Yolande Piris and Nathalie Guibert
The purpose of this paper is to investigate consumers’ variety perception for online grocery assortments and, more generally, to better understand consumers’ attitude toward…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to investigate consumers’ variety perception for online grocery assortments and, more generally, to better understand consumers’ attitude toward digital assortments. In particular, this research examines the influence of the organization of products that results from assortment structure and display.
Design/methodology/approach
Starting from the observation that previous work on traditional assortments is not sufficient to understand consumers’ perceptions and attitudes, the paper adopts a hypothetico-deductive approach and develops four hypotheses. These hypotheses are tested using an experimental approach.
Findings
This research enables us to see that both attitude and variety perception are affected by the way products are organized on a website. Furthermore, contrary to what the literature on traditional assortments allows one to assume, the assortment corresponding to a more positive attitude is not perceived as being the more varied. As a result, our findings reconsider the link between variety perception and consumer assortment evaluation for digital assortments.
Research limitations/implications
The work is based on data collected for only one product category. It would be interesting to explore other categories also, to determine if the structure of the assortment and variety perception have stable effects.
Practical implications
The results inform retailers that they must carefully design the display of their digital assortments. If a retailer wants to enhance variety perception, the authors recommend using an assortment organized by brand, or presenting all the products together. If, instead, the goal is to encourage a positive attitude, the retailer should opt for assortments sorted by attribute or that present all products together.
Originality/value
This research adopts a new orientation on assortment perception and evaluation, considering the specificities involved in digitizing assortments. In addition, this research studies a real product category and puts respondents in experimental conditions close to reality.
Details
Keywords
Yolande Piris and Nathalie Guibert
This paper aims to apply intuition theory to clarify consumers’ assortment evaluations. For each decision process, this paper explores how perceptions of organization and variety…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to apply intuition theory to clarify consumers’ assortment evaluations. For each decision process, this paper explores how perceptions of organization and variety influence consumers’ attitudes and purchase intentions.
Design/methodology/approach
In total, 504 observations were collected across three product categories. Perceived choice, time and expertise in the product category provide proxies to distinguish between intuitive and deliberative systems. The intuitive system further consists of intuition based on either expertise or heuristics.
Findings
It was revealed that distinct decision processes (deliberative, intuitive based on expertise and intuitive based on heuristics) affect the link between assortment perceptions and consumers’ assortment evaluations. Consumers’ evaluations in deliberative- and heuristic-based intuitive systems rely more on perceptions of organization than of variety; whereas intuitive judgments based on expertise depend almost equally on both perceptions.
Research limitations/implications
Some limitations have to be underlined. The approximations used could be more precise and are subjective in nature. Moreover, the ordinary product categories that were studied might encourage more intuitive decisions by consumers. If so, the deliberative mode of thinking might have been underrepresented in this sample.
Originality/value
Despite the limitations, this research is, to our knowledge, the first to explore the influence of intuition theory on ordinary shopping and in particular on assortment perception. As such, it contributes to a deeper understanding of this theory in the field.