Influence of Pro-Environmental Attitudes on the Choice between Tangible and Virtual Product Forms

Paulina Jusiuk ()
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Paulina Jusiuk: Department of Marketing, Faculty of Management, Lublin University of Technology, 20618 Lublin, Poland

Sustainability, 2023, vol. 15, issue 13, 1-24

Abstract: The development of modern technology has contributed to changes in consumer shopping trends. Increasingly, there is a departure from traditional to digital sales channels and similar trends are also being observed for different categories of products—e.g., books or movies. The most important reasons behind such a shift includes purchase convenience, storage ease, or a supposed lower environmental impact. The purpose of this research was to verify whether the pro-environmental attitudes represented by consumers are a moderating variable in the choice between the traditional and digital form of a product. In order to do this, a survey questionnaire was first developed and then a representative sample of 1000 Polish respondents were surveyed. The research procedure included an exploratory factor analysis used for extracting consumers’ pro-environmental attitudes, as well as an indicator of propensity to choose either digital or traditional products; Ward’s hierarchical analysis and the k-means method for grouping participants into clusters based on such attitudes and then evaluating the willingness to choose a particular product in each cluster; differences between clusters (Mann–Whitney’s U and Kruskal–Wallis H tests); as well as a correlation between those attitudes and the preferred product form. The research proved that there were consumer groups taking similar actions related to environmental issues, as well as tending to choose a particular product form. The conducted analyses revealed that isolated, pro-environmental attitudes were positively correlated with a willingness to choose a digital product, although such a relationship is weak. Additionally, it was proven that groups with general pro-environmental orientation are more willing to buy products in traditional form, whereas digital forms were visibly more popular in groups with more neutral or negative approaches towards the environment.

Keywords: pro-environmental attitudes; product form choice; digital product; traditional product; cluster analysis (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2023
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