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Can you resist? : The influence of limited-time scarcity and limited-supply scarcity on females and males in hotel booking apps

Föbker, Nina (2018) Can you resist? : The influence of limited-time scarcity and limited-supply scarcity on females and males in hotel booking apps.

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Abstract:Scarcity strategies have been a successful tool employed by marketers within physical retail settings. However, within the next years,the use of online shopping – and in particular mobile shopping applications – is likely to continue growing as consumers prefer to purchase products in convenient ways. Recently, studies have found that the employment of digital nudges can facilitate consumer purchases online. A well-known digital nudge within the context of online shopping, which is already applied by large online retailers (in addition to physical retailers), is the scarcity principle. However, significant differences appear in the way women and men behave in online purchasing and respond to persuasive cues such as scarcity tactics; these differences must be considered. To address this research gap, this study investigates to what extent two different scarcity messages – limited-time scarcity (LTS) and limited-supply scarcity (LSS) – influence (i) perceived novelty, (ii) perceived exclusiveness, (iii) perceived value, and (iv) purchase intention of females and males in viewing a hotel booking offer in a hotel booking app. A twice two (LTS/no LTS) by two (LSS/no LSS) by two (male/female) between-subjects design is performed with a total of n = 320 respondents (160 male and 160 female) from Europe, who actively make purchases online and were recruited for the online experiment. Respondents were randomly assigned to any of four conditions: (i) LTS claim, (ii) LSS claim, (iii) combination LTS and LSS claim, or (iv) no scarcity claim. The experiment, additionally, included a short questionnaire for measuring perceived novelty, perceived exclusiveness, perceived value, and purchase intention. The results of this study suggest that there is a main effect of perceived scarcity. Moreover, LTS negatively impacts perceived novelty,and fear of missing out (FOMO) is found to be higher in any scarcity condition for females than for males. There is also a significant interaction effect between gender and LTS and LSS on purchase intention. Implications and research directions for further research are stated.
Item Type:Essay (Master)
Faculty:BMS: Behavioural, Management and Social Sciences
Subject:70 social sciences in general, 76 recreation, leisure, 77 psychology
Programme:Communication Studies MSc (60713)
Link to this item:https://purl.utwente.nl/essays/76605
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