“Consumer Perception of Environmental Sustainability of E-Retailers of Consumer Packaged Goods: Influence on Decision-Making”
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Аннотация
INTRODUCTION 7
Relevance of the study 7
Research gap 8
Research questions 8
Research overview 9
1. LITERATURE REVIEW 11
1.1 Environmental sustainability of consumer packaged goods 11
1.2 Characteristics of consumer packaged goods and their marketing 13
1.2.1 Characteristics of consumer packaged goods 13
1.2.2 The role of packaging in the marketing of consumer packaged goods 14
1.3 Sales of consumer goods in the e-retail environment 17
1.4 Discussion on consumer choice of packaged goods 22
1.4.1 Overall understanding of consumer choice 22
1.4.2 Consumer choice models for products with low consumer involvement: cue and
signaling theory 23
1.4.3 Consumer buying likelihood 26
1.4.4 Word-of-mouth intentions 29
2. RESEARCH MODEL AND METHODOLOGY 33
2.1 Research overview 33
2.1.1 Research methodology 33
2.1.2 Data analysis tools 33
2.1.3 Product categories and websites 34
2.2 Pretesting 35
2.3 Main experiment 40
3. RESULTS 48
3.1 Socio-demographic characteristics 48
3.2 Experimental data analysis 48
3.3 Verification of the research hypotheses 61
4. DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSION 64
4.1 Main findings 64
4.2 Theoretical contributions 65
4.3 Managerial implications 66
4.4 Limitations and directions for future research 68
CONCLUSION 69
REFERENCES 72
APPENDIX 80
Appendix 1 - pre-test 80
Appendix 2 - main experiment results analysis 83
INTRODUCTION 7
Relevance of the study 7
Research gap 8
Research questions 8
Research overview 9
1. LITERATURE REVIEW 11
1.1 Environmental sustainability of consumer packaged goods 11
1.2 Characteristics of consumer packaged goods and their marketing 13
1.2.1 Characteristics of consumer packaged goods 13
1.2.2 The role of packaging in the marketing of consumer packaged goods 14
1.3 Sales of consumer goods in the e-retail environment 17
1.4 Discussion on consumer choice of packaged goods 22
1.4.1 Overall understanding of consumer choice 22
1.4.2 Consumer choice models for products with low consumer involvement: cue and
signaling theory 23
1.4.3 Consumer buying likelihood 26
1.4.4 Word-of-mouth intentions 29
2. RESEARCH MODEL AND METHODOLOGY 33
2.1 Research overview 33
2.1.1 Research methodology 33
2.1.2 Data analysis tools 33
2.1.3 Product categories and websites 34
2.2 Pretesting 35
2.3 Main experiment 40
3. RESULTS 48
3.1 Socio-demographic characteristics 48
3.2 Experimental data analysis 48
3.3 Verification of the research hypotheses 61
4. DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSION 64
4.1 Main findings 64
4.2 Theoretical contributions 65
4.3 Managerial implications 66
4.4 Limitations and directions for future research 68
CONCLUSION 69
REFERENCES 72
APPENDIX 80
Appendix 1 - pre-test 80
Appendix 2 - main experiment results analysis 83
These days, consumer trends have changed to a large extent - people are becoming more concerned about the environment, where consumption waste is one of the main causes of the concern. Consumer demands for product convenience only enhance the environmental anxiety because retailers offer those product alternatives that satisfy consumer needs. Packaging that is difficult to recycle, made of layers of different materials, one of which is plastic, is perceived by consumers as environmentally unsustainable, however, such packaging effectively fulfills its utilitarian function and offers consumption convenience. At the same time, consumers are increasingly willing to make individual contributions to a more environmentally sustainable society.
On the other hand, one trend in terms of increasing consumer convenience in grocery shopping is the growing popularity of e-retailing and delivery services, which differ in consumer perception from conventional brick-and-mortar stores. In the e-retail environment marketing specialists have less opportunity to influence how consumers perceive the product presented - rely mostly on consumers’ senses, namely vision. Therefore, marketers often use signaling and sensory marketing theories, the analogue of which has been used for many years - since the advent of self-service stores, as the marketing function of packaging containing graphical labels, verbal descriptions, and illustrations. In other words, marketers who promote products online can use elements of website design in forms of verbal and visual cues, and combinations of several of them as well as other techniques to stimulate a particular behavior or simplify the process of product selection - what consumers need for an easier and efficient selection process in an online environment. Therefore, website cues signaling environmental sustainability can be used to help consumers make a better choice of products that fit their needs - the need for more environmentally sustainable options. Additionally, e-retail market is expected to grow, namely in Russia 7.5 fold within a few years, but the popularity of this shopping channel is contributing to consumers’ environmental concern and is generally understudied in terms of consumer behavior.
