Unconscious Decision Making and its Impact on Consumers’ Intention to Purchase Online : A Quantitative Study Investigating Consumers’ Mental Shortcuts

Consumers often make decisions without being aware of it, also known as habitual decision making. A part of habitual decision making is mental shortcuts, which can push the consumers to unconsciously make decisions. This study will evaluate if the mental shortcuts anchoring, confirmation bias, loss aversion, paradox of choice and framing effect have an impact on consumers’ intention to purchase fashion online, aiming at finding a relationship between these. The researchers used a quantitative research with a descriptive nature, to gain a broader perspective. With the help of a survey in form of a questionnaire, the researchers collected 293 responses, whereas 274 were qualified. Furthermore, the data was put into SPSS in order to test the reliability, validity and the correlation between the variables. Out of the five hypotheses there were two hypotheses that were accepted, two rejected and one was not qualified to be further tested. The conclusion drawn from this study showed that previous experience on a retailing site decides how consumers’ unconsciously form expectations when purchasing a product on future retailing sites. Further, consumers feel stronger emotions when they feel that they have saved money compared to if they would have gained the same amount when making a purchase