Feeling Guilty to Buy Online? Exploring Consumers’ Perceived Negative Effects of E-Commerce on Society: An Abstract

Abstract

Scandals about e-retailers’ unethical practices and reports about negative consequences of online shopping on society regularly hit the headlines in Germany. Although literature on e-commerce adoption and ethical consumption is vast, the nature and effects of consumers’ concerns regarding these issues remain unexplored so far. However, these concerns may play a crucial role in the decision to shop online. In line with this claim, recent literature on ethical consumption and corporate social responsibility highlights that companies’ social and environmental performance increasingly matters in consumers’ purchasing decisions (Sudbury-Riley and Kohlbacher 2016). Besides, exploring the nature and role of these concerns is of great relevance for online retailers. Indeed, as the improvement of online shopping experiences and customer services did not suffice to convince European consumers to give up on physical shopping – 91% of goods are still purchased offline in 2016 (Online Retailing Research 2016) – there is a renewed need for cross-disciplinary research on the hurdles to e-commerce adoption (Ingham et al. 2014).