Keywords

1 Introduction

The growth of electronic commerce has been significant during the last 5 years, minimizing that of face-to-face sales [6]. Globally, China and the United States lead online sales, exceeding 500 billion dollars annually. Among Latin American countries, Chile ranks second, with annual online sales for almost 6 billion dollars [22].

In the United States two events account for the highest percentage of online sales in the country [29], namely Black Friday and Cyber Monday. The first emerged in 1950, when retail stores lowered their prices and extended their hours [12]. Given the success of the event, it expanded worldwide in 2000, becoming an online event that mobilizes one the highest sales around the world. This led to the creation of a similar event called Cyber Monday in 2005 [26].

In Chile, both events, Cyber Monday and Black Friday, were incorporated to promote online shopping. Cyber Monday became one of the most important online shopping events in the country, obtaining a historical record in sales that exceeded 233 million dollars in 2018. This is equivalent to 23% more than the sales of the previous year (2017), a trend that has been repeating year after year [14]. The results indicate that 66% of Chilean consumers know about the event and that 51.63% were willing to participate in 2018.

The great popularity that these events have had both globally and nationally and the constant increase in consumer purchases invite us to reflect on the motives of consumers to participate in these events, as well as the reasons behind the steady increase in online purchases and the decrease in face-to-face purchases. To answer these questions, it is imperative to analyze the variables that influence the use of these events.

2 Literature Review

2.1 Cyber Monday/Black Friday in Chile

The last Cyber Monday in Chile took place in the first days of October 2018 and included 281 brands. A historical record in sales was obtained, exceeding $ 233 million dollars, which is equivalent to an increase of 23% compared to the event of the previous year (2017). Among the categories that concentrated consumer preferences were clothing, footwear, and accessories, sports and outdoors, home improvement, health and beauty, technology, travel and tourism, with a focus on chain-stores, supermarkets, as well as a great interest in the real estate and automotive industries [14]. Figure 1 shows the large increase in sales on Cyber Monday, which have increased 15 times since 2011.

Fig. 1.
figure 1

(data source [14]).

Historical sales in CyberMonday events in billion USD

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The Black Friday in Chile has been held since 2014, and this year it will take place on November 29. According to the existing statistics, 66% of Chileans know what Black Friday is and 51.67% were willing to participate in the 2018 shopping party. According to [5] most consumers will buy online (50.36%), and a large part will choose to purchase both online and at physical stores (42.45%), whereas a minority will only buy at traditional stores (7.19%). Compared to 2017, the percentage of users who chose only physical stores was higher (11.84% compared to 7.19% currently registered) [5].

In contrast to a normal Friday, the increase in sales in Chile on Black Friday is 564%. The average Chilean buyer is willing to pay $ 271 USD in total for purchases on this event. That places Chile at the top of the ranking of Latin American countries, above Argentina ($ 253 USD), and Mexico ($ 239 USD) [5].

Like the case of Cyber Monday, the five most popular product categories for sales on Black Friday are clothing, electronics, footwear, cosmetics, and perfumes and household appliances [5].

2.2 New Technology Acceptance Models

The growing development and use of technology in recent years has led to remarkable progress as well as an increase in studies about consumer behavior. These studies have developed models that attempt to explain user behavior when facing new technologies, generating a research trend applicable to different fields. The models developed have been studied in great depth to better explain the phenomenon under study. In this case, the TAM model and Technology Continuance Theory were used.

Technology Acceptance Model (TAM).

The Technology Acceptance Model (TAM) developed by Davis in 1989 is based on the theory of reasoned action. It was specially designed to predict the acceptance of information systems by users in organizations [34].

According to Davis [15], the main purpose of TAM is to explain the factors that determine the use of ICTs (Information and Communication Technologies) by a significant number of users. Therefore, to predict the use of ICT, the model is based on two main characteristics:

Perceived Usefulness: the degree to which people believe that using a particular system will improve their job performance.

Perceived Ease of Use: the degree to which people believe that they will make less effort to perform their tasks by using a particular system.

In addition, the model postulates that there are external variables that influence those already mentioned directly and indirectly on the intention and attitude towards the use of a technology.

