=Paper=
{{Paper
|id=Vol-2216/healthRecSys18_paper_14
|storemode=property
|title=Shopping Value and its Influence on Healthy Shopping Habits in E-Commerce
|pdfUrl=https://ceur-ws.org/Vol-2216/healthRecSys18_paper_14.pdf
|volume=Vol-2216
|authors=Ifeoma Adaji,Kiemute Oyibo,Julita Vassileva
|dblpUrl=https://dblp.org/rec/conf/recsys/AdajiOV18
}}
==Shopping Value and its Influence on Healthy Shopping Habits in E-Commerce==
https://ceur-ws.org/Vol-2216/healthRecSys18_paper_14.pdf
Shopping Value and its Influence on Healthy Shopping Habits in
E-Commerce
Ifeoma Adaji Kiemute Oyibo Julita Vassileva
University of Saskatchewan University of Saskatchewan University of Saskatchewan
Saskatoon, Saskatchewan Saskatoon, Saskatchewan Saskatoon, Saskatchewan
Canada Canada Canada
Ifeoma.adaji@usask.ca kiemute.oyibo@usask.ca jiv@cs.usask.ca
ABSTRACT 1 INTRODUCTION
Adopting a non-sedentary lifestyle and embracing healthy eating
With the increase in the number of online retail companies,
habits have been identified as the two major ways of improving
attempts are being made to influence shoppers to adopt healthy
one’s health, reducing weight and preventing weight gain [5].
shopping habits with online recommendations for healthier foods.
There has been a lot of research on promoting non-sedentary
In order for these recommendations to be accurate, however, it is
lifestyles such as the development of games that influence people
important to understand the shopping value one derives online and
to be more active [9], [14] and the development of fitness apps
how that influences the healthy shopping habits of online
and devices such as the Fitbit1 that encourage people to exercise
consumers. To contribute to research in this area, we explore the
more and adopt an active lifestyle. However, the area of
effect of hedonic and utilitarian shopping values on healthy
influencing people to adopt healthier eating habits by shopping for
shopping habits and use continuance of e-commerce shoppers. To
healthy foods is still under-researched.
achieve this, we carried out an online survey of 244 e-commerce
There has been a steady increase in the number of people who
shoppers. The result of a structural equation modeling suggests
shop online. This growth will likely continue over the next decade
that young shoppers that are high in utilitarian shopping value are
with more companies having an online presence. Retail
influenced to shop for healthy foods online compared to older
companies especially have joined this trend with many retail
shoppers. On the other hand, older shoppers that are high in
companies offering same-day delivery to their e-commerce
hedonic shopping motivation are more likely influenced to shop
shoppers. Many have suggested that online retail is key to
online for healthy foods. The results presented here suggest design
influencing people to shop for healthy foods by recommending
guidelines that can create more efficient recommendations for
healthier foods to consumers at the point of sale.
online shoppers.
In order for such recommendations to be effective, it is
CCS CONCEPTS imperative to understand the shopping motivation and value
consumers derive when shopping online. For example, if a
• Applied computing → Electronic commerce → Online shopping
consumer’s shopping motivation is to quickly purchase a product
and go offline, sending a long list of recommendations to such a
KEYWORDS
shopper will be of no value to them and could result in a negative
E-commerce recommendation; Hedonic shopping value; effect such as the shopper discontinuing with a merchant.
Utilitarian shopping value; Healthy shopping habits Research has shown that one of the reasons consumers return
ACM Reference format: to a retailer is because of the value they get from the retailer [13].
Ifeoma Adaji, Kiemute Oyibo, and Julita Vassileva. 2018. Shopping Value A shopping experience can be valuable or valueless [3]. There are
and its Influence on Healthy Shopping Habits in E-commerce. In two common dimensions of value proposition: hedonic and
Proceedings of the Third International Workshop on Health Recommender utilitarian values. Research has also shown that people with high
Systems co-located with Twelfth ACM Conference on Recommender hedonic shopping value tend to shop for the pleasure or happiness
Systems (HealthRecSys’18), Vancouver, BC, Canada, October 6, 2018. 4 they derive from the shopping experience and not necessarily for
pages the utility or service the product offers [13], [6]. These shoppers
are typically motivated to approach pleasure and avoid pain and
HealthRecSys’18, October 6, 2018, Vancouver, BC, Canada. they can be spontaneous [12], [3]. On the other hand, shoppers
© 2018 Copyright for the individual papers remains with the authors. Copying
permitted for private and academic purposes. This volume is published and
with utilitarian shopping value shop for the functional benefits;
copyrighted by its editors. they are typically goal-focused, see no need for commitment and
see shopping as a task that has to be carried out consciously [6]. In
1
www.fitbit.com
HealthRecSys’18, October 6, 2018, Vancouver, BC, Canada I. Adaji et al.
order for recommendations of healthy foods to be effective based continuance intention. Due to space constraints, we did not
on shopping value, it is important to explore how these shopping include the questionnaire in the paper.
values (hedonic and utilitarian) effect healthy shopping habits and
how people in each of these categories are influenced to shop for
healthy foods online.
