Hey girl, what are your motives? : Exploring the purchase behavior motives of Swedish females when consuming high-end beauty and skincare products and the effects of online personalized advertising

Background: As retailing moves towards online shopping the number of online purchases have increased substantially over the last year in Sweden (Klarna Bank AB, 2019). The industry of high-end beauty and skincare products has experienced growth in 2019 (PostNord, 2019), which is of interest to investigate. There lies importance for firms in retrieving knowledge of how the target market thinks and reacts. This research allows for a deeper understanding of the motivations of consumer behavior, which will be of high value for retailers and marketers when further operating in 2020 and entering 2021. Problem discussion: There is a growing body of literature that examines the motivations of consumer behavior, however, identified gaps have yet to accumulate. Even if online personalized advertising (OPA) is increasingly being used by retailers worldwide, its influence on Swedish females remains unexplored. This exploratory study was undertaken in response to the demand in Sweden and it attempts to draw meaningful connections between consumer response to OPA as well as the value motives explaining consumption behaviors. Purpose: In order to fill gaps in previous literature, this research sought to build a theory, which will make meaningful sense of observations on Swedish females in the age group 18-35-year-old’s purchase behavior. More specifically, the research will create an understanding of how OPA influences Swedish females, and what values motivate the female consumer when completing a purchase of high-end beauty and skincare products, with and without respect to the influence of OPA. Method: A qualitative approach with semi-structured in-depth interviews with 19 Swedish female participants in the age group 18-35 were conducted. The general analytical procedure for analyzing the collected data was used, and the data was further compared with previous literature. Results: This research indicates that participants declare empathy and hedonic values to influence the completion of purchase. Within the category of empathy values, security is a key value when shopping online. When exposed to OPA, the values of being well-respected and self-respect were added to the explanation for consumer motives of purchases of high-end beauty and skincare products online