IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/joreco/v41y2018icp121-130.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Who seeks a surprise box? Predictors of consumers’ use of fashion and beauty subscription-based online services (SOS)

Author

Listed:
  • Woo, Hongjoo
  • Ramkumar, Bharath

Abstract

Subscription-based online services (SOS), the e-businesses that provide periodic delivery of a customized box of merchandise to consumers, have become a $5 billion industry with over 2000 SOS retailers in the United States. This new method of online shopping that removes consumers’ responsibility to select merchandise and visit stores is substantially changing consumers’ consumption habits and, further, their lifestyles. However, there is little information about who are the target customers of such SOS, and what consumer characteristics predict consumers’ use of SOS. This study surveyed 385 American consumers focusing on fashion and beauty SOS. Results revealed that SOS users are more likely to be female with high level of e-tailer trust and fashion consciousness. Age and exploratory product acquisition tendencies of consumers had no significant influence. Both supported and unsupported hypotheses testing results suggest implications regarding potential target market strategies to SOS retailers, and provide a better understanding of consumers who have used this new, effortless shopping method, for consumer researchers.

Suggested Citation

  • Woo, Hongjoo & Ramkumar, Bharath, 2018. "Who seeks a surprise box? Predictors of consumers’ use of fashion and beauty subscription-based online services (SOS)," Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, Elsevier, vol. 41(C), pages 121-130.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:joreco:v:41:y:2018:i:c:p:121-130
    DOI: 10.1016/j.jretconser.2017.11.011
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0969698917305155
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.jretconser.2017.11.011?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Gefen, David, 2000. "E-commerce: the role of familiarity and trust," Omega, Elsevier, vol. 28(6), pages 725-737, December.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Chakraborty, Debarun & Siddiqui, Mujahid & Siddiqui, Aaliyah & Paul, Justin & Dash, Ganesh & Mas, Francesca Dal, 2023. "Watching is valuable: Consumer views – Content consumption on OTT platforms," Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, Elsevier, vol. 70(C).
    2. Roy, Gobinda & Sharma, Swati, 2021. "Measuring the role of factors on website effectiveness using vector autoregressive model," Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, Elsevier, vol. 62(C).
    3. Bray, J. & De Silva Kanakaratne, M. & Dragouni, M. & Douglas, J., 2021. "Thinking inside the box: An empirical exploration of subscription retailing," Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, Elsevier, vol. 58(C).
    4. Tan, Wee-Kheng & Chen, Bo-Hsiang, 2021. "Enhancing subscription-based ecommerce services through gambled price discounts," Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, Elsevier, vol. 61(C).
    5. Park, Hyejune & Joyner Armstrong, Cosette M., 2019. "Is money the biggest driver? Uncovering motives for engaging in online collaborative consumption retail models for apparel," Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, Elsevier, vol. 51(C), pages 42-50.
    6. Andonova, Yana & Anaza, Nwamaka A. & Bennett, Delancy H.S., 2021. "Riding the subscription box wave: Understanding the landscape, challenges, and critical success factors of the subscription box industry," Business Horizons, Elsevier, vol. 64(5), pages 631-646.
    7. Gupta, Aditya & Eilert, Meike & Gentry, James W., 2020. "Can I surprise myself? A conceptual framework of surprise self-gifting among consumers," Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, Elsevier, vol. 54(C).
    8. Bischof, Severin Friedrich & Boettger, Tim M. & Rudolph, Thomas, 2020. "“Curated subscription commerce: A theoretical conceptualizationâ€," Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, Elsevier, vol. 54(C).
    9. Kovacheva, Aleksandra & Nikolova, Hristina & Lamberton, Cait, 2022. "Will he buy a surprise? Gender differences in the purchase of surprise offerings," Journal of Retailing, Elsevier, vol. 98(4), pages 667-684.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Ahmed Ibrahim Alzahrani & T. Ramayah & Nalini Suppiah & Osama Alfarraj & Nasser Alalwan, 2020. "Modeling Blog Usage From a Developing Country Perspective Using Structural Equation Modeling (SEM)," SAGE Open, , vol. 10(3), pages 21582440209, July.
    2. Dumpe Maira, 2015. "Online Marketing Issues of Real Estate Companies: A Case of Latvia," Baltic Journal of Real Estate Economics and Construction Management, Sciendo, vol. 3(1), pages 130-139, December.
    3. Vlad Rosca, 2015. "Customer attitudes towards buying e-books: Perspectives from a Romanian publishing house," Journal of Community Positive Practices, Catalactica NGO, issue 4, pages 105-111.
    4. Maik Hesse & Timm Teubner & Marc T. P. Adam, 2022. "In Stars We Trust – A Note on Reputation Portability Between Digital Platforms," Business & Information Systems Engineering: The International Journal of WIRTSCHAFTSINFORMATIK, Springer;Gesellschaft für Informatik e.V. (GI), vol. 64(3), pages 349-358, June.
    5. Chetan A. Jhaveri & Jitendra M. Nenavani, 2020. "Evaluation of eTail Services Quality: AHP Approach," Vision, , vol. 24(3), pages 310-319, September.
    6. Qin, Li & De-Juan-Vigaray, María D., 2021. "Social commerce: Is interpersonal trust formation similar between U.S.A. and Spain?," Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, Elsevier, vol. 62(C).
    7. Möhlmann, Mareike, 2021. "Unjustified trust beliefs: Trust conflation on sharing economy platforms," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 50(3).
    8. Al-Adwan, Ahmad Samed & Al-Debei, Mutaz M. & Dwivedi, Yogesh K., 2022. "E-commerce in high uncertainty avoidance cultures: The driving forces of repurchase and word-of-mouth intentions," Technology in Society, Elsevier, vol. 71(C).
    9. repec:dau:papers:123456789/4215 is not listed on IDEAS
    10. Leonie Kuen & Fiona Schürmann & Daniel Westmattelmann & Sophie Hartwig & Shay Tzafrir & Gerhard Schewe, 2023. "Trust transfer effects and associated risks in telemedicine adoption," Electronic Markets, Springer;IIM University of St. Gallen, vol. 33(1), pages 1-22, December.
    11. Geetu Tuteja & Shashank Gupta & Vaishali Garg, 2016. "Consumer Trust in Internet Shopping," Paradigm, , vol. 20(2), pages 191-215, December.
    12. Ajao Qasim & Emad Abu-Shanab, 2016. "Drivers of mobile payment acceptance: The impact of network externalities," Information Systems Frontiers, Springer, vol. 18(5), pages 1021-1034, October.
    13. Timm Teubner & Marc T. P. Adam & Florian Hawlitschek, 2020. "Unlocking Online Reputation," Business & Information Systems Engineering: The International Journal of WIRTSCHAFTSINFORMATIK, Springer;Gesellschaft für Informatik e.V. (GI), vol. 62(6), pages 501-513, December.
    14. Nafise Mohammadi Shakiba & Mohammad-Ali Doostari & Mostafa Mohammadpourfard, 2017. "ESIV: an end-to-end secure internet voting system," Electronic Commerce Research, Springer, vol. 17(3), pages 463-494, September.
    15. Juan F. Tavera Mesías & Juan C. Sánchez Giraldo & Bernardo Ballesteros Díaz, 2011. "Aceptación del E-Commerce en Colombia: un estudio para la ciudad de Medellín," Revista Facultad de Ciencias Económicas, Universidad Militar Nueva Granada, December.
    16. Basharat Ali & Nazim Baluch & Zulkifli Mohamed Udin, 2015. "The Moderating Effect of Religiosity on the Relationship between Trust and Diffusion of Electronic Commerce," Modern Applied Science, Canadian Center of Science and Education, vol. 9(13), pages 176-176, December.
    17. Lucia-Palacios, Laura & Pérez-López, Raúl, 2021. "Effects of Home Voice Assistants' Autonomy on Instrusiveness and Usefulness: Direct, Indirect, and Moderating Effects of Interactivity," Journal of Interactive Marketing, Elsevier, vol. 56(C), pages 41-54.
    18. Yousaf, Anish & Mishra, Abhishek & Gupta, Anil, 2021. "‘From technology adoption to consumption’: Effect of pre-adoption expectations from fitness applications on usage satisfaction, continual usage, and health satisfaction," Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, Elsevier, vol. 62(C).
    19. Matej Kovač & Vesna Žabkar, 2020. "Do Social Media and E-Mail Engagement Impact Reputation and Trust-Driven Behavior?," Tržište/Market, Faculty of Economics and Business, University of Zagreb, vol. 32(1), pages 9-25.
    20. Phan, Tien-Thao Cong & Dang, Tri-Quan & Nguyen, Luan-Thanh, 2023. "Consumer trust in social network sites in Vietnam: PLS-SEM-ANN analysis," EconStor Conference Papers 278766, ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics.
    21. Kamal Abubker Abrahim Sleiman & Lan Juanli & Hongzhen Lei & Ru Liu & Yuanxin Ouyang & Wenge Rong, 2021. "User Trust levels and Adoption of Mobile Payment Systems in China: An Empirical Analysis," SAGE Open, , vol. 11(4), pages 21582440211, November.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:joreco:v:41:y:2018:i:c:p:121-130. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.journals.elsevier.com/journal-of-retailing-and-consumer-services .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.