Technology Continuance Theory.

The Technology Continuance Theory (TCT) is used to describe the attitude and continuance intent to use an information system. It is said to represent an improvement of the TAM model, as it is suitable for the entire acceptance life cycle. It also provides greater explanatory basis for intention to use, merging attitude and satisfaction in a continuance model. In this way, the dependent variable to be explained becomes the Continuance Intention [21].

Previous research [20] suggests that perceived risk and subjective norms are significant constructs for predicting attitude and continuous Intent to Use and that they could be added to TCT.

2.3 Research Model and Hypothesis

The model under study was developed based on two pieces of research. The first one was carried out by Swilley and Goldsmith [29] and provided the structure necessary to model the interactions between variables. The following variables were preserved in the model: Convenience, Perceived Usefulness and Shopping Enjoyment. The second study was conducted by Weng et al. [33] and was adapted to the context of Cyber Monday and Black Friday using the variables, Attitude, Perceived Risk, Subjective Norms, and Continuance Intention. The variables of both studies were extracted with their respective questionnaires, forming the model presented in Fig. 2.

Fig. 2.
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Proposed model.

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The two studies above were carried out in order to model the Intention of Purchase Continuity during Cyber Monday and Black Friday based on Attitude, which is predicted by Perceived Risk and Subjective Norms. Likewise, the Attitude of a consumer is influenced by Perceived Usefulness and Shopping Enjoyment. Both are predicted by Convenience.

Convenience (C).

Consumers yearn to shop in an environment that saves them time, reduces search costs, and allows them to find products efficiently [8, 11]. Rohm and Swaminathan [25] define Convenience as the saving of time and effort experienced when purchasing goods and services. Convenience is the main reason for buying online [7, 18], and the intention to buy online is greater due to convenience [9, 10] as consumers can make purchases at any time [28]. Convenience acts as a predictor of purchase motivations, which are represented by the usefulness of online shopping and the enjoyment of the same [11].

H1: Convenience is positively related to Perceived Profit on Cyber Monday/Black Friday online purchases.

H2: Convenience is positively related to Enjoying Shopping on Cyber Monday/Black Friday.

Perceived Usefulness (PU).

Perceived Usefulness is defined as the degree to which people believe that the use of a particular system will improve their performance at work [15]. Perceived Usefulness is related to the perception that people have of how much a product or technology enhances the performance of an action [33]. Shih [27] argues that Perceived Usefulness significantly determines attitudes towards online purchases. Likewise, Vijayasarathy [32] states that Utility significantly predicts attitude towards online purchases, and attitude towards online purchases strongly influences the intention to make online purchases.

H3: Perceived Usefulness has a positive influence on Attitude towards online purchases on Cyber Monday/Black Friday.

Shopping Enjoyment (SE).

Babin et al. [3] refer to Enjoyment as a hedonic motivation for shopping. Hedonic motivation is the fun or pleasure derived from the use of a technology, which plays a very important role in the acceptance and use of technology [33]. According to Arnold and Reynolds [2], pleasure motivates shopping and influences attitudes towards shopping. Ha and Stoel [16] state that Enjoyment influences attitudes towards online shopping since buyers who enjoy a website are more likely to buy from that site at an event such as Cyber Monday and Black Friday.

H4: The Enjoyment of Shopping has a positive influence on the Attitude towards online purchases on Cyber Monday and Black Friday.

Attitude (A).

Attitude is the degree of perception, positive or negative, of people about the performance of an objective behavior [15]. The attitude of a consumer is used to determine the behavior of users towards the use of a specific service. As people show a positive perception of a new system and technology, they are more enthusiastic about using it [19].

H5: The Consumer Attitude towards Cyber Monday/Black Friday is positively related to Continuance of Intention to Use.

Perceived Risk (PR).

Perceived Risk is defined as the consequence and uncertainty related to consumer decisions [4]. Risk is perceived through uncertainty in a purchase situation, when a technology fails to deliver the expected service and this results in a loss to the consumer [33]. Consumers' perceptions of risk can negatively influence their attitude towards participating in Cyber Monday/Black Friday events.

H6: Perceived Risk of Cyber Monday/Black Friday by consumers is negatively related to Attitude.

