TY - JOUR
T1 - Exploring Online and In-Store Purchase Willingness: Associations with the Big Five Personality Traits, Trust, and Need for Touch
AU - Hermes, Anna
AU - Sindermann, Cornelia
AU - Montag, Christian
AU - Riedl, René
N1 - Funding Information:
This study has been conducted within the training network project PERFORM funded by the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation program under the Marie Skłodowska-Curie grant agreement no. 765395.
Publisher Copyright:
Copyright © 2022 Hermes, Sindermann, Montag and Riedl.
PY - 2022/4/4
Y1 - 2022/4/4
N2 - Nowadays, customers can utilize both online and in-store retail channels. Consequently, it is crucial for retailers to understand the possible drivers of retail channel selection, including customers’ personalities, degrees of trust, and product touch preferences. Unfortunately, current omnichannel research only scarcely addresses the effects of personality, trust, and desire to touch a product before purchasing it on willingness to purchase and how those effects vary between online and in-store shopping. Thus, we conducted an exploratory study. Our analysis of survey data (N = 1,208)—which controls for respondents’ age, gender, and education—reveals that across both the willingness to purchase in-store and online, a higher level of e-vendor trust is a significant, positive predictor. However, we also identify several channel-related differences, including that Trust Propensity, as well as the Big Five traits of Extraversion, Agreeableness, and Conscientiousness are significantly positively related to in-store, but not online, purchase willingness. We also find that Instrumental Need for Touch (defined as goal-motivated touch of a product) is positively related to in-store, but negatively related to online, purchase willingness. Finally, we highlight opportunities for future research and discuss how retail managers might enhance customer experiences in their physical and online stores.
AB - Nowadays, customers can utilize both online and in-store retail channels. Consequently, it is crucial for retailers to understand the possible drivers of retail channel selection, including customers’ personalities, degrees of trust, and product touch preferences. Unfortunately, current omnichannel research only scarcely addresses the effects of personality, trust, and desire to touch a product before purchasing it on willingness to purchase and how those effects vary between online and in-store shopping. Thus, we conducted an exploratory study. Our analysis of survey data (N = 1,208)—which controls for respondents’ age, gender, and education—reveals that across both the willingness to purchase in-store and online, a higher level of e-vendor trust is a significant, positive predictor. However, we also identify several channel-related differences, including that Trust Propensity, as well as the Big Five traits of Extraversion, Agreeableness, and Conscientiousness are significantly positively related to in-store, but not online, purchase willingness. We also find that Instrumental Need for Touch (defined as goal-motivated touch of a product) is positively related to in-store, but negatively related to online, purchase willingness. Finally, we highlight opportunities for future research and discuss how retail managers might enhance customer experiences in their physical and online stores.
KW - Big Five
KW - consumer personality
KW - cross-channel shopping
KW - in-store shopping
KW - need for touch
KW - online shopping
KW - trust
KW - willingness to purchase
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85128810582&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.3389/fpsyg.2022.808500
DO - 10.3389/fpsyg.2022.808500
M3 - Article
VL - 13
SP - 808500
JO - Frontiers in Psychology
JF - Frontiers in Psychology
SN - 1664-1078
M1 - 808500
ER -