Investigating the Effects of IoT-Commerce on Sustainable Consumption and Consumer Well-Being

Abstract

IoT systems with shopping automation never really took off. That is why consumers still shop in physical stores. Here consumers must filter out the best product according to their personal preferences, which is a complex task. Complexity reduction is achieved through habitual purchasing decisions, which often lead to unsustainable consumption. IoT-commerce has the potential to reduce this complexity and thus increase consumers’ well-being as well as sustainable consumption due to three affordances: context-aware services, natural interactions, and automated processes. The research gap is that it has not yet been investigated whether consumers perceive and appreciate these affordances, thus increasing their well-being as well as their sustainable consumption. In the following work, the effect of IoT-commerce on consumer well-being is investigated, as well as the influence of need for autonomy on this relationship. In addition, the potential of IoT-commerce to promote sustainable consumption is investigated, and the influence of sustainability consciousness on this relationship. The unique contribution of this work is that, for the first time, the consumer perspective of IoT-commerce is investigated not only theoretically but by conducting an online survey and how it affects consumers' well-being and their sustainable consumption.