Recently,
online auction sites have identified a new window to attract more
consumers. The answer is through
emotional shoppers. Online auction sites
have appealed to emotional shoppers through new exciting shopping processes. These include searching and bidding!
Pooler
indicates that a new perspective of shopping has emerged. In the past, people used the traditional
perspective of shopping where shopping was perceived as acquiring needed goods
and services based on practical and rational shopping decisions. However, nowadays, people go shopping to
reward themselves, to satisfy their emotional needs and to make them feel good
(2003)(Lee, Kim, Lee, p. 50, 2010). If
your reasons to go shopping relate to the ladder, then you are known as an
emotional shopper! This new emergence
has resulted and translated into a consumer’s excitement, arousal and enjoyment
when experiencing shopping activities.
Recently, researchers have linked e-commerce activities to emotional
shopping. This vulnerability in the
consumer attracts online auction sites and they are looking for new ways to
target and appeal consumers.
You
may be wondering: How does this work? What are the success factors? The authors
explain that one significant success factor is the fun of participating in the
auction process. “If a consumer bids for
a product at an online auction site for a pleasurable shopping experience, this
experience cannot be obtained when he opts to purchase the product at a ‘known’
regular price through a non-auction channel.
It is the emotional consumer who is likely to engage in online auctions”
(Lee, Kim, Lee, p. 51, 2010).
Findings
suggest that the emotional aspect of online auctions can be summarized by 3
factors: variety in shopping, exploration, and active play. “After successful bidding, the shopper ‘wins’
the item, more than ‘buys’ it. The
thrill of bidding and excitement of winning certainly meet the need of the emotional
shopper (Ariely and Simonson, 2003; Standifird et al., 2005).
The
analyses of their study proceeded in two stages:
- A cluster analysis uncovered auction shopper segments
that emerged from the two dimensions of emotional shopping motivation.
- Regression analyses determined the predictive
powers of demographic and psychographic variables in discriminating auction
shopper segments.
The
study identified online auction shopper segments based on emotional motivations
and examined the role of demographic and psychographic characteristics in
profiling auction shopper segments. Four
auction shopper segments were identified: enthusiastic, adventure-oriented,
gratification-oriented, and apathetic shoppers.
The demographic values that the researchers selected include: Age,
gender, income and education. Whereas,
the psychographics profiles include impulsiveness, variety-seeking, price
sensitivity, risk-consciousness.
Several
interesting findings include:
- Impulsiveness is a significant predictor to
differentiate shopper segments.
Specifically, enthusiastic shoppers present high impulsiveness, while
apathetic shoppers present low impulsiveness.
- Variety-seeking tendency is a significant
variable to discriminate enthusiastic shoppers and adventure-oriented shoppers
from apathetic shoppers.
- Gratification-oriented shoppers, compared to
adventure-oriented shoppers, had more female shoppers. They represented a positive relationship with
impulsiveness, whereas this relationship was negative to adventure-oriented
shoppers. Therefore, their shopping
decision seems to be impulsive, and they may satisfy their needs by enjoying
web atmospherics or unexpected events displayed on the sites.
- Adventure-oriented shoppers had more male
shoppers than gratification-oriented shoppers did. Men have been traditionally viewed as
goal-oriented shoppers; however, the thrill of winning in auction shopping
combined with advanced technology may boost their adventurous feeling.
For
more interesting findings and further reading be sure to check out their
article!
Post by:
Paulina
Enrriquez Dominguez
Sources:
