Discussion on the Purchase Factors and the User Demands of Electric Scooters from the Perspective of Consumers’ Life Style—A Case Study on Gogoro

Xi-Hui Jia,Jui-Che Tu,Ting-Jen Yang

doi:10.3390/pr10020395

Abstract

With the development and popularization of the concept of a sustainable environment, the green energy industry represented by electric scooters has entered a vigorous development period. However, consumers are reluctant to buy electric scooters, resulting in low sales, which is limiting the development of the electric scooter industry. Therefore, from the perspective of different consumer life styles, this study explored the impact on the purchasing decisions and user demands, so as to inform design strategy for the development of a sustainable electric scooter industry. This study adopted the methods of expert interview and questionnaire survey, used the self-made consumer life style and electric scooter product attribute scale as the research tool, and carried out quantitative analysis with the help of statistical software. It showed that compared with consumers’ awareness of environmental protection, product performance is the key factor that attracts consumers to buy electric scooters. More than consumers’ awareness of environmental protection, our study showed that product performance is the primary determinate of a consumers’s decision to purchase electric scooters. The consumer of the electric scooter can be categorized into three life style groups: “brand-conscious group”, “environmental and cost saving group” and “trendy adventurers group”. Outside of the “environmental and cost savings” group, the least important attribute that drive purchasing decisions was environmental sustainability. This can also inform more effective governmental policies and education to promote greater environmental protection. Each life style consumer group prioritizes different product attributes; therefore, electric scooter manufacturers should view each group as distinct market segments and draw up different product design and marketing strategies.

Highlights

Faced with the increasingly severe global warming, the world has seen the energy crisis gradually emerging, and there is international consensus on the importance of environmental protection and greater advocacy for green consumption practices. [1,2,3]
Our study shows that the consumers of electric scooters can be divided into three different consumer life style clusters, namely, those who prioritize luxury branding, those who care about protecting the environment, and those who value risky trendy adventuresome experiences
From the marketing point of view, this study found that consumers’ awareness of environmental protection will affect their willingness to buy electric scooters, the impact level is not high, and it is still apparently necessary for government policies to support and promote the sales of electric scooters to achieve desired environmental sustainability goals

Summary

Introduction

Faced with the increasingly severe global warming, the world has seen the energy crisis gradually emerging, and there is international consensus on the importance of environmental protection and greater advocacy for green consumption practices. [1,2,3]. Faced with the increasingly severe global warming, the world has seen the energy crisis gradually emerging, and there is international consensus on the importance of environmental protection and greater advocacy for green consumption practices. At present, advanced countries are replacing traditional gasoline scooters with electric scooters that feature “low noise, zero emissions, energy savings, and environmental protection” as an important policy in industrial and environmental development. In Taiwan, scooters are one of the main causes of air pollution [9,10,11,12] In this regard, the Environmental Protection Administration, Executive Yuan works for the EPA of Taiwan, continuously encourages manufacturers to produce environmentally friendly vehicles, and publicizes the relative pollution emissions data of vehicles, and strives to improve urban air quality.

Objectives

Methods

Results

Discussion

Conclusion