Digital Nudge Stacking and Backfiring: Understanding Sustainable E-Commerce Purchase Decisions

IF 2.4 Q2 INFORMATION SCIENCE & LIBRARY SCIENCE
Milad Mirbabaie, Julian Marx, Lukas Erle
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Abstract

Abstract Background: The consumption of ‘fast fashion’, which is expedited by cost-effective e-commerce systems, represents one of the major factors contributing to the acceleration of climate change. An emerging approach to steer consumers in the direction of more sustainable purchase decisions is digital nudging. This paper explores digital nudging in the context of green fashion e-commerce by testing the effectiveness of two nudging strategies on the decision to choose green fashion products (GFP) over regular fashion items. Method: This study was conducted as a between-subject online experiment (n=320) with four conditions simulating an e-commerce scenario. The participants were presented with different products: one was ecologically friendly, and another was the regular option. Depending on their randomized group allocation, the participants experienced a default nudge, a social norm nudge, a combination of both strategies, or no nudge. In addition, we conducted 10 qualitative interviews to gain a deeper understanding of consumers’ decision process. Results: Our experiment failed to demonstrate statistically significant relationships between the various nudging strategies and GFP purchase decisions. However, additional explorative analyzes confirmed a backfire effect for the combination of nudging strategies. This reveals the previously overlooked influence of participants’ identification on the effectiveness of digital nudging strategies. In addition, qualitative interviews revealed individual factors that influence sustainable e-commerce purchase decisions. Conclusion: This study contributes to information systems research by explaining the differences in the effectiveness of different nudging strategies regarding high-involvement compared to low-involvement products. Moreover, it provides empirical evidence of a backfire effect resulting from a combination of digital nudging strategies (i.e., digital nudge stacking). Finally, the study underscores the leverage that individual factors have on both GFP purchase decision and the effectiveness of nudges.
数字助推叠加与逆作用:理解可持续的电子商务购买决策
背景:高性价比的电子商务系统加速了“快时尚”的消费,这是导致气候变化加速的主要因素之一。一种引导消费者做出更可持续购买决策的新兴方法是数字推动。本文通过测试两种推动策略对选择绿色时尚产品(GFP)而不是常规时尚产品的决策的有效性,探讨了绿色时尚电子商务背景下的数字推动。方法:本研究采用被试在线实验(n=320),模拟电子商务场景的四种情况。研究人员向参与者展示了不同的产品:一种是环保产品,另一种是普通产品。根据他们的随机分组分配,参与者经历了默认的推动,社会规范的推动,两种策略的组合,或者没有推动。此外,我们进行了10次定性访谈,以更深入地了解消费者的决策过程。结果:我们的实验未能证明各种推动策略与GFP购买决策之间的统计显著关系。然而,额外的探索性分析证实了轻推策略组合的适得其反的效果。这揭示了之前被忽视的参与者身份对数字推动策略有效性的影响。此外,定性访谈揭示了影响可持续电子商务购买决策的个人因素。结论:本研究通过解释不同的轻推策略在高介入产品和低介入产品上的有效性差异,为信息系统研究做出了贡献。此外,它还提供了数字助推策略组合(即数字助推叠加)产生的适得其反效应的经验证据。最后,该研究强调了个人因素对GFP购买决策和推动效果的影响。
本文章由计算机程序翻译,如有差异,请以英文原文为准。
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来源期刊
CiteScore
4.10
自引率
33.30%
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