To achieve this, we carried out an online survey of 244 e-
commerce shoppers. The results of a structural equation modeling
suggest that young shoppers that are high in utilitarian shopping
value are influenced to shop for healthy foods online compared to
older shoppers. On the other hand, older shoppers that are high in
hedonic shopping motivation are more likely influenced to shop
online for healthy foods.
To the best of our knowledge, no one has explored the
influence of shopping value on healthy shopping habits.
Figure 1: Research model. HEDO = Hedonic value, UTIL =
2 RELATED WORK Utilitarian value, HEAL = Healthy shopping habits, CONT =
E-commerce continuance intention
Hedonic and utilitarian shopping values have been explored in e-
commerce. Overby and Lee [13] studied the effect of utilitarian
and hedonic shopping motivation on consumer preference and 3.1 Participants
intentions in e-commerce. The authors suggest that the hedonic We recruited 244 e-commerce consumers for this study through
and shopping motivations of e-shoppers are positively related to Amazon’s Mechanical Turk, online social media and news boards.
their preference for the retailer, however, the preference towards This study was approved by the ethics board of the University of
the retailer was stronger for shoppers with utilitarian value Saskatchewan. Our participants include 66% females and 34%
compared to shoppers with hedonic shopping value. This indicates males. Table 1 summarizes some of the demographics of our
that the consumers who shop for the functional benefits derive participants.
more value shopping online compared to those who shop for
pleasure.
Table 1: Demographics of participants
Carpenter [7] in his study, explored the relationship between
consumer shopping value, satisfaction, and loyalty in the retail
industry. His study suggests that utilitarian and hedonic values Value (%)
influence satisfaction loyalty, word of mouth communication and Age Less than 30 years 63
purchases in the discount retail sector.
Wang et al. [8] explored the role of utilitarian and hedonic Over 30 years 37
shopping value in understanding customers’ repeat purchase Gender Female 66
intentions in e-commerce. Their results suggest that utilitarian and
Male 34
hedonic value significantly influence buyers' repeat purchase
intention. In addition, the authors concluded that a higher level of House
1 to 3 persons 65
perceived risk has an inverse effect on utilitarian value and hold size
increases the effect of hedonic value on repeat purchase intention. More than 4 persons 35
To the best of our knowledge, no one has explored the effect
of hedonic and utilitarian shopping values on healthy shopping
habits in e-commerce.
4 DATA ANALYSES
3 RESEARCH DESIGN & METHODOLOGY We analyzed our data using Partial Least Squares Structural
Equation Modelling (PLS-SEM) with the SmartPLS tool. As
To understand the influence of shopping value on healthy
required in structural equation modeling [10], we established the
shopping habits, we developed a path model using Partial Least
reliability and validity of the constructs in our model before
Squares Structural Equation Modelling (PLS-SEM) to measure
examining the structural model. All indicators in out measurement
the influence of hedonic and utilitarian shopping value on healthy
morel had outer loadings greater than 0.7 as suggested by [15].
shopping habits in e-commerce. As shown in figure 1, our model
Internal consistency was also met as all latent variables were
consists of four constructs that measure hedonic value, utilitarian
higher than 0.7 [15]. We also computed the path coefficient (β
value, healthy shopping habits and e-commerce shopping
value), coefficients of determination (R2 values) and the level and
continuance intention. Hedonic and utilitarian shopping values
significance of the path coefficients. Figure 2 shows the path
were measured using the scale of Babin and Darden[2]. We
coefficients between constructs. The number of asterisks
adopted the scale of Hiser et al. [11] to measure healthy shopping
represents the significance of each direct effect. The number of
habits, while we used the scale of Bhattacherjee [4] to measure
Shopping Value and its Influence on Healthy Shopping Habits in E- HealthRecSys’18, October 6, 2018, Vancouver, BC, Canada
Commerce
asterisks ranges from 1 to 4 which corresponds with the p-value
of <0.05, <0.01, <0.001 and <0.0001 respectively.
