건강식품 구매에 제품 네이밍과 고객의 제품 경험, 기업의 제품 판촉이 미치는 영향 (The Interplay of Product Naming, Customers’ Experience and Retailers’ Promotion in Purchasing Healthcare Products)

서지정보

· 발행기관 : 한국유통학회
· 수록지 정보 : 유통연구 / 25권 / 3호 / 23 ~ 43페이지
· 저자명 : LI YILING, 김상화, 김무전, 최정혜

초록

본 연구는 서로 다른 네이밍 전략을 택하는 두 제품에서 소비자들의 건강식품 구매 행동에 미치는 고객 제품 경험 및 기업 제품 판촉의 영향력이 각각 다르게 나타나는 양상을 검증하였다. 이를 위해 저자들은 건강식품을 판매하는 온라인 유통업체의 자사 온라인쇼핑몰 거래 자료를 활용하여 실증분석 모형을 도출하였다. 먼저 제품 네이밍의 경우, 구성 성분을 주제어로 강조한 전략과 사용 효과를 주제어로 강조한 전략을 비교하였다. 또한 고객의 제품 경험을 직전 분기 구매량으로, 기업의 제품 판촉을 직전 분기 할인율로 정의하여, 각 요인의 건강식품 구매에 대한 영향이 상이한 제품 네이밍에서 어떻게 다르게 나타나는지 확인하였다. 포아송 회귀모형을 이용한 실증분석 결과, 저자들은 소비자의 건강식품 구매에 관한 두 가지 결론을 도출하였다. 먼저 고객의 제품 경험 측면에서 볼 때, 건강식품에 대한 고객의 제품 경험이 증가할수록 효과를 강조한 제품보다 성분을 강조한 제품을 더 선호한다. 한편, 기업의 제품 판촉 측면에서 볼 때, 제품 할인은 성분을 강조한 건강식품의 구매에 부정적인 반면, 효과를 강조한 제품의 구매에는 긍정적인 것으로 나타났다. 저자들은 이와 같은 연구 결과를 바탕으로 본 연구의 학문적 시사점과 실무적 시사점을 논의하였다. 특히 본 연구는 업계의 네이밍 전략을 고려하는 동시에 일반적인 거래 자료에서 확보할 수 있는 소비자 구매 요인을 주요 변수로 활용함으로써 유통연구와 업계 모두에 유의미한 시사점을 제시하였다.

영어초록

Given consumers’ growing interest in well-being, the demand for healthcare products continues to rise (Grand View Research 2019; Kuster-Boluda and Vidal-Capilla 2017). The determinants that drive the purchase of healthcare products can be different from the ones for purchasing consumer goods since healthcare products are characterized by credence attributes rather than search or experience (e.g., Hsieh, Chiu and Chiang 2005). Further, product naming can serve to offer pertinent information before purchasing such products as healthcare, which can affect consumers purchase intention in a different way (Ahn and Yu 2018). Drawing on this research, the present study examines what drives the purchase of healthcare products and if so, how such effects are moderated by product naming strategy. Specifically, the authors answer to the following questions: First, how do consumers’ experience in and retailers’ promotion for healthcare products drive the purchase? Second, do their effects differentiate in product naming (i.e., ingredient priming vs. function priming)? The healthcare industry as well as academy often capitalizes on ingredients that constitute a product (e.g., Garcinia Cambogia), or on its functional aspects (e.g., weight loss) when it comes to promoting product names. Evaluation of such products depends on consumers’ knowledge, which is substantially developed by their previous product experience. Consumers responses to retailers’ promotion of products can also potentially correlate with product knowledge. Thus, this study proposes the framework in which product naming strategy interplays with consumers’ experience in and retailers’ promotion of healthcare products. As shown in Figure 1, the framework hypothesizes the followings: [H1] The ingredient-priming product would be purchased more, (a) as the product was purchased more, and (b) as the function-priming product was purchased more previously.
[H2] The function-priming product would be purchased less, (a) as the ingredient-priming product was purchased more, and (b) as the focal product was purchased more previously.
[H3] The ingredient-priming product would be purchased less, (a) as the product was discounted more, and (b) as the function-priming product was discounted more previously.
[H4] The function-priming product would be purchased less, (a) as the ingredient-priming product was discounted more, and (b) as the focal product was discounted less previously.
The authors obtain data from a major online retailer that sells healthcare products. Being time-series data that range from December 2016 to February 2018, the data have product information such as stock keeping units (SKU), product category and list price. The data also track individual-level transactions such as customer identification number, time stamp of purchase, selling price of products, quantity of purchase and the amount of payment, and customer profiles such as gender and age. Finally, the authors collect data on the number of retailing drugstores for offline sales and perceived obesity in each region to control for exogenous influences.
The dependent variables are purchase quantity for each of ingredient-priming and function-priming products on a quarterly basis. As for the independent variable, the authors leverage proxy: First, given that product experience is developed through the previous purchases, they operationalize customers’ product experience as the previous quarter’s purchase quantity for each product. Next, given that price discount is one of the most common promotion tools, retailers’ product promotion is operationalized as the previous quarter’s discount rate for the products purchased. Lastly, a control vector for each model consists of such variables as (log) total spending in the previous quarter, a proportion of healthcare products to total purchase, a proportion of weight-loss products to healthcare products purchase, and the number of SKUs that accounts for the individuals’ propensity of variety seeking. The authors also control for customers’ age and gender, and the region level influences such as the number of retailing drugstores and the perceived obesity.
Bivariate Poisson regression model is employed to estimate the parameter for the proposed model because the two dependent variables are count measures and potentially correlated to each other. Both empirical models include the time-fixed effects to control for unobserved heterogeneity.
Based on the estimation results in Table 1, we suggest the following empirical findings. First, the purchase of the ingredient-priming product has a significant and positive relationship with the previous purchase of the same product and has a significant and positive relationship with the previous purchase of the function-priming product, supporting both H1(a) and H1(b). Second, the purchase of function-priming product has a significant and negative relationship with the previous purchase of the same product but does not have a significant relationship with the previous purchase of the ingredient-priming product. Thus, H2(a) is rejected and H2(b) is supported. Third, the purchase of the ingredient-priming product has a significant and negative relationship with the previous discount of the same product and has a significant and negative relationship with the previous discount of the function-priming product, supporting H3(a) and H3(b). Fourth, the purchase of the function-priming product has a significant and positive relationship with the previous discount of the same product but does not have a significant relationship with the previous discount of the ingredient-priming product. Thus, H4(a) is rejected and H4(b) is supported.
This study demonstrates the interplay of product naming, customer experience and retailer promotion in purchasing healthcare products. Drawing from the empirical findings, the authors suggest two important conclusions about consumer’s purchase of healthcare products. On the one hand, consumers are switching their purchase from function-priming to ingredient-priming products as their product experience increases. On the other hand, function-priming products can take advantage of discounting price whereas discounting promotion is in general detrimental to the purchase of ingredient-priming products. Contributing to research in healthcare products retailing, this study provides managerial implications so that retailers can leverage their product naming strategy in conjunction with the previous consumer experience in and discount promotion of healthcare products.

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