空气质量对消费者互联网搜索行为的影响

Impact of Air Quality to Consumers' Online Website Search Behaviors

随着经济和城市化进程的快速发展,中国部分地区雾霾天气频发,已经影响人们的日常生活。与雾霾相关的议题已经引起政府、业界和学界的共同关注,但雾霾如何影响消费者行为,特别是消费者的互联网搜索和使用行为,目前还缺少充分的证据和研究。已有研究发现,空气质量变差会降低消费者的信息处理能力,并导致消极情绪,被称之为成本效应。同时,面对消极情绪时人们会自发地通过购物和娱乐(听音乐、看电影)等补偿行为缓解其影响,表现为增加对购物类和视频类网站的搜索和使用,被称之为补偿效应。基于对由空气质量引起的消费者感知的成本效应与补偿效应间的博弈,以北京市为例,采用国家环保部提供的空气质量指数和18个主要网站的百度搜索指数,使用Stata/MP 13. 0对数据进行实证分析,研究空气质量对消费者的互联网搜索和使用行为以及终端的使用偏好的影响。研究结果表明,随着空气质量变差,消费者对视频类网站的总搜索热度保持不变,但对购物类网站的总搜索热度会经历一个先增加后下降的倒U形过程。然而,消费者在移动端对两类网站的搜索均呈现倒U形过程,而且消费者对购物类网站的搜索在空气质量较差时的下降趋势要强于视频类网站。同时,空气质量对消费者的终端使用偏好有显著影响,具体来说,消费者搜索和浏览购物类和视频类网站时,空气质量变差会使更多的人从使用PC端转向使用移动端,这种终端间的迁移程度随着空气质量的进一步变差而变缓,进而下降;视频类网站中PC端向移动端迁移的程度显著地低于购物类网站。研究结果拓展了已有的空气质量对消费者情绪和行为影响的理论,为空气质量对消费者网站搜索和使用行为的影响提供定量的证据。研究结论有助于企业更好地调整其营销策略,也为政府和相关领域的决策提供理论基础。

With the fast growth of economy and the accelerated process of urbanization, haze pollution appears more and more fre- quently in many areas in China and has substantially affected people＇s daily life. The emerging and universalizing of Haze Pollu-tion has raised serious concerns by governors, business practitioners and academic scholars these years. However, few studies have been done to formally investigate its impact on consumers＇ commercial behavior, especially their online website search and usage behavior. Previous studies have found that the deterioration in air quality can significantly debase consumers＇ information processing a- bility and further trigger their negative emotions and moods. In this study, we call this a cost effect. Meanwhile, consumers may also strategically rely on consumption and entertainment behaviors such as increase in their online website search and usage be- havior in e-commerce and video media websites, to release these negative emotions and moods caused by bad air quality. We call this a compensation effect. Following these findings in behavior areas, with considering the tradeoff between their perceived cost effect and the compensation effect caused by the bad air quality, and with data from air quality index（AQI） data of Beijing and Baidu search index of 18 major websites, the authors formally investigate the impact of air quality on consumers＇ online website search behaviors. The results of empirical analyses show several interesting nonlinear patterns. First, consumers＇ overall search intensity in video media websites is not significantly influenced by AQI, but their overall search intensity in e-commerce websites exhibits an inverse U-shape pattern with AQI. However, if we only count consumers＇ search behaviors via mobile devices, the search inten- sities in both types of websites will consistently follow an inverse U-shape pattern with increases in AQI. Moreover, the compari- son of the results between two types of websites indicate that when AQI is sufficiently high, its negative impact on consumers＇ search intensity for e-commerce websites is stronger than that for video media websites. Finally, the authors also find that high AQI will push consumers to switch from the PC devices to mobile devices in both types of websites, but this switching behavior will become diminishing and eventually turn back in video media websites when AQI is sufficiently high. Finally, the consumers＇ switching behaviors caused by the air pollution is more prominent in e-commerce websites than in video media websites. The study extents current theories concerning air quality impact on consumer emotion and behavior, providing quantitative evidence. The results of this study can provide useful insights to both firms＇ strategy and government＇s policy making process.