Sustainable consumers' multichannel shopping through purchase channel choices
Loading...
URL
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
School of Business |
Master's thesis
Authors
Date
Department
Major/Subject
Mcode
Degree programme
Language
en
Pages
75 + 3
Series
Abstract
People are currently consuming more than they can afford regarding the planet’s resources. In the future the situation will be even worse as the world’s population will grow and get richer, and consequently consumption will reach even higher levels. This development has severe consequences on the environment. Fortunately, the world has started to wake up to the problem and take actions to ensure the sustainability of consumption. Despite the growing interest in this crucial matter, sustainable consumption has not been properly studied in relation to the current multichannel retail environment where it takes place. This thesis addresses the research gap of sustainable consumers’ multichannel shopping by studying which channels Finnish sustainable consumers use to make purchases. This research investigates sustainable consumers’ general and product category specific purchase channel choices and compares them to those of non-sustainable consumers. The study is conducted with quantitative secondary data that is based on an online panel questionnaire. The data includes measures on sustainable consumption and purchase channel choices. The data is analyzed with several statistical methods. First, the respondents of the data are divided into three consumer segments based on the sustainability of their consumption with cluster analysis. Second, the segments’ purchase channel choices are examined with one-way ANOVA, cross-tabulation and chi-square test. The findings show that sustainable consumers use both physical and online channels to make purchases, but that they buy more from physical channels than from online channels. Furthermore, sustainable consumers’ purchase channel choices vary across different product categories, especially regarding electronics as they buy them more from online channels and less from physical channels than other categories. The results also indicate that the purchase channel choices of sustainable and non-sustainable consumers differ partly. As for the differences, sustainable consumers purchase more through physical channels than non-sustainable consumers, and non-sustainable consumers purchase more through online channels than sustainable consumers. The findings offer theoretical implications for the almost nonexistent research on sustainable consumers’ multichannel shopping, and for sustainable consumption and multichannel shopping literatures. The results also provide managerial implications that can be used to tar-get sustainable consumers and improve their customer experience.Description
Thesis advisor
Mitronen, LasseKajalo, Sami