Shopping without the fuss: the effect of curation type in clothing subscription adoption on cognitive dissonance and consumer responses

Abstract

Purpose To address the volatile nature of the retail industry, retailers have adopted clothing subscription services (CSS) to meet the demanding needs of consumers. This study provides insight into different types of CSS, as well as a process by which behavioural intentions are influenced by CSS type through cognitive dissonance (wisdom of purchase and emotional dissonance) and attitude towards the CSS. Design/methodology/approach An experimental design manipulating the CSS type (full/partial/none) was conducted among 358 US consumers to test the proposed hypotheses. Findings Hayes PROCESS macro model results demonstrated that consumers did not experience more cognitive dissonance towards a partially, fully curated or non-curated CSS. However, a significant interaction effect further uncovered that consumers with high aesthetic perception experience more negative wisdom of purchase towards a fully compared to a partially curated CSS, thereby impacting attitude and behavioural intention towards CSS. Practical implications Due to today's rapidly evolving retail industry, retailers endeavouring to engage in this business model should come up with strategies to turn a visitor into a subscriber and decrease hesitation in novice consumers. Moreover, retailers should ascertain consumers’ level of aesthetic perception as it plays an important role in CSS adoption. Originality/value We introduced a unique operationalization of CSS types by differentiating between fully, partially and non-curated subscriptions, which are commonly employed in the subscription-box marketplace. The previous literature rarely makes distinctions between these types, although our findings show that consumers perceive them differently.