Personality and shopping preferences of consumers: A quantitative study of the relationship between personality traits and shopping preferences of consumers towards online/in-store shopping

Abstract

“Online shopping” has become a common term in the 21st century, since the accessibility to the internet is expanding fast. Hence, the current study was designed to examine the relationship between personality traits and preferences of consumers towards online / in store shopping. The topic of the current research was identified as an underdeveloped topic in the field of research since studies have not yet been conducted to address these two aspects; preferences of consumers and personality traits together. The main purpose of this quantitative non experimental study was to scrutinize the relationship between personality and online shopping preferences among the individuals between 18 and 40 years in the Western Province, Sri Lanka. A sample of 200 respondents were urged to complete an online survey accompanied by Barratt Impulsiveness Scale (BIS-Brief), Personality factors developed by Mowen (2000) as well as a new scale adopted by Levin et al.(2005) to measure preferences of consumers. Structural equation modeling (SEM) was used to analyze data. The results confirmed that there are direct positive relationships between preferences of consumers towards shopping and six factors; Agreeableness, Conscientiousness, Introversion, Emotional Instability, Materialism and Need for arousal. In contrast, preferences of consumers towards in-store shopping were negatively related with Openness to experience as well as impulsiveness. This would motivate future researchers to investigate more on what types of products can be easily marketed through online and in store. More implications for marketing field and consumer psychology are also discussed.

KEYWORDS:  hierarchical model, personality, preferences, consumers, shopping, Structural Equation Modeling