The impact of exposure to nature on consumers’ willingness to wait

Abstract

One ubiquitous phenomenon in retail settings is that consumers do not have immediate access to the products or services they choose. In this research, we explore when and why exposure to nature affects consumers’ willingness to wait when their initially chosen alternative is temporarily unavailable. Using different consumption scenarios and manipulations, the results from four empirical studies, including one field study, consistently show that exposure to nature could increase consumers’ willingness to wait (Studies 1a & 1b), which is sequentially mediated by relaxation and the estimated speed of waiting time passage (Study 2). In addition, this effect would be attenuated for consumers with a limited future time view (Study 3). These findings contribute to the literature on exposure to nature and willingness to wait and provide meaningful managerial implications.