Subjective Norms (SN).

The Subjective Norms refers to the perceived social pressure to perform or not a behavior [1]. In other words, the Subjective Norms is related to the normative opinions of the environment towards the performance of a behavior. Hsu and Lu [17] affirm that subjective norms have a great influence on the intentions and attitudes of individuals regarding certain types of behavior. Most new consumers decide to participate in Cyber Monday/Black Friday based on usage and recommendations from family, friends, or colleagues.

H7: The Subjective Norms is positively related to Consumer Attitude towards Cyber Monday/Black Friday.

Continuance Intention (CI).

Continuance Intention is defined as the probability that the Individual uses the system [24]. In this case, the TAM model has been applied to study Continuance Intention. Liao et al. [21] state that the continuous use of a long-term information system is determined by internal psychological judgment, that is to say, attitude. In this way, the user's attitude is a stable, lasting, and vital predictor of the Continuance Intention. The model under study seeks to explain the dependent variable, Continuance Intention of Cyber Monday/Black Friday consumers, which is based on their Attitude, which in turn, is predicted by external factors (Perceived Risk and Subjective Norms).

3 Methodology

To conduct this study, a first literature review on electronic commerce and the emergence of Cyber Monday and Black Friday was carried out. In addition, how these events have evolved and affected the population at a global and national level was also researched, as well as the factors that affect consumers when they make a purchase, in order to understand the growth trend of online sales on Cyber Monday and Black Friday in recent years.

The model used corresponds to an extension of the TAM model proposed by Swilley and Goldsmith [29], complemented with the model developed by Weng et al. [33], which incorporates the Technology Continuance Theory. Based on this, a survey that included questions to assess demographic profile, online shopping habits and the variables of the research model was developed. The survey created is presented in Annex 1.

Subsequently, the questionnaire was applied through the SurveyMonkey platform, sharing it on different Social Networks, using a non-probabilistic convenience sampling. A total of 398 surveys were obtained, of which 69.85% were considered valid for the study. Once information was gathered, structural equation modeling (SEM) was conducted using the SPSS Amos v26 software. First, the reliability of the measurement scale was assessed through Cronbach's Alpha and employing the IBM SPSS Statistics v23 software. Second, the fit of the model was studied, and regression estimators were analyzed. Conclusions are drawn on the hypotheses and research objectives based on the results.

4 Results

Three-hundred ninety-eight surveys were applied. The ones in which people claimed to have ever bought on Cyber Monday or Black Friday were considered valid. Therefore, 278 valid responses were obtained, equivalent to 69.85% of the applied surveys, which also meant that 278 out of 398 made a purchase on the Cyber Monday or Black Friday event.

Of the total respondents, 58.94% were female and 41.06% were male. The age of the respondents ranged between 18 and 60 years, with 83.65% aged between 18 and 29 years, and an average sample age of 26 years. The next bracket goes from 30 to 39 years and accounts for 10.58% of the sample. People who were between 50 and 59 years old represent 3.95% and those between 40 and 49 years old constitute 1.92% of the total. Regarding marital status, 89.9% were single, which is related to the age bracket with the highest frequency in the sample, and 8.65% are married, while 1.44% are divorced or separated. As for the educational level of the respondents, 48.31% reported having finished university studies, while 43.96% completed high school. In terms of occupation 71.20% were students, in accordance with the information above, and most of the sample was inferred to be undergraduate or graduate students, since they claim to have completed secondary or higher education.

Regarding frequency of online purchasing, 20.19% of users buy online once a month. In both shopping events, 18.75% stated that they buy online once every 2 months, or once every 3 months. Additionally, 17.79% of those surveyed usually shop online once every 6 months, while only 10.58% do so two or more times a month. In this sample, the preferred shipping form for online shopping is in-store pick-up with 52.97%, as opposed to 47.03% who prefer home delivery. The payment method most frequently used by the sample is debit card or bank transfer with 57.69%, followed by credit card with 39.42%. The trend, with 52.88% of responses, is to buy technology, followed by men's, women’s, or children's fashion, which accounts for 49.52%. Electronics are in third place with the highest purchase frequency, specifically 41.35% of the sample. Finally, 32.21% and 25.48% of the sample prefers buying travel and sports-related products, respectively.

