Research On The Effect Of Psychological Distance On Online Purchase Decision

How to make the decision of shopping online, which is affected by many factors, is a very complicated process for the online consumers. What factors and how to affect the decision need the further research. Do the factors have the same influence on the decision making, such as visiting the website to get product information, commenting online and acquiring different types of information (abstract, integral, summary or specific, partly and detailed)? Does the location of network business or logistics delivery time have an impact on online consumer decision-making? When consumers do shopping online by themselves or give suggestions for others, are the decisions made by online consumers the same? Surely, the factors above are likely to affect the decision making when the consumers are faced with the purchase decision. For instance, are there any differences between self-made decision and decision made for others when the consumer facing different information in the nearer and further future? Currently, there is less research on how to affect the decision making of online consumers. Therefore, it is very urgent to do the research on how the psychological distance and construal level affect the decision making for the development of electronic commerce.This thesis interpreted the issues with the theory of construal level from the perspective of psychological distance. The result from the study of traditional market home and abroad shows that consumers tend to represent the target and cases with high and abstract construal level when the psychological distance is further; on the contrary, the consumers prefer lower ones. This thesis introduced fit or congruence/matching theory and subadditivity theory to interpret internal mechanism and terminal condition to the decision making of shopping online affected by the consumers’ psychological distance and construal level based on the former research in the e-business environment. Based on the distance dimensionality to increase progressive design, this thesis used multiple experimental design methods to choose different goods to explore the dimension of psychological distance and mutual dimension matched by construal level affecting the decision making of online consumers.The research findings are as follows:(1) there is interactive influence on the decision making of online consumers between single dimension psychological distance and interpretation level of goods, which showed the consistency. The consumers are likely to make the decision when the temporal distance, social distance dimension matches(fits) the construal level to the products online. However, the consumers tend to do the online shopping when they are sensitive to the higher construal level.(2) There is interactive influence on the decision making between two dimensions psychological distance and construal level, which shows there is some fits/matching to some extent. The consumers are likely to buy when they pay much attention to the low construal level since the temporal distance and social distance are close simultaneously. When the temporal distance, spatial distance and social distance are close simultaneously, and match/fit/congruent the low construal level, or the two dimensions are far from each other, and match the high construal level, the consumers make the decision easily.(3) There is interactive influence on the decision making between three dimensions psychological distance and construal level, which shows there is some matching to some extent. When the temporal distance, spatial distance, and social distance are close simultaneously and match the low construal level, or the three distances are far from each other and match the high construal level, the consumer are likely to make the decision to buy. This thesis expands the research on construal level, and extends the research on psychological distance and high, low construal levels of online products theoretically. Practically, it is beneficial to understand the consuming of online consumers and guide the marketing management of online retails enterprise, which is meaningful to the relative researches and the management of online retail enterprises.