Perceived value and purchase intention in online flash sales: an unraveling of intervening and contingent manner

Abstract

Although online flash sales have been a bloated retail buzzword and a popular trend for many years now, few consumers can explain why buying online flash sales has formed a trend to attract a large number of consumers. They are accepted to take hours, even staying up late, waiting every minute every hour, and willing to make sacrifices of personal effort to satisfy this interesting shopping hobby. Drawing upon the hierarchy of effects model including cognitive-affective-conative-action stage sequence, the study fills these important research gaps by examining the effects of customer perceived values (i.e., price value, functional value, hedonic value, and social value) on attitude towards online flash sales, which in turn leads to purchase intention through the mediating role of willingness to make sacrifices. As well as the moderating role of time pressure on the relationship between attitudes towards online flash sales in turn results in a willingness to make sacrifices. Based on the dataset obtained from a survey of 302 customers of online flash sales in Vietnam, and applying the SmartPLS 3.3.7 package, the research model was tested. The findings demonstrate that price value, functional value, hedonic value, and social value significantly influence consumers’ attitude towards online flash sales, which facilitate their willingness to make sacrifices and then purchase products/services from retailers that provide such online flash sales. The mediation effect of willingness to make sacrifices and the moderation effect of time pressure are also explored.