Influence of Pro-Environmental Attitudes on the Choice between Tangible and Virtual Product Forms

Abstract

The development of modern technology has contributed to changes in consumer shopping trends. Increasingly, there is a departure from traditional to digital sales channels and similar trends are also being observed for different categories of products—e.g., books or movies. The most important reasons behind such a shift includes purchase convenience, storage ease, or a supposed lower environmental impact. The purpose of this research was to verify whether the pro-environmental attitudes represented by consumers are a moderating variable in the choice between the traditional and digital form of a product. In order to do this, a survey questionnaire was first developed and then a representative sample of 1000 Polish respondents were surveyed. The research procedure included an exploratory factor analysis used for extracting consumers’ pro-environmental attitudes, as well as an indicator of propensity to choose either digital or traditional products; Ward’s hierarchical analysis and the k-means method for grouping participants into clusters based on such attitudes and then evaluating the willingness to choose a particular product in each cluster; differences between clusters (Mann–Whitney’s U and Kruskal–Wallis H tests); as well as a correlation between those attitudes and the preferred product form. The research proved that there were consumer groups taking similar actions related to environmental issues, as well as tending to choose a particular product form. The conducted analyses revealed that isolated, pro-environmental attitudes were positively correlated with a willingness to choose a digital product, although such a relationship is weak. Additionally, it was proven that groups with general pro-environmental orientation are more willing to buy products in traditional form, whereas digital forms were visibly more popular in groups with more neutral or negative approaches towards the environment.