The impact of products’ perceived value on consumer behavior and feelings when online or in-store

• Autor(a) principal: Martins, Marta Gomes de Moura
• Data de Publicação: 2022
• Tipo de documento: Dissertação
• Idioma: eng
• Título da fonte: Repositório Científico de Acesso Aberto de Portugal (Repositórios Cientìficos)
• Texto Completo: http://hdl.handle.net/10400.14/38379
• topic: Guilt; Hedonic; Utilitarian; Online; In-store; Social norms; Anticipated satisfaction; Self-esteem; Culpa; Hedónico; Utilitário; Online; Em loja; Normas sociais; Satisfação antecipada; Autoestima; Domínio/Área Científica::Ciências Sociais::Economia e Gestão

Do we act the same when we buy online or in-store? And how about when we are led into hedonism? Do we feel different than when under utilitarianism? Do we care about the perceived social norms when purchasing? These are some of the questions this thesis analyzes, as it becomes crucial to better understand consumers’ behavior and emotions under different contexts. Three experimental studies asked participants to imagine they were shopping online or in-store. It was found that purchasing online will lead to distinct behaviors than buying physically. However, it is indeed the perceived value of the product that has an actual effect on consumers’ guilt feelings, even though this emotion does not interfere with one’s self-esteem. Besides, when in-store, consumers were found to be more concerned about following perceived social standards on the first study, and in others, there was a higher concern about touching or smelling the products. Additionally, they also anticipate more satisfaction when consuming online, rather than when offline, which is presented as an opposite result to previous literature. This research contributes to deepening conclusions on the influence of purchasing channels and the perceived value of goods, which is of profound interest as consumption gets more complex and as it gets harder to comprehend consumers’ behavior.