5 RESULTS
The result of our analysis is presented in figure 2. It shows that
utilitarian shopping motivation influences healthy shopping habits
among e-commerce shoppers (β = 0.164*). This suggests that the
online consumers who shop for functional benefits will likely
adopt healthy shopping habits online. Utilitarian shoppers,
however, are not influenced to continue shopping online unlike
their hedonic counterparts who are influenced to continue
shopping online (β = 0.144*). Figure 3: Result of multi-group analysis between younger and
older participants. HEDO = Hedonic value, UTIL =
Utilitarian value, HEAL = Healthy shopping habits, CONT =
E-commerce continuance intention
Our results confirm that there are differences in the influence
of shopping value on healthy shopping habits based on the age
range of the participants. Utilitarian shopping value significantly
influences healthy shopping habits in younger consumers (β =
0.216*) compared to the older ones (β=-0.109 n.s.). On the other
hand, hedonic shopping value significantly influences healthy
shopping habits in older consumers (β = 0.179*) compared to
younger consumers. (β = 0.041 n.s.).
Figure 2: Structural model with results of PLS-SEM analysis.
5.2 Discussion
HEDO = Hedonic value, UTIL = Utilitarian value, HEAL = In this study, we explored the influence of online consumers’
Healthy shopping habits, CONT = E-commerce continuance shopping value on adopting healthy shopping habits. We
intention hypothesize that product recommendations based on the shopping
value of consumers can be effective if we can determine their
5.1 Moderating Effect of Age influence on healthy shopping habits. We developed a path model
Research has shown that when influence strategies are tailored to and further carried a multi-group analysis to explore the
an individual or a group of similar individuals, they are more moderating effects of age.
effective in bringing about the desired behavior change [1]. We The results of the global model in figure 2 suggest that those
hypothesize that in order for recommendations based on the with hedonic shopping value are likely to continue shopping
shopping value of consumers to be more effective, they have to be online compared to the shoppers with utilitarian shopping value.
tailored to the individual. Research has shown that age is an This is understandable because hedonic shoppers shop for the
effective factor in group-based personalization [1]. We thus pleasure and the desire that they derive from shopping. Online
investigate if there are any differences in the effect of shopping shopping is convenient, and a lot of stores can be easily accessed
motivation on healthy shopping habits based on the age of within a short time. It is thus possible that hedonic shoppers enjoy
participants. the thrill of browsing for products online since they are able to
We split the participants into two groups based on their age. shop more.
The younger participants were 30 years or less, while the older Our result also shows that shoppers that have utilitarian
ones were more than 30 years. Figure 3 shows the results of the shopping value are influenced to adopt healthy shopping habits
multi-group analysis that we carried out between both age groups. online compared to those with hedonic shopping value. We
hypothesize that people that are likely to adopt healthy shopping
habits are more likely to be influenced by healthy food
recommendations. Therefore, our result suggests that
recommendations for healthy foods that are made to utilitarian
shoppers will most likely be effective compared to hedonic
shoppers. Thus, retailers can target utilitarian shoppers with
healthy food recommendations.
If the age of the consumer is known, this can be used to better
tailor recommendations presented to the shopper. Our result in
HealthRecSys’18, October 6, 2018, Vancouver, BC, Canada I. Adaji et al.
figure 3 shows that younger shoppers and older shoppers are value among them will likely be influenced by the
influenced differently. While older hedonic shoppers are recommendations.
influenced to adopt healthy shopping habits online, the younger Our study has some limitations. The number of participants we
ones are not. However, the younger utilitarian shoppers are recruited is a small fraction of all online shoppers. We are still in
influenced to adopt healthy shopping habits. This suggests that the process of gathering data; we plan to repeat the study with
when recommending healthy products to young shoppers, those more participants. Another limitation is that the ratio of older to
with utilitarian shopping value among them will likely be younger participants is unequal. We are currently collecting data
influenced by the recommendations. On the other hand, when to bridge that gap. The study is self-reported; thus, we have to rely
recommending healthy products to older shoppers, those with on the answers provided by the participants. This is common
hedonic shopping value among them will likely be influenced by practice in the research community when direct observation is not
the recommendations. It is therefore important to discover ways of possible.
identifying the shopping motivation of online shoppers.
One way we propose to identify the consumers’ shopping In the future, we plan to carry out the study on a larger scale. In
value is by examining the browsing and shopping patterns of the addition, we also plan to explore the effect of other demographic
shoppers. Utilitarian shoppers shop for the functional benefits; information such as gender and culture on the results of the study.
they are typically goal-focused, see no need for commitment and
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