Material Love in the Digital Age: Comparing Perceived Consumer Value of Digital Versus Physical Products

摘要

Understanding consumers' perceived value of digital vs physical product is warranted due to the ubiquity of digital consumption and its already wide-ranging implications for human society. Indeed, examining the reasons why consumers choose digital over physical formats is not only paramount for marketers in digital-related industries (Magaudda 2011) but also for marketers in general as digital technologies become embedded in more consumer products. Perceived value is an important topic to study insofar as it is considered to be a key antecedent of consumer choice (Woodruff 1997). This study follows Sheth et al. (1991) in categorizing functional, emotional, social, epistemic and conditional value to analyze consumers' perceived value of physical vs digital books. Extant research provides initial evidence that consumers prefer digital and physical books for different reasons and purposes. However, this research mostly focused on functional differences with emotional and social factors being underexplored. We suggest that a comparative approach may unveil additional insights into consumers' format preferences.