Usage, Pleasure, Price, and Feeling: A Study on Shopping Orientation and Consumer Outcome.

Shaoqiong Zhao,Fangmei Liu,Pu Chen,Yan Zhu,Feng Wei

doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2022.823890

Abstract

Understanding the behavior of consumers and especially the purchase-related behavior has been a focus of research for the past decades. Thus, researchers and practitioners are curious to know how purchase patterns are different under different conditions such as product category, price, feeling, and so on. The primary focus of this study was to examine how the price of the products influences the purchase behavior of consumers across hedonic and utilitarian categories under regulatory focus theory (RFT). The secondary insight was to examine how mood can moderate this impact. We conducted three experimental studies to examine these research questions regarding the preference of consumers of hedonic (utilitarian) products when the price is low (high) and at different mood conditions in this purchase process. The results confirmed our hypothesis that product category has a significant impact on purchase choice of products and mood can mediate this impact. In the last section, we discussed the theoretical contribution, strategic insights for product designers and marketers, and possible future research directions.

Highlights

Academia researchers and practical business managers are always interested in what can affect consumer purchase choices. Vieira et al (2018) studied the relationship between hedonic and utilitarian values on shopping response through meta-analysis using 190 previous studies
Based on the literature review of hedonic and utilitarian concepts, regulatory focus theory (RFT), and loss aversion theory, we developed the first part of hypotheses about choices between hedonic and utilitarian products under different price conditions
In the three experimental studies with cell phones and laptop computers, we showed that the price of the products has an effect on consumer choice between hedonic and utilitarian products, and this effect can be attenuated by the manipulation of the goals and mood of consumers

Summary

Introduction

Academia researchers and practical business managers are always interested in what can affect consumer purchase choices. Vieira et al (2018) studied the relationship between hedonic and utilitarian values on shopping response through meta-analysis using 190 previous studies. Vieira et al (2018) studied the relationship between hedonic and utilitarian values on shopping response through meta-analysis using 190 previous studies. This shows the importance of hedonic and utilitarian nature on consumer purchase behavior, which is the motivation for conducting this study. Hedonic refers to the fun, experiential, and aesthetic natures, and utilitarian refers to the practical, functional, and instrumental natures (Dhar and Wetenbroch, 2000; Anderson et al, 2014; Vieira et al, 2018). Products differ in the extent to which their overall attitudes are derived from hedonic and utilitarian domains. Consumers distinguish products between hedonic and utilitarian nature from these different

Objectives

Methods

Results