What's in the Box? Investigation of Beauty Subscription Box Retail Services

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to explore key attributes that may influence customers’ behavioral intentions toward beauty subscription box retail services (SBRS). The Stimulus‐Organism‐Response paradigm was used as a conceptual framework for examining the relationships among variables, such as product‐related attributes (Stimuli), attitude (Organism), Word of Mouth (WOM), and repurchase intention (Response). A total of 357 useable responses were collected through an online survey, administered on Amazon Mechanical Turk. Structural equation modeling was used to test the proposed model and hypothesized relationships. Results suggested that product quality, product assortment, and product uniqueness were significant predictors of customers’ attitude toward SBRS. Furthermore, customer attitude toward SBRS had a significant positive influence on WOM and repurchase intention. This study provides insight for retailers to influence WOM and purchase intentions toward beauty SBRS.

An Exploratory Study of Consumers’ Perceptions of Product Types and Factors Affecting Purchase Intentions in the Subscription Economy: 99 Subscription Business Cases

“…Furthermore, consumer attitudes toward subscription-based online services (SOS) were observed to mediate the relationship between utilitarian motivation, hedonic motivation, consumer innovativeness, and use intention. Lee et al [ 36 ] performed a quantitative study to identify the main stimuli (product price, quality, assortment, uniqueness, and surprise) that influence consumer loyalty and found that product quality and uniqueness affected consumer attitudes toward products in the subscription economy. Finally, Bray et al [ 15 ] explained that given different characteristics, consumer attitudes and behaviors can vary depending on the type of subscription service under consideration.…”

Why are style subscriptions popular with Gen-Y men? An implicit theory perspective

“…Perea y Monsuwé et al (2004) suggested that consumers' attitudes toward online shopping reflect characteristics of each individual and product, as well as the ease of use and enjoyment of the online interface and usefulness of the product. In the context of the subscription retail, Lee et al (2019) demonstrated that product-level factors (i.e. product quality, assortment and uniqueness) influenced consumers' attitudes toward the subscription service.…”

“…Despite this apparent fit, very few studies (e.g. Lee et al , 2019; Ramkumar and Woo, 2018; Woo and Ramkumar, 2018) have investigated what profile of Gen-Y men desire to receive a subscription box, and no past studies have examined why subscription boxes are so popular among this group.…”

Exploring Chinese Consumer Traits of Using Clothing Subscription Rental Service

“…Quality consciousness refers to a person's perception of the quality of a product (Lang et al, 2013). Subscription service provides consumers high quality products in a monthly box (Lee et al, 2019). Price consciousness refers to an individual's sensitivity to price when purchasing products (Lang & Armstrong, 2016), and it also implies that consumers are not willing to pay a higher price (Lichtenstein et al, 1993).…”

“…Price consciousness refers to an individual's sensitivity to price when purchasing products (Lang & Armstrong, 2016), and it also implies that consumers are not willing to pay a higher price (Lichtenstein et al, 1993). As subscription-box service is a simple online business model, it provides new items of apparel brands with a lower price (Lee et al, 2019). Consumer environmental knowledge refers to "factual information that individuals have about the environment, the ecology of the planet, and the influence of human actions on the environment" (Arcury & Johnson, 1987, p. 32).…”