DM7915 Research Proposal
Introduction
Online shopping, otherwise known as e-retail or e-commerce, is a rapidly growing area of online activity. Over 80% of the UK population have now made a purchase online, and this level of ‘digital penetration’ is expected to rise to 89.6% in 2025 (Statista, 2020). Consumers have cited smartphones (63%), laptops (51%), and tablet devices (31%) as being the most popular devices for making online purchases (Statista, 2022a), while clothing (64%) shoes (47%), and bags and accessories (20%) are currently among the UK’s leading categories for online purchases (Statista, 2022b).
The growing e-commerce sector, whereby consumers purchase products online rather than in-store, has caused researchers to begin investigating the effect that increased distance and an inability to touch objects prior to purchase has had on consumers’ behaviour (Jha et al., 2019). Sensory characteristics or haptic properties of objects such as their weight or softness cannot be felt when purchasing using online platforms, requiring consumers to imagine them without accessing the direct external stimulus that they would have in-store (Løkke-Andersen, Wang and Giacalone, 2021) (Peck, Barger and Webb, 2013). Consequently, researchers have found that this can adversely affect both the online purchase process and consumer evaluations of product quality (San-Martín, González-Benito and Martos-Partal, 2017). For e-retail businesses, this poses a further threat, as UK online product review reading behaviour in 2021 revealed that 9 in 10 consumers would check online reviews before purchasing, while 94% of consumers would avoid businesses whose reviews were below a four rating (Saliance Search Marketing, 2021).
Consumers’ preference to touch a product before purchasing (Need for Touch or ‘NFT’) varies between consumers. Consumers who have a high level of NFT appear to prefer purchasing products in-store (Rathee and Rajain, 2019). Peck and Childers (2003) explain that this group of consumers may spend time touching products with their hands to explore them before deciding on a purchase, whereas low-NFT consumers may only touch products to place them in their shopping carts (Peck and Childers, 2003). UK attitudes towards online shopping in 2021 revealed that over a quarter of people ‘wanted’ to see a product before they bought it (Statista, 2022c). It is therefore likely that for this group of consumers, the inability to touch products when shopping online may result in low confidence levels when judging whether to purchase a product, potentially negatively impacting ecommerce sales (Peck and Childers, 2003).
Holbrook and Hirschman 1982 describe consumer’s motivations to touch products as falling into two possibilities: ‘consumer problem solvers’ or ‘consumers seeking fun, fantasy, arousal, sensory stimulation, and enjoyment’. This definition has largely been agreed by subsequent research, most recently with Peck, Barger and Webb (2013) noting that consumers may touch products to ‘obtain information’ or ‘to enjoy sensory feedback’. These two groups have now come to be defined as ‘instrumental NFT’ and ‘autotelic NFT,’ allowing researchers to explore how users with high-NFT may differ in their preferences to touch products before purchasing, and to make suggestions for how these groups could be catered for when designing e-commerce solutions.
Further variables such as product category may also impact consumers’ NFT levels, as consumers may draw upon their prior experience to notice variance and commonality between products within the same category (Løkke-Andersen, Wang and Giacalone, 2021) (Silva et al., 2021) (Peck and Childers, 2003). When viewing imagery of products, (Løkke-Andersen, Wang and Giacalone, 2021) have found that product presentation ‘significantly affects perceived haptic properties’ such as product weight or softness. In response, researchers studies have begun to focus on how pictorial and verbal information on product online listings could be used to heighten ‘haptic imagery’ for high-NFT consumers as a surrogate for touch (Silva et al., 2021) (Peck and Childers, 2003).
Similarly, NFT and the in-ability to touch products prior to their purchase has also been linked with the notion of perceived psychological distance, which is defined as ‘the psychological distance between a consumer and a product’ (Trope and Liberman, 2010). Based upon research studies into consumers with high-NFT, researchers have begun to discuss and make suggestions about how e-commerce businesses can leverage existing digital technologies to reduce levels of psychological distance and strengthen relations with customers (Khan and Rahman, 2016).
The first intention of this proposal is to detail the results of a literature review, ascertaining whether there are readily deployable recommendations that e-retailers can integrate into their mobile e-commerce platforms, which accommodate for consumers with high-NFT levels (h1). Findings have been recorded within a separate working document, noting keywords and themes, and cross-referencing where researchers agree or debate their recommendations.
This proposal also outlines the intention to observe whether e-commerce businesses may have already begun to accommodate for high-NFT consumers (h2), which will be analysed as a competitive audit in the initial research phase of DM7908. An examination of mobile experiences provided by the top four e-commerce stores in the UK Fashion segment will discover whether recommendations from the literature review have been actioned; these include John Lewis ($1845m revenue), Sainsburys ($1821m revenue), Next ($1741m revenue), and Asos ($1403m revenue) (ecommerceDB.com, 2021).
Research completed for this proposal and DM7908 will then be applied to the mobile experience of an exclusively online retailer, demonstrating how recommendations for accommodating high-NFT consumers could be implemented, and forming a piece of ‘action research’. This will involve the production and testing of several prototypes at varying fidelities, while data, observations, and reflections will be recorded in blog entries.
Full Version on ISSUU
The full research proposal can be read on ISSUU via with link below: