Investigating antecedents and consequences of exploratory consumer behavior in the context of online fashion product rentailers

UNCG Author/Contributor (non-UNCG co-authors, if there are any, appear on document)
Sasikarn Chatvijit Cook (Creator)
Institution
The University of North Carolina at Greensboro (UNCG )
Web Site: http://library.uncg.edu/
Advisor
Kittichai Watchravesringkan

Abstract: Online fashion product rentailer describes a retailer that offers fashion products for rental using an Internet website as the main shopping channel, which is deemed as one of retail activities given the new retail landscape of the 21st century. While cognitive motivations drive renting behavior towards freedom from ownership burdens, hedonic benefits also motivate consumers to rent as a means to explore high-priced or trend-based products, such as fashion clothing. Despite the emergence of apparel renting behavior and the success of such business, no published research has examined the antecedents and consequences of the online fashion product rentailing environment in one study. Thus, the purpose of this study was to propose and empirically investigate an integrative model of online consumer behavior in the context of online fashion product rentailers. Specifically, the relationships that may exist among characteristics of online fashion product rentailers (i.e., perceived product uncertainty, perceived transaction uncertainty, perceived brand assortment, perceived price, eWOM) and personality traits of potential renters (i.e., optimum stimulation level (OSL), risk-taking tendency, variety-seeking tendency, curiosity-motivated tendency) in order to understand consumer behavior (i.e., exploratory consumer behaviors, intent to visit and patronize online fashion product rentailers’ website) associated to online fashion product renting contexts were examined. Data were collected from the Amazon Mechanical Turk’s (mturk) online panel members. The final sample consisted of 352 participants who had visited and engaged in online shopping activities (e.g., browsing, renting) at an online fashion product rentailer’s website in the past six months. Of these, approximately 72% were female and 50% of participants were aged between 18 and 29 years old. In addition, approximately 52% of the participants had rented a product from one of the online fashion product rentailers. To assess the proposed hypothesized model consisted of 66-item 12-construct, the two-step approach was performed to establish measurement and structural model via LISREL 9.2. The confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) with the maximum likelihood technique was employed. The CFA results revealed a satisfactory goodness-of-fit index. After the structural model was established, the structural equation modeling (SEM) was performed. The model fit statistics indicated ?2= 4523.176, df = 2,053, p < .001, ?2/df = 2.20, RMSEA = 0.058, CFI = 0.94, NFI = 0.90, TLI = 0.94, and PNFI = 0.85, suggesting that the hypothesized structural relationships fit the data satisfactorily. In terms of the relationships between the characteristics of online fashion product rentailers and optimum stimulation level (OSL), SEM results revealed that perceived brand assortment, perceived price, and eWOM had a positive relationship with OSL. In addition, we found that OSL were related to risk-taking, variety-seeking, and curiosity-motivated tendencies. In regards to the relationship between personality traits and exploratory consumer behavior, a significant relationship between risk-taking, variety-seeking, and curiosity-motivated tendencies and exploratory acquisition of product (EAP) was found. Additionally, curiosity-motivated tendency was positively related to exploratory information seeking (EIS). Lastly, results revealed that intent to shop and patronize online fashion product rentailers’ website was positively influenced by EIS and EAP. Implications are provided. Limitations and future research directions are also discussed.

Additional Information

Publication
Dissertation
Language: English
Date: 2017
Keywords
Consumer behavior, Exploratory behavior, Online shopping, Rentailing, Renting, Retail
Subjects
Clothing rental services
Fashion merchandising
Electronic commerce
Internet marketing
Consumer behavior

Email this document to