4.1 Technology Continuance Modeling

The software SPSS Amos version 26 was used to calculate the structural equation model. The model consists of seven latent variables, which are subdivided into three exogenous (independent) and four endogenous (dependent).

The latent exogenous variables are Convenience (C), Perceived Risk (PR) and Subjective Norms (SN) while the latent endogenous variables are Perceived Usefulness (PU), Shopping Enjoyment (SE), Attitude (A) and Continuance Intention (CI).

The factors of each variable explain it through items, which correspond to directly measurable observable variables. In this case they were defined in the applied survey.

The purpose of the model is to predict the dependent variable Continuance Intention (CI), directly influenced by Attitude (A), which is predicted by independent variables (Perceived Risk [PR] and Subjective Norms [NS]) and dependent variables (Perceived Usefulness [PU], and Shopping Enjoyment [SE]). The last two variables mentioned are predicted by Convenience (C).

4.2 Construct Reliability

The reliability of the model constructs was confirmed through Cronbach's alpha analyses. Loewnthal [23] states that the limit value of this indicator should be 0.6, because each construct has less than 10 items. The results obtained when calculating the Cronbach's alpha of each construct are presented in Table 1.

Table 1. Scale reliability analysis.
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4.3 Results of the Structural Equations Model (SEM)

Table 2 shows the result of the structural equation model obtained from the SPSS Amos software.

Table 2. Scale reliability analysis.
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The coefficient of determination R2 of the endogenous latent variables is obtained from the results. Predecessor variables explain 76% of variance in Continuance Intention (CI). The variance in Attitude (A) is 38% explained by the variables that predict it. Regarding Perceived Usefulness (PU) and Shopping Enjoyment (SE), 43% and 29% of their variation, respectively, is explained by the latent exogenous variable Convenience (C).

When analyzing the significance of the variables, Convenience (C) is significant when predicting Shopping Enjoyment of (SE) and Perceived Usefulness (PU), since they have a p-value lower than 0.05. Regarding the prediction of Attitude (A), the latent variables that significantly affect it are Subjective Norms (SN), Perceived Usefulness (PU) and Shopping Enjoyment (SE), whereas Perceived Risk (PR) is not significant to Attitude (A) (p-value higher than 0.05). Only Attitude (A) affects Continuance Intention (CI) and results significant for the prediction of the same. If one variable is significant to another, the hypothesis involved is accepted. Therefore, hypotheses H1, H2, H3, H4, H5 and H7 are accepted, whereas hypothesis H6 is rejected.

In terms of the relationships between latent variables, Attitude (A) towards Shopping over Continuance Intention (CI) has the highest standardized regression coefficient (0.87). Furthermore, a weaker relationship is obtained between Perceived Risk (PR) and Attitude (A). The negativity of this case lies in the fact that the more risk an individual perceives when making an online purchase on Cyber Monday/Black Friday, the lower his attitude and therefore Continuance Intention to participate in the events above.

5 Conclusions

This research study was carried out with the objective of modeling the consumer behavior during Cyber Monday and Black Friday in Chile, particularly to identify the factors that influence and are more related to the continuity of the intention to purchase.

The variables used to explain the Continuance Intention of purchase (CI) were Attitude towards Shopping (A), Subjective Norms (SN), Perceived Risk (PR), Perceived Usefulness (PU), Enjoyment of Shopping (SE) and Convenience (C). These variables were extracted from two studies, the first proposed by Swilley and Goldsmith [29] and the second proposed by Weng et al. [33]. The variables were complemented to create the proposed model that corresponds to an extended TAM in which the Technology Continuance Theory was applied.

The results of the sample were analyzed to explain the relationships between the different latent variables that compose the model. It is concluded that:

Attitude is the endogenous latent variable that predicts the variable under study, the continuance intention to purchase. The causal relationship obtained between these two variables had a standardized regression coefficient of 0.87. The items that measure this construct show that Chilean consumers prefer buying online during Cyber Monday/Black Friday over making purchases in person. The positive result of the relationship between the variables above indicates that the intention to continue shopping in the events under study will be greater as long as the Chilean consumer is more inclined to buy online rather than at a physical store. In addition, it is valid to consider a national context in which year after year online sales increase in large quantities.

