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EMAC 2024 Annual


Digital Marketing and social media
(A2024-119833)

Published: May 28, 2024

AUTHORS

Brikena Berisha, University of Ljubljana

ABSTRACT

‘Please give your information’: Why consumers reveal their private data when buying online? In the age of technology where internet is penetrating the world, digital consumption and online buying is turning into a mainstay in the world economy. This has become a common thing in the lifestyle of people, especially after the pandemic where reported changes on shopping behavior have been made. There are 2.64 billion people buying online or 33,3 of population worldwide (eMarketer, 2023). Grounded on the MEC theory (Gutman, 1982; 1997), this study delves deeper on the motives behind data disclosure. The analysis concentrates on the influence of hedonic and utilitarian motivations as first order constructs, into the behavior of consumers when revealing their private information for content, discounts and rewards, or other benefits. To gain a deeper understanding on the possible relationship, the interaction with consumer awareness is taken into consideration. Triggered by the vagueness on the equilibrium between participation in e-commerce and private data protection (Miltgen, 2009), this research is guided by the underlying motivations of consumers to reveal their private data. The consumer’s rights and responsibilities in the marketplace should be considered with the data regulation application. Therefore, with consumer awareness as a moderator, this study is built on the Means and Chains Theory (MEC) based on which consumer’s motivations depend on how individuals evaluate relevancy of products (Gutman 1982; 1997).The framework is hierarchical, interrelated with attributes, consequences and values. There are several studies interrelating motivations with online buying. However, many times the small steps inside the process of shopping online are neglected. Data disclosure of consumers is a process which is not being properly addressed (Turow et al., 2008). Even though data disclosure can be very rational (e.g. Dinev, McConell & Smith, 2015), numerous intangible and emotional benefits and costs (Havlena & Holbrook, 1986) influence the consumption activity. The purpose of this study is to refine and understand relationships among concepts which influence the data disclosure. As previous researches concentrated on online shopping as the final output, this study takes into account the data disclosure and its impact on the buying process. In that regard, qualitative research based on in-depth interviews was employed and developed through soft laddering. Variables of utilitarian and hedonic motives were generated in order to understand the relation between online shopping motivation into data disclosure. Laddering technique helped develop ‘relating’ between constructs, such as shaping new relationships. Visualization of relationships was built from the collected data. This study comes as a successor of on-going debates regarding the importance of data and the sensitivity of privacy. By extending the MEC theory into online shopping behavior, a new perspective into the field of digital marketing and consumer surveillance is applied in two ways: (1) by clarifying consumer’s motivation into private data disclosure, and (2) investigating the conditional relationship with consumer awareness into the motivation and data disclosure linkage. The different approach from the existing researches on customer surveillance lies on integration of utilitarian and hedonic motivation into the consumer privacy disclosure and incorporate the interaction of consumer awareness. Motivation are categorized into utilitarian (functional and non-extrinsic), and hedonic ones (non-functional and instrinsic (Botti and McGill, 2006). Utilitarian motivation are defined as the motives for functional buying. Through this study, the variables that are emphasized and fit into this category are convenience, time optimization on the process, comfortability while buying, possibility to track the process, opportunity to gain rewards such as points, discounts, membership and trials. On the contrary side of consumption, there are the hedonic motives are defined as ‘the pleasured experience’ of buying. Through these interviews, it became noticeable that there are several variables that lead to the hedonic motivation on data disclosure while buying. In particular, this includes association with brand or website, laziness or lack of patience, engagement with brands, personalization of offers, and feeling of belonging and validation. Keyword: Disclosure, online shopping, private information.