The effects of types of touch and haptic cues on choice overload

Author:

Thai Nguyen T.1ORCID,Yüksel Ülkü2ORCID,Peck Joann3

Affiliation:

1. Discipline of Marketing, School of Business, Faculty of Business and Law University of Wollongong Wollongong Australia

2. Discipline of Marketing The University of Sydney Business School Sydney Australia

3. Department of Marketing, Wisconsin School of Business University of Wisconsin–Madison Madison Wisconsin USA

Abstract

AbstractAlthough consumers are commonly exposed to numerous choices and the opportunity to touch products when they shop, the literature remains unclear on how both factors simultaneously affect choice. With the growth of online shopping, touch literature has studied the effects of mere touch (i.e., nondiagnostic tactile contact) or vicarious touch (e.g., observing a hand in physical contact with a product or imagining touching a product) to demonstrate that these nondiagnostic haptic inputs can comparably influence consumer attitude, just like diagnostic touch. By investigating the moderating effects of different haptic inputs on choice overload, this research reveals certain conditions in which nondiagnostic haptic inputs operate differently than those of diagnostic touch. We find that both mere touch (Study 1) and vicarious touch (Study 2) help reduce choice overload effects by eliminating the effect of choice set size on choice uncertainty, which is typically observed in the no touch (i.e., control) condition. As haptic cues have been increasingly employed to aid the online shopping experience for consumers, we also find that the choice overload effect is eliminated when an autotelic haptic cue is presented but amplified when an instrumental haptic cue is provided (Study 3). Besides, this research demonstrates that, while the moderating effects of the nondiagnostic haptic inputs are driven by increased personal control, instrumental touch can amplify choice overload effects due to the increased choice difficulty when choosing from large (vs. small) choice sets. These findings help retailers know what type of haptic cues to apply or avoid, as consumers have already been overloaded with abundant choices when they shop online.

Publisher

Wiley

同舟云学术

1.学者识别学者识别

2.学术分析学术分析

3.人才评估人才评估

"同舟云学术"是以全球学者为主线,采集、加工和组织学术论文而形成的新型学术文献查询和分析系统,可以对全球学者进行文献检索和人才价值评估。用户可以通过关注某些学科领域的顶尖人物而持续追踪该领域的学科进展和研究前沿。经过近期的数据扩容,当前同舟云学术共收录了国内外主流学术期刊6万余种,收集的期刊论文及会议论文总量共计约1.5亿篇,并以每天添加12000余篇中外论文的速度递增。我们也可以为用户提供个性化、定制化的学者数据。欢迎来电咨询!咨询电话:010-8811{复制后删除}0370

www.globalauthorid.com

TOP

Copyright © 2019-2024 北京同舟云网络信息技术有限公司
京公网安备11010802033243号  京ICP备18003416号-3