Subjective Norms and Perceived Risk are external factors that affect Attitude towards shopping. Of these two factors, Subjective Norms has a greater causal relationship towards Attitude (0.23). This construct refers to the perception that users have about what their family, friends or colleagues think they should buy during Cyber Monday/Black Friday. Despite being positive, the value obtained is low, which is explained by the indifference shown by most of those surveyed to this construct. In turn, Perceived Risk is inversely related to Attitude (−0.07), since the more risk the consumer perceives about the security of online purchases and the payment process on Cyber Monday/Black Friday, the less favorable the Attitude towards employing them. In this way, the small magnitude of this relationship is justified by the respondents' disagreement with the perception of risk in online purchases on the days of the events under study. Furthermore, this factor turned out not to be significant for the prediction of Attitude. To summarize, the perception of Risk does not influence the Attitude towards these online shopping events, and consequently, it does not affect the Intention to buy on Cyber Monday and Black Friday either.

Perceived Usefulness and Shopping Enjoyment are the endogenous variables that impact Attitude. The one that best relates to the latter is Shopping Enjoyment (0.50). The items that constitute this construct suggest that the Chilean consumer is entertained, excited, likes and feels good when buying online on Cyber Monday/Black Friday. This directly influences Attitude towards Shopping, which is quite logical because, if the user has fun shopping, clearly his attitude will be in favor of this activity.

Perceived Usefulness has a weak relationship with Attitude (0.15). With this factor, the Chilean consumer's perception about Productive Utility was measured, as well as how it affected the Attitude when buying online during the events in question. The items of this construct measured whether the events were useful to buy what was desired, or improved the skills, efficiency and productivity of the buyer, in addition to the utility in purchases. Despite the direct relationship between Perceived Usefulness and Attitude, the reason for the weak relationship between these variables may be that for Chilean consumers to exhibit a positive attitude towards shopping, it was not necessary that purchases during the event improved their skills, efficiency, productivity, or utility. It should be noted that the item number 1 of this construct, which measured the utility to buy what is desired, was not significant for the analysis. The non-significance of this item can be related to the fact that many times a consumer, during the events under study, does not satisfy their needs to acquire a consumer good or service, but rather satisfies shopping needs, buying products with better deals.

Finally, the exogenous variable Convenience has a slightly higher impact on Perceived Usefulness (0.66) than on Shopping Enjoyment (0.54). These results are reasonable since the assessment of convenience was based on measuring the influence of time and the benefits of buying online on Cyber Monday/Black Friday. It must be noted that items 2 and 3 were not significant for the measurement of Convenience, as they assessed savings and time consumption during online purchases of the events under study. Their non-relevance is related to the fact that due to the large number of deals on Cyber Monday and Black Friday, the user can spend a more hours shopping online than going to a store and buying the desired product.

Regarding Continuance Intention, the respondents stated being willing to continue shopping online, and substituting acquisitions in physical stores for online purchases on the days of Cyber Monday and Black Friday. Furthermore, they assured their intention to make as many possible online purchases as possible. Once again, the responses obtained are associated with the increase in online sales both nationally and globally.

Therefore, it is concluded that there is a sequence of variables that contribute to an excellent relationship between Attitude towards Shopping and the Continuance Intention to purchase. The convenience of Cyber Monday and Black Friday for more than 70% of users directly increases the Utility that Chilean consumers perceive in terms of the productivity generated by online purchases. Convenience also has a positive impact on Shopping Enjoyment, that is to say, the experience of buying online on the days of the events under study becomes entertaining, exciting and pleasant. Both variables (Utility and Enjoyment) directly influence the Attitude of the Chilean consumer towards shopping during these days, making them prefer to buy online over going to a physical store. The Subjective Norms also impact the Attitude, being the consumer’s family, friends or colleagues who influence the attitude towards purchasing during these events. Consequently, the Attitude towards Shopping correctly predicts the Continuance Intention.