Investgating the Intention of purchasing Digital Items in Virtual Communities

Most virtual community (VC) providers lack profitable business models. The challenge for VC providers is to generate and increase revenue from sources other than advertising. The sale of digital items (e.g., avatar) to VC members is a recent revenue generation method. This study examines how VC members decide to purchase digital items from the customer value perspective. Based on customer value theory, this study identifies six factors over three dimensions of customer value and examines their effects on VC members’ intention of purchasing digital items. Our finding suggests that the effect of value on members’ purchase intentions is significant in the functional (i.e., quality of digital items), social (i.e., social self-image), and emotional (i.e., playfulness) value dimensions. This study provides important implications for practitioners to understand how they can foster an ideal environment for customers to perceive more value in their digital items so that it would be more compelling to make

[1]  E. Hirschman,et al.  The Experiential Aspects of Consumption: Consumer Fantasies, Feelings, and Fun , 1982 .

[2]  Donghun Chung,et al.  Something for Nothing: Understanding Purchasing Behaviors in Social Virtual Environments , 2005, Cyberpsychology Behav. Soc. Netw..

[3]  Elizabeth Reid,et al.  Cultural formations in text-based virtual realities , 1994 .

[4]  William B. Dodds,et al.  Effects of Price, Brand, and Store Information on Buyers’ Product Evaluations , 1991 .

[5]  Douglas B. Grisaffe,et al.  Antecedents and consequences of customer value : testing an expanded framework , 1998 .

[6]  Danah Boyd,et al.  Friendster and publicly articulated social networking , 2004, CHI EA '04.

[7]  Mark T. Spence,et al.  Decomposing the value of department store shopping into utilitarian, hedonic and social dimensions: Evidence from Finland , 2006 .

[8]  J. Hoseason.  Pricing: Making Profitable Decisions , 2003 .

[9]  J. Bowlby.  Attachment and loss: retrospect and prospect. , 1969, The American journal of orthopsychiatry.

[10]  Edward E. Rigdon,et al.  Experiential value: Conceptualization, measurement and application in the catalog and Internet shopping environment. , 2001 .

[11]  Katelyn Y. A. McKenna,et al.  Plan 9 From Cyberspace: The Implications of the Internet for Personality and Social Psychology , 2000 .

[12]  Stephen A. Webb.  Avatarculture: Narrative, power and identity in virtual world environments , 2001 .

[13]  Young-Gul Kim,et al.  Extending the TAM for a World-Wide-Web context , 2000, Inf. Manag..

[14]  J. Sirgy,et al.  Self-concept in consumer behaviour: a critical review”, Journal of Consumer Research, Vol. pp. . , 1982 .

[15]  D. Garvin.  Competing on the Eight Dimensions of Quality , 1987 .

[16]  A. Maslow.  Toward a psychology of being, 2nd ed. , 1968 .

[17]  R. B. Woodruff,et al.  Customer value: The next source for competitive advantage , 1997 .

[18]  Yunjie Calvin Xu,et al.  Understanding Aesthetics Design for E-Commerce Web sites: a Cognitive-Affective Framework , 2008, PACIS.

[19]  J. Dutton,et al.  Reconceptualizing of the overjustification effect: A template-matching approach , 1983 .

[20]  Dhruv Grewal,et al.  Retail Environment, Self-Congruity, and Retail Patronage: An Integrative Model and a Research Agenda , 2000 .

[21]  A. Maslow.  Toward a Psychology of Being , 1962 .

[22]  Vili Lehdonvirta,et al.  Real-Money Trade of Virtual Assets: Ten Different User Perceptions , 2005 .

[23]  K. B. Monroe.  Pricing: Making Profitable Decisions , 1990 .

[24]  Katherine Walker,et al.  “It's Difficult to Hide It”: The Presentation of Self on Internet Home Pages , 2000 .

[25]  Barbara L. Gross,et al.  Why we buy what we buy: A theory of consumption values , 1991 .

[26]  R. Baumeister,et al.  The need to belong: desire for interpersonal attachments as a fundamental human motivation. , 1995, Psychological bulletin.

[27]  M. Csíkszentmihályi,et al.  Beyond Boredom and Anxiety: The Experience of Play in Work and Games. , 1977 .

[28]  Alan J. Dubinsky,et al.  A conceptual model of perceived customer value in e-commerce: A preliminary investigation , 2003 .

[29]  G. Hutton.  Net gain: Expanding markets through virtual communities , 1998 .

[30]  C. W. Park,et al.  Consumer Response to Television Commercials: The Impact of Involvement and Background Music on Brand Attitude Formation , 1986 .

[31]  A. Wildt,et al.  Price, product information, and purchase intention: An empirical study , 1994 .

[32]  Joon Koh,et al.  Sense of Virtual Community : Conceptual Framework and Empirical Validation , 2001 .

[33]  M. R. Solomon.  The Role of Products as Social Stimuli: A Symbolic Interactionism Perspective , 1983 .

[34]  V. Zeithaml.  Consumer Perceptions of Price, Quality, and Value: A Means-End Model and Synthesis of Evidence: , 1988 .

[35]  Hee-Dong Yang,et al.  The visual characteristics of avatars in computer-mediated communication: Comparison of Internet Relay Chat and Instant Messenger as of 2003 , 2006, Int. J. Hum. Comput. Stud..

[36]  Richard H. Thaler,et al.  Mental Accounting and Consumer Choice , 1985, Mark. Sci..

[37]  William R. Darden,et al.  Work and/or Fun: Measuring Hedonic and Utilitarian Shopping Value , 1994 .

[38]  G. Soutar,et al.  Consumer perceived value: The development of a multiple item scale , 2001 .

[39]  Alladi Venkatesh,et al.  Postmodernity: The age of marketing , 1993 .