Abstract
Attracting more consumers through mobile online platforms has become the most important thing for luxury brands. However, few studies have explored how cultural context, as exemplified by face consciousness and source credibility, influences the online luxury consumption and promotion of mobile users. To fill that research gap, this study constructed a research model of Chinese consumers to examine the effect of source credibility on the online luxury purchase and recommendation intentions of mobile consumers, and the moderating effects of face consciousness were examined. A structural equation model was also employed in our study. Furthermore, a field survey with 168 mobile online shopping customers was conducted to test the research model and hypotheses. The empirical results confirm the following: (1) the source credibility of online reviews had a positive effect on the online luxury purchase intentions of mobile customers but increased their intention to recommend the shopping site even more in a luxury environment; (2) face consciousness had a negative moderating effect between source credibility and the online luxury purchase intention of mobile consumers; and (3) face consciousness had a negative moderating effect between source credibility and the luxury recommendation intention of mobile consumers. The implications for theory and practice and suggestions for future research were also discussed.
Highlights
In this era of rampantly growing global electronic commerce, the number of people shopping online is increasing exponentially
On the basis of the above discussion, this study examined the effect of source credibility on the online luxury purchase and recommendation intentions of consumers, and the moderating effects of face consciousness were been examined in a Chinese context
Our results show that the parameter estimate for the interaction term was significantly negative (β −0.145, t −2.614, p < 0.05, one-tailed) for recommendation intention (Model 3, Table 7), indicating that face consciousness negatively moderated the relationship between source credibility and online luxury recommendation intention. us, H4 was not supported
Summary
In this era of rampantly growing global electronic commerce, the number of people shopping online is increasing exponentially. On the basis of the above discussion, this study examined the effect of source credibility on the online luxury purchase and recommendation intentions of consumers, and the moderating effects of face consciousness were been examined in a Chinese context. This study enriched the body of the socio-cultural and online luxury consumption literature by examining the effects of source credibility and boundary conditions, such as face consciousness on the motivation of Chinese online shoppers to buy luxury goods. The conclusions of this investigation may be useful for online marketers to understand how face consciousness might be employed to strengthen source credibility and increase the online purchase and recommendation intentions for luxury products of consumers.
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