제품유형과 통제욕구가 소비자의 자율쇼핑 시스템 채택의향에 미치는 영향

Abstract

Purpose: With the proliferation of artificial intelligence (AI) and autonomous technology, automation has changed many aspects of the retail industry. This research explored the nascent but essential topic of how consumers respond to autonomous shopping systems to which consumers delegate substantial parts of shopping decisions and tasks. Autonomous shopping systems have changed the shopping process tremendously by reducing or eliminating the need for human decision-making. Recommend systems offer personalized recommendations and take a supporting role, but autonomous shopping systems go beyond providing suggestions or recommendations by actively taking over shopping processe without consumers’ intervention. Removing the decision-making process offers advantages such as saving time and effort or alleviating cognitive tradeoffs. On the other hand, consumers may be reluctant to adopt autonomous shopping systems due to the lack of perceived control or higher uncertainty of decision satisfaction. In this study, two experiments were conducted to see when consumers’ adoption intention toward autonomous shopping systems increases by focusing on the moderating role of hedonic vs. utilitarian product type and consumers’ desire for control. Research design, data, and methodology: Study 1 was conducted to verify that the product type moderates the effect of the shopping system type on consumers’ attitudes toward the shopping system, including product evaluation and shopping system adoption intention. The experiment used a 2 × 2 between-subjects factorial design of the shopping system type (recommend system vs. autonomous shopping system) and product type (utilitarian product vs. hedonic product). One hundred and forty-one responses were used in the analysis. The purpose of Study 2 was to test the moderating role of consumers’ desire for control in the effect of shopping system type on attitudes toward the shopping system. For this experiment, a 2 × 2 between-subjects factorial design of shopping system type (recommendation system vs. autonomous shopping system) and desire for control (low vs. high) was used. One hundred and sixty-one responses were used in the analysis. Results: Study 1 found that consumers’ attitudes toward autonomous shopping systems differ by product type. For the hedonic product, product evaluation and shopping system adoption intention was higher in recommend system than autonomous shopping system. For the utilitarian product, however, there was no difference in product evaluation and adoption intention between recommend system and autonomous shopping system. Study 2 revealed that the desire for control could be a psychological barrier to autonomous shopping system acceptance. Specifically, for consumers with a low desire for control, there was no difference in product evaluation and adoption intention between recommend system and autonomous shopping system. On the contrary, for consumers with a high desire for control, product evaluation and adoption intention were lower in the autonomous shopping system than the recommend system. Conclusions: This research provides several theoretical and managerial contributions by adding new insights into the psychology of automation and human-technology interactions in the retail industry. First, this study extends the literature by addressing whether hedonic vs. utilitarian product type leads to the preference for or resistance to autonomous shopping systems. The results suggest that the autonomous shopping system would be more effective in cases of shopping utilitarian (vs. hedonic) products. Managers could apply an effective shopping system introduction in a way that is aligned with the target products. When hedonic attributes are relatively more important, promoting products with recommend system is desirable. On the other hand, when utilitarian attributes are relatively more important, selling products with the autonomous shopping system would be more effective. Second, when the desire for control is high (vs. low), consumers are less willing to adopt the autonomous shopping system. Consistent with this result, marketers should establish and apply an effective marketing strategy by adjusting the autonomy level of the shopping system according to the consumers’ desire for control.