Proceedings of 23rd International Business Research Conference
18 - 20 November, 2013, Marriott Hotel, Melbourne, Australia, ISBN: 978-1-922069-36-8
The Influence of Payment Method and Advertisement
Appeal on Consumers’ Perceived Risk in Online FortuneTelling Environment
Yu-Fan Liu* Fei-Fei Cheng** and Chin-Shan Wu***
The prosperity of the Internet drives traditional fortune-telling industry
to develop online services. This study intends to analyze how
advertising appeals and payment methods of online fortune-telling
websites affect the consumers’ perceived risks. The consumers’
sensation seeking characteristic was considered as a moderator in
the research framework. The empirical results suggested that: (1)
Advertising appeals (rational vs. emotional) resulted in significantly
different level of perceived risk. Specifically, rational advertising
appeal is more effective than the emotional advertising appeal to
reduce consumers’ perceived risk in online fortune-telling services; (2)
Payment method lead to significantly different perceived risk.
Participants perceived higher risks when only online payment method
provided than offline payment method; (3) Sensation seeking did not
moderate the relationship between payment method, advertisement
appeal and perceived risk. Rather, it resulted in significantly different
level of perceived risk in online fortune-telling services.
1. Introduction
As online shopping has been increasingly grown, in addition to tangible goods,
consumers gradually became widely acceptable to online services. Especially when
busy modern people face uncertain social pressure, they need to seek for spiritual
sustenance. Online fortune-telling just combines both of the above two demands.
Online fortune-telling industry began in 2000. The market has climbed to 400 million
annual turnovers. As long as Internet users become a fortune-telling website
member, they can get the account and service.
Online fortune-telling website also closely integrated with major portals, astrology
and fortune-telling area is always the most popular items in webpage (Kuo, 2009).
Consumers in Taiwan are willing to spend money on online fortune-telling, and the
market potential of online fortune-telling development is still considerable. Thus, the
objective of this study is to understand that how advertising appeals and payment
methods affect the consumers' perceived risks in online fortune-telling website.
Further, the online consumers’ personal characteristic—sensation seeking—was
considered as the moderator in research framework.
* Miss Yu-Fan Liu, Institute of Technology Management, National Chung Hsing University, Taiwan.
Email: ladyfanfan515@yahoo.com.tw
**Dr. Fei-Fei Cheng, Institute of Technology Management, National Chung Hsing University, Taiwan.
Email: feifei.mis@gmail.com; corresponding author
***Dr. Chin-Shan Wu, Department of Information Management, Tunghai University, Taiwan
Email: cswu.mis@gmail.com
Proceedings of 23rd International Business Research Conference
18 - 20 November, 2013, Marriott Hotel, Melbourne, Australia, ISBN: 978-1-922069-36-8
2. Methodology
The objective of this study is to examine the effect of different advertising appeals
and payment methods on consumes’ perceived risks. In addition, the moderating
effect of sensation seeking was discussed. According to the research objective, a 2
(advertising appeals: rational/emotional) x 2 (payment: online/offline) betweensubjects factorial design experiment was conducted. The experimental website is a
fictitious online fortune-telling website. The respondents were given instructions to
enter the experimental website by using personal computers in the computer
laboratory and completed the online questionnaire after they browsed the website.
3. The Findings
Analysis of Variance (ANOVA) was used to evaluate the effect of advertising
appeals and payment method on perceived risks. The main effect of advertising
appeal is significant on perceived risk (F-value=12.93, p<0.001). Payment methods
also showed significant main effect on perceived risk (F-value=6.90, p<0.01). The
interaction effects between advertisement appeal, payment method and sensation
seeking on perceived risks are not significant. Rather, sensation seeking has
significant main effect on perceived risks (F-value=8.25, p<0.01).
4. Summary and Conclusions
This study provides an empirical result for examining the factors in influencing online
fortune-telling consumers’ perceived risks. The results showed that rational
advertising appeals can result in lower perceived risks than emotional advertising
appeals. Due to the characteristics of the online service, such as intangibility and
heterogeneity, consumers tend to believe that rational appeals will be able to provide
more objective information. This result supported Bettman (1973) and Taylor’s (1974)
argument—inherent risk can be reduced by acquiring information. Therefore, online
fortune-telling service providers can reduce consumers’ perceived risk through
providing more rational information in advertisements.
In addition, current study found that the payment method will result in different level
of perceived risks in online fortune-telling context. Specifically, consumers feel much
higher risks when only online payment methods (i.e., paypal, web ATM, credit card…)
are available. The reason might be that online payment like credit card makes
consumer worried about privacy and security concern (Sevgi et al., 2010, Wayner,
1997).
Finally, the experimental results showed that sensation seeking was not a
moderating factor between advertisement appeal, payment method and consumers’
perceived risks. Rather, it served as the independent variable and revealed
significant main effect on perceived risks. As previous study indicated that high
sensation seekers perceived lower level of risks than low sensation seekers
(Zuckerman, 1979), results from current study provide empirical evidence for this
argument.
Proceedings of 23rd International Business Research Conference
18 - 20 November, 2013, Marriott Hotel, Melbourne, Australia, ISBN: 978-1-922069-36-8
Acknowledgment
Funding of this research work is supported by the National Science Council
(grant number, 102-2410-H-005-035-MY2), Taiwan.
References
BETTMAN, J. R. 1973. Perceived Risk and Its Components: A Model and Empirical
Test. Journal of Marketing Research (JMR), 10, 184-190.
KUO, C. 2009. A study of the consumption of Chinese online fortune telling services.
Chinese Journal of Communication, 2, 288-306.
SEVGI, Ö., GAYANI, B. & RAY, H. 2010. Facilitating the adoption of e-payment
systems: theoretical constructs and empirical analysis. Journal of Enterprise
Information Management, 23, pp.305 - 325.
TAYLOR, J. W. 1974. The Role of Risk in Consumer Behavior. The Journal of
Marketing, 38, 54-60.
WAYNER, P. 1997. Digital cash : commerce on the Net, Boston, Mass., AP
Professional.
ZUCKERMAN, M. 1979. Sensation seeking : beyond the optimal level of arousal,
Hillsdale, N.J.; New York, L. Erlbaum Associates ; distributed by the Halsted
Press Division of Wiley.