Does Scarcity Add Value in Influencing Consumers in the Try-Before-You-Buy Model?

ABSTRACT

The number of shopping options for consumers in the e-commerce retail environment continues to expand. One such option allows consumers to try products at home before committing to purchase, referred to as the Try-Before-You-Buy (TBYB) model. This study examines the role of scarcity in affecting consumers’ product acceptance intention. Our results reveal that product scarcity increases both consumers’ perceived utilitarian value and hedonic value, which enhance their product acceptance intention in the TBYB model. Additionally, we find that price scarcity also stimulates consumers’ product acceptance intention, but channel scarcity does not. Furthermore, we find that a high hassle cost does not necessarily increase consumers’ passive acceptance intention of products in the TBYB model. Our findings provide implications for TBYB retailers to enhance consumers’ intention to accept products through advertising the scarcity of their products and price, improving both the utilitarian values and hedonic values of their product offerings, but not setting obstacles for consumers to return their products. This study helps companies understand consumers’ perception in the TBYB model, which is critical to improving overall performance. This study also contributes to uniqueness theory by revealing that the effect of scarcity on consumers’ perceived uniqueness is not uniform. Scarcity in product acquisition and scarcity in payment have a higher impact on consumers’ perceived uniqueness than the scarcity of process in terms of the channel in which consumers use to acquire the products.

KEYWORDS:

• Product scarcity
• product acceptance intention
• utilitarian value
• hedonic value
• Try-Before-You-Buy model
• online retail

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Jonathan E. Jackson

JONATHAN JACKSON ([email protected]) holds a Ph.D. in operations management from Washington State University. He is a tenured associate professor in the Department of Finance in the School of Business at Providence College. His research interests include inventory management, retail operations, and supply chain modeling and logistics. Dr. Jackson has published in such journals as European Journal of Operational Research, International Journal of Production Economics, and Foundations and Trends in Technology, Information and Operations Management.

Xun Xu

XUN XU ([email protected]; corresponding author) holds a Ph.D. in operations management from Washington State University. He is a tenured associate professor in the College of Business Administration at the California State University, Stanislaus. His research interests include service operations management, supply chain management and coordination, sustainability, e-commerce, data and text mining, and interface of hospitality and operations management. Dr. Xu has published more than 40 papers in such journals as Computers and Industrial Engineering, Decision Sciences, Decision Support Systems, European Journal of Operational Research, Journal of Business Research, Journal of the Operational Research Society, International Journal of Hospitality Management, International Journal of Information Management, International Journal of Production Economics, International Journal of Production Research, and others.