Linking the trends discussed above to the specifics of consumer products marketing, it is important to consider how the perceived environmental sustainability of e-retail environment for consumer packaged goods affects consumers’ choice. Indeed, product marketing differentiation is important for such goods where environmental sustainability signaling can be used as a competitive advantage for consumers who use simplified consumer decision-making models - use their senses, for instance vision, and word-of-mouth. However, the perception of options offered to consumers in an online environment is different from traditional retail. That is why it 7
is important to study how website environmental sustainability signaling by visual and verbal cues affects consumers’ choice, which makes this research topic relevant and practically applicable for marketers working with electronic sales channels.
Research gap
The existing research on consumer perception and choice of packaged goods that are perceived as environmentally sustainable owing to diverse signaling attributes is limited in the domain of e-retail. Therefore, there is high need for marketers to have a clear understanding of how consumers perceive environmental sustainability signaling in the online retail environment, whose rapid development and fast adaptation to consumers’ tastes has outpaced the research in the domain, and how this affects their choices of goods.
Additionally, there is lack of experimentation methodology in the domain of studying the consumer behavior when it comes to packaged goods and especially in the domain of e-retail environment that would reveal real behavioral patterns of consumer decision-making process. Moreover, some distinct attributes that signal environmental sustainability have not yet been studied, especially considered separately, thus the research will cover some of them.
Apart form that, there has been no research on the effect of post-purchase behavior of consumers when it comes to transmitting word-of-mouth intentions regarding the website shopping experience where there is environmental sustainability signaling present.
Therefore, the aim of this study is to examine the impact of the introduction of cues perceived as signaling environmental sustainability on the purchase decisions of consumers of packaged goods in the online retail environment.
Research questions
Responding to the following research questions is necessary to contribute to the aforementioned theoretical research gap and achieve the aim of the research:
How do cues signaling environmental sustainability of consumer packaged goods presented in the online retail environment can influence consumers’ willingness to buy the product.
How do cues signaling environmental sustainability of consumer packaged goods presented in the online retail environment can influence consumers’ attitude towards the e-retail website.....
On the other hand, one trend in terms of increasing consumer convenience in grocery shopping is the growing popularity of e-retailing and delivery services, which differ in consumer perception from conventional brick-and-mortar stores. In the e-retail environment marketing specialists have less opportunity to influence how consumers perceive the product presented - rely mostly on consumers’ senses, namely vision. Therefore, marketers often use signaling and sensory marketing theories, the analogue of which has been used for many years - since the advent of self-service stores, as the marketing function of packaging containing graphical labels, verbal descriptions, and illustrations. In other words, marketers who promote products online can use elements of website design in forms of verbal and visual cues, and combinations of several of them as well as other techniques to stimulate a particular behavior or simplify the process of product selection - what consumers need for an easier and efficient selection process in an online environment. Therefore, website cues signaling environmental sustainability can be used to help consumers make a better choice of products that fit their needs - the need for more environmentally sustainable options. Additionally, e-retail market is expected to grow, namely in Russia 7.5 fold within a few years, but the popularity of this shopping channel is contributing to consumers’ environmental concern and is generally understudied in terms of consumer behavior.
Linking the trends discussed above to the specifics of consumer products marketing, it is important to consider how the perceived environmental sustainability of e-retail environment for consumer packaged goods affects consumers’ choice. Indeed, product marketing differentiation is important for such goods where environmental sustainability signaling can be used as a competitive advantage for consumers who use simplified consumer decision-making models - use their senses, for instance vision, and word-of-mouth. However, the perception of options offered to consumers in an online environment is different from traditional retail. That is why it 7
is important to study how website environmental sustainability signaling by visual and verbal cues affects consumers’ choice, which makes this research topic relevant and practically applicable for marketers working with electronic sales channels.
Research gap
The existing research on consumer perception and choice of packaged goods that are perceived as environmentally sustainable owing to diverse signaling attributes is limited in the domain of e-retail. Therefore, there is high need for marketers to have a clear understanding of how consumers perceive environmental sustainability signaling in the online retail environment, whose rapid development and fast adaptation to consumers’ tastes has outpaced the research in the domain, and how this affects their choices of goods.
Additionally, there is lack of experimentation methodology in the domain of studying the consumer behavior when it comes to packaged goods and especially in the domain of e-retail environment that would reveal real behavioral patterns of consumer decision-making process. Moreover, some distinct attributes that signal environmental sustainability have not yet been studied, especially considered separately, thus the research will cover some of them.
