Understanding the mediating effects of the relationship between consumer’s need-for-touch and online purchase propensity: a comparison study between China and Portugal

This study analyses the impact of Need-for-Touch (NFT) on the online purchase propensity by evaluating the influence of the individual consumer country of origin. Although, NFT has been a major topic of research over the past years, the link between NFT and purchase propensity have rarely been empirically proven. For the purpose of assessing this relationship an online questionnaire was applied in Portugal and China and the data studied through exploratory and confirmatory factor analysis, namely multivariate analysis of variance and structural equation modelling.The results indicate that consumer’s country of origin seem to affect the relevance of the sense of touch for a sweater. Consumers with high levels of NFT are more likely to engage in additional brand