Abstract

Adolescents are a major proportion of internet users. Accordingly, this study attempts to explore the effects of online shopping motivations on shopping perceptions (that is, hedonic and utilitarian perceptions) among adolescents. Based on Westbrook and Black’s (1985) typologies, this study proposes alternative types of online shopping motivations to address the online shopping context, by integrating previous studies and characteristics of online shopping. Besides, adolescents usually form their judgments and make decisions based on not only their own evaluation but also others’ perceptions and thus, their involvement and subjective norm are treated as moderating effects. The findings indicate that shopping motivations of role enactment, sensory stimulation, and choice optimization are significantly and positively associated with utilitarian shopping perceptions. Social interaction and emotional utility are positively and significantly related to hedonic perception. In addition, our results support the moderating effect of involvement on the relationships between sensory stimulation and hedonic perception, emotional utility and hedonic perception, as well as choice optimization and utilitarian perception. Surprisingly, the moderating effect of subjective norm on an adolescent’s shopping motivations and shopping perceptions is not significant.

Key words: Shopping motivation, shopping perception, involvement, subjective norm, online shopping.