소비자의 기업의도 추론이 희소성 효과에 미치는 영향 = The Effects of Intention Inferences on Scarcity Effect : Moderation Effect of Scarcity Type, Scarcity Depth

국문 초록 (Abstract)

본 연구는 기업에 대한 소비자의 의도추론이 희소성 효과에 미치는 영향에 있어서 희소성 메시지의 수량한정 유형 및 폭의 조절효과를 파악하고자 진행되었다. 연구결과는 크게 두 가지로 요약할 수 있다.
첫째, 특별한정으로 제시되는 경우에는 소비자의 기업에 대한 의도추론은 희소성 효과에 영향을 미치지 않았다. 그러나 일반한정으로 제시되는 경우에는 소비자가 기업의 의도를 추론하는 경우가 그렇지 않은 경우에 비해 구매의도가 더욱 낮았다.
둘째 수량한정의 폭이 작은 경우에는 소비자의 기업에 대한 의도추론은 희소성 효과에 영향을 미치지 않았다. 그러나 수량한정의 폭이 큰 경우에는 소비자가 기업의 의도를 추론하는 경우가 그렇지 않은 경우에 비해 구매의도가 더욱 낮았다.

다국어 초록 (Multilingual Abstract)

The scarcity is pervasive aspect of human life and is a fundamental precondition of economic behavior of consumers. Also, the effect of scarcity message is a power social influence principle used by marketers to increase the subjective desirability of products. Because valuable objects are often scare, consumers tend to infer the scarce objects are valuable.
Marketers often do base promotional appeals on the principle of scarcity to increase the subjective desirability their products among consumers. Specially, advertisers and retailers often promote their products using restrictions. These restriction act to constraint consumers' ability th take advantage of the promotion and can assume several forms. For example, some promotions are advertised as limited time offers, while others limit the quantity that can be bought at the deal price by employing the statements such as 'limit' on per consumer,' 'limit 5 pr customer,' 'limited products for special commemoration celebration,' Some retailers use statements extensively. A recent weekly flyer by a prominent retailer limited purchase quantities on 50% of the specials advertised on front page. When consumers saw these phrase, they often infer value from the product that has limited availability or is promoted as being scarce.
But, the past researchers explored a direct relationship between the purchase quantity and time limit on deal purchase intention. They also don't explored that all restriction message are not created equal. Namely, we thought that different restrictions signal deal value in different ways or different mechanism. Consumers appear to perceive that time limits are used to attract consumers to the brand, while quantity limits are necessary to reduce stockpiling. This suggests other possible differences across restrictions. For example, quantity limits could imply product quality (i.e., this product at this price is so good that purchases must be limited). In contrast, purchase preconditions force the consumer to spend a certain amount to qualify for the deal, which suggests that inferences about the absolute quality of the promoted item would decline from purchase limits (highest quality) to time limits to purchase preconditions (lowest quality). This might be expected to be particularly true for unfamiliar brands.
However, a critical but elusive issue in scarcity message research is the impacts of a inferred motives on the promoted scarcity message. The past researchers not explored possibility of inferred motives on the scarcity message context. Despite various type to the quantity limits message, they didn't separated scarcity message among the quantity limits. Therefore, we apply a stricter definition of scarcity message(i.e. quantity limits) and consider scarcity message type (general scarcity message vs. special scarcity message), scarcity depth(high vs. low).
The purpose of this study is to examine the effect of the scarcity message on the consumer's purchase intension. Specifically, we investigate the effect of general versus special scarcity messages on the consumer's purchase intention using the level of the scarcity depth as moderators. In other words, we postulates that the scarcity message type and scarcity depth play an essential moderating role in the relationship between the inferred motives and purchase intention. In other worlds, different from the past studies, we examine the interplay between the perceived motives and scarcity type, and between the perceived motives and scarcity depth. Both of these constructs have been examined in isolation, but a key question is whether they interact to produce an effect in reaction to the scarcity message type or scarcity depth increase.
The perceived motive Inference behind the scarcity message will have important impact on consumers' reactions to the degree of scarcity depth increase. In relation ti this general question, we investigate the following specific issues.
First, does consumers'