Apart form that, there has been no research on the effect of post-purchase behavior of consumers when it comes to transmitting word-of-mouth intentions regarding the website shopping experience where there is environmental sustainability signaling present.
Therefore, the aim of this study is to examine the impact of the introduction of cues perceived as signaling environmental sustainability on the purchase decisions of consumers of packaged goods in the online retail environment.
Research questions
Responding to the following research questions is necessary to contribute to the aforementioned theoretical research gap and achieve the aim of the research:
How do cues signaling environmental sustainability of consumer packaged goods presented in the online retail environment can influence consumers’ willingness to buy the product.
How do cues signaling environmental sustainability of consumer packaged goods presented in the online retail environment can influence consumers’ attitude towards the e-retail website.....
The development of consumer sales channels - the use of e-retail, coupled with increasing consumer awareness and concern about the environment are contributing to an increase in consumer behavior and decision-making studies of the perception of this new paradigm of e-shopping. Moreover, due to the homogeneity of the properties of consumer products and the limited functionality of their marketing in the online context, managers working with the promotion of products in the online environment have little opportunity to differentiate offers - the impact on the potential customers is limited. One solution to this problem is to stimulate the perception of e-retail sales channels’ differentiation through various cues signaling the environmental sustainability of the e-retail environment and the products that are sold in it.
Therefore, the aim of this study is to examine the impact of the introduction of cues perceived as signaling environmental sustainability on the purchase decisions of consumers of packaged goods in the online retail environment. By cues we mean various signals that communicate certain information to consumers, and in our case it is a specially designed visual label and a verbal statement placed in the section describing the characteristics of the product.
With the view to achieve this goal, the research started from the analysis of the theoretical background in the form of scientific articles and books, profile reports and conference materials to form the basis for the practical part of the study, the outcome of which is the first chapter of the paper. More specifically, the consumer product marketing literature was reviewed, the specifics of selling products through online channels were examined, the literature on consumer behavior, cues signaling theory, and sensory marketing were analyzed, and aspects of consumer behavior in the areas of buying likelihood and intention to share word-of-mouth regarding shopping experience were investigated.
Much attention has been paid to the peculiarities of marketing of consumer goods, the main of which is the low involvement of consumers in the process of choice due to the homogeneity of product characteristics, the high frequency of their purchases and availability of a large number of alternatives as well as the low cost of their purchase. It was also highlighted that marketers working in online sales channels have at their disposal a much more limited number of tools to influence consumer behavior - they have access only to one of the five senses, namely vision, and the distance between buyer and seller is considerable. Moreover, an important feature of shopping in the online environment is that consumers tend to spend as little time and effort as possible on the shopping process: they use simplified methods of decisionmaking and trust their previous experience and the word-of-mouth effect. Moreover, it was determined in the section with the theory of cues signaling that verbal and visual cues are used for different purposes and are suitable for different stages of consumer choice. It was concluded that visual cues in the form of graphic objects, symbols and pictures are perceived by individuals faster, require less cognitive effort to review and analyze, and that they are generally easier to perceive. In other words, they are used to increase the effectiveness of marketing tools in online sales channels and simplify the process of making purchases. On the contrary, verbal signals in the form of verbal descriptions are used to explain more complex concepts and characteristics of products. One such characteristic is the environmental sustainability.
The second chapter detailed the methodology of the study, describing the reasons and procedure for using the experiment, the parameters manipulated and the variables studied, as well as the methods of data analysis. The experiment was conducted in two stages. In the first, preliminary stage, the parameters of manipulation - visual and verbal cues signaling environmental sustainability were determined. The former cue is a specially designed, unused in online sales channels “the Blue planet symbol” in vector format, which represents the care for the planet. It does not explicitly declare sustainability, but rather encourages or nudges users to think about the environment. The second cue, on the other hand, was more pronounced in terms of signaling environmental sustainability - a verbal “statement about the packaging ease of recycling”. Both cues were statistically tested for perceived sustainability signaling, and both were proven to be perceived as such. Moreover, it was determined that verbal cues have more significant effect on the consumers’ perception of environmental sustainability, they contribute more to the ease of finding product information and inspire more confidence in consumers.
The main experiment was conducted to analyze how the chosen environmental sustainability signaling cues influence the consumers’ decision-making in the online environment context. For the main experiment, web pages with different manipulations of the environmental sustainability cues defined in the previous step were specially created, and participants were then asked to fill out a feedback form about their experience of going through the experimental websites. In the end, 180 people participated in the main experiment, with around 45 respondents for each of the 4 versions of the experiment.
