Predicting purchase intention for private sale sites

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to explore the impacts of several consumer characteristics (fashion leadership, impulse buying, bargain shopping), web site attitude, and visit frequency on intention to purchase from a private sale site. Design/methodology/approach – Data were collected from 164 female respondents who were members of at least one private sale site. The sample was selected mainly by using a snowball sampling technique which relied on chain referrals to recruit eligible participants. Factor analysis results suggested that fashion leadership consisted of two dimensions: fashion opinion leadership and fashion innovativeness. Regression analysis was conducted to determine how strongly purchase intention for private sale sites was predicted by fashion opinion leadership, fashion innovativeness, impulse buying, bargain shopping, web site attitude, and visit frequency. Findings – Regression results showed that ease of use was the only dimension of web site attitude that significantly predicted purchase intention. Impulse buying and bargain shopping also significantly influenced purchase intention. Implications for future research and limitations were also discussed. Originality/value – As private sale sites continue to grow in popularity, insight into the psychology and behaviors of shoppers at these sites has become more important. There has been, however, no published research that examines what motivates consumers to purchase from private sale sites.