July 27, 1996. 300 samples were used for the final analysis. The major results from this study are as follows. 1) In general information search, consumers get a great deal of information from a talk their friends, neighbors, or colleagues, and they obtain information from an experienced person or a professional. In using sources of information search, they made the best use of their experiences, which is the sources of internal information, and for the second, they used advertising and the explanation of a salesman. In using the contents of information search, they made the best use of information about the merits and demerits in each attribute. In using the method of information search, the mixed search 1 method was used the most, and the attribute search method was used. 2) The casual relationship between the general satisfaction for the products and the relative variable was investigated. An age, the time pressure, the information of the products had a direct and indirect influence on the general for the products. The perceived risk, the number of inquiring activity, a shop and the buying method had a direct influence on the general for the products. An indirect influence was showed in the general satisfaction for the products through the medium of inquiring activity, a shop, and buying method.

• Journal of Distribution Science
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• v.13 no.9
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• pp.81-93
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• 2015

Purpose - "Showrooming" refers to the phenomenon where a shopper visits a store to see and compare products but makes the purchase online at a lower price. Surveys on showrooming activities at home and abroad indicate that a significant number of consumers pursue showrooming activities. The advent of "showroomers," who engage in buying activities, hovering both on and offline, while selectively choosing sales channels to suit their needs, is powerful enough to erode the borders between channels and bring about seismic changes in the distribution industry. However, surprisingly, there has been no in-depth discussion on showrooming. This study seeks to theoretically investigate what impact personal characteristics have on showrooming preferences and attitudes in a multi-channel environment. Specifically, assumptions have been made that price perception, perceived performance risk, and trust in online shopping not only have a direct impact on showrooming attitudes but also indirectly affect it through the means of contact motivation. Research design, data, and methodology - To test the hypotheses, this study conducted a survey of male and female shoppers, ages 20 through 40s, who live in metropolitan areas, and have actively showroomed fashion items in the last six months. A clothing item usually purchased after a careful decision-making process was chosen as the target product of the study. The survey was conducted between October and November 2014, using a professional survey service provider. A total of 200 surveys were collected, of which 198 were used for analysis. Conceptual model Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) and Amos 18.0 were employed for data analysis and model verification. In addition, following the confirmatory factor analysis and measurement model analysis, the theoretical model that corresponds to the research model was analyzed. Results - Analysis results show that price perception, perceived performance risk, and trust in online shopping have a statistically significant and positive (+) impact on showrooming attitudes. In addition, in terms of the indirect influence of price perception and perceived performance risk on showrooming attitudes through means of contact motivation, price perception had a statistically significant and positive impact on means of contact motivation, whereas perceived performance risk did not have a statistically significant impact on it, with the relevant hypothesis rejected. Conclusions - These analysis results imply that the ultimate goal of consumers is to maximize their shopping benefits by selectively and strategically taking advantage of different channels in a complementary manner. This study presents many implications for distributors to encourage a deep understanding of showrooming consumers who have complicated consumption behaviors and to build channel integration strategies. This study has limitations in theoretical and practical implications. Therefore, subsequent studies need to focus on verifying that showrooming activities are based on reasonable and planned decisions by applying the theory of reasoned or planned behavior. In addition, the scope of the study should expand to include web showrooming, where consumers conduct product research online and purchase offline.

• Asia Marketing Journal
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• v.6 no.2
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• pp.3-22
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• 2004

Prior researches related to private brands have mainly focused on the competition between private brands and national brands. But private brands can be allied with national brands to overcome its weak points such as low perceived quality. The purpose of this study is to investigate the consumer responses to the alliance between private brands and national brands. Especially this paper focused on the situation in which national brands are used as ingredient brands to improve the consumers' preference toward private brands. We hypothesized that using national brands as ingredient brands would improved the consumers' perceived quality and buying intention toward private brands. Also we supposed that when national brands had moderate congruity with product category, consumers' preference would be most positive. And this study examined the moderating effects of functional risk. Factorial experimental design and scenario method were employed to test the hypotheses. Also we classified the products as utilitarian-hedonic products and compared the effects of ingredient brands on utilitarian products with hedonic products. Empirical results show that when private brands use national brands as ingredient brands, consumer responses become positive. Also when ingredient brands have moderate congruity with products, consumer responses are most positive. But moderate congruity effect is significant only when functional risk is low.