The third part of the paper analyzed the collected data on the respondents’ experience of going through the experimental web pages and formulated conclusions. As a result, it was determined that the environmental sustainability signaling cues presented indeed have a positive effect on consumer attitudes toward the website, its perceived effectiveness in helping consumers make choices, encouraging users to share the word-of-mouth about their shopping experience on the presented website, and positively influencing their buying likelihood of the product presented. Moreover, verbal signaling has been proven to have a greater positive effect.
The final section of the paper covers recommendations for the practice of environmental sustainability signaling, the scientific contributions made as a result of the study, and the limitations of the paper as well as the future directions for further research were formulated.....
Therefore, the aim of this study is to examine the impact of the introduction of cues perceived as signaling environmental sustainability on the purchase decisions of consumers of packaged goods in the online retail environment. By cues we mean various signals that communicate certain information to consumers, and in our case it is a specially designed visual label and a verbal statement placed in the section describing the characteristics of the product.
With the view to achieve this goal, the research started from the analysis of the theoretical background in the form of scientific articles and books, profile reports and conference materials to form the basis for the practical part of the study, the outcome of which is the first chapter of the paper. More specifically, the consumer product marketing literature was reviewed, the specifics of selling products through online channels were examined, the literature on consumer behavior, cues signaling theory, and sensory marketing were analyzed, and aspects of consumer behavior in the areas of buying likelihood and intention to share word-of-mouth regarding shopping experience were investigated.
Much attention has been paid to the peculiarities of marketing of consumer goods, the main of which is the low involvement of consumers in the process of choice due to the homogeneity of product characteristics, the high frequency of their purchases and availability of a large number of alternatives as well as the low cost of their purchase. It was also highlighted that marketers working in online sales channels have at their disposal a much more limited number of tools to influence consumer behavior - they have access only to one of the five senses, namely vision, and the distance between buyer and seller is considerable. Moreover, an important feature of shopping in the online environment is that consumers tend to spend as little time and effort as possible on the shopping process: they use simplified methods of decisionmaking and trust their previous experience and the word-of-mouth effect. Moreover, it was determined in the section with the theory of cues signaling that verbal and visual cues are used for different purposes and are suitable for different stages of consumer choice. It was concluded that visual cues in the form of graphic objects, symbols and pictures are perceived by individuals faster, require less cognitive effort to review and analyze, and that they are generally easier to perceive. In other words, they are used to increase the effectiveness of marketing tools in online sales channels and simplify the process of making purchases. On the contrary, verbal signals in the form of verbal descriptions are used to explain more complex concepts and characteristics of products. One such characteristic is the environmental sustainability.
The second chapter detailed the methodology of the study, describing the reasons and procedure for using the experiment, the parameters manipulated and the variables studied, as well as the methods of data analysis. The experiment was conducted in two stages. In the first, preliminary stage, the parameters of manipulation - visual and verbal cues signaling environmental sustainability were determined. The former cue is a specially designed, unused in online sales channels “the Blue planet symbol” in vector format, which represents the care for the planet. It does not explicitly declare sustainability, but rather encourages or nudges users to think about the environment. The second cue, on the other hand, was more pronounced in terms of signaling environmental sustainability - a verbal “statement about the packaging ease of recycling”. Both cues were statistically tested for perceived sustainability signaling, and both were proven to be perceived as such. Moreover, it was determined that verbal cues have more significant effect on the consumers’ perception of environmental sustainability, they contribute more to the ease of finding product information and inspire more confidence in consumers.
The main experiment was conducted to analyze how the chosen environmental sustainability signaling cues influence the consumers’ decision-making in the online environment context. For the main experiment, web pages with different manipulations of the environmental sustainability cues defined in the previous step were specially created, and participants were then asked to fill out a feedback form about their experience of going through the experimental websites. In the end, 180 people participated in the main experiment, with around 45 respondents for each of the 4 versions of the experiment.
The third part of the paper analyzed the collected data on the respondents’ experience of going through the experimental web pages and formulated conclusions. As a result, it was determined that the environmental sustainability signaling cues presented indeed have a positive effect on consumer attitudes toward the website, its perceived effectiveness in helping consumers make choices, encouraging users to share the word-of-mouth about their shopping experience on the presented website, and positively influencing their buying likelihood of the product presented. Moreover, verbal signaling has been proven to have a greater positive effect.
The final section of the paper covers recommendations for the practice of environmental sustainability signaling, the scientific contributions made as a result of the study, and the limitations of the paper as well as the future directions for further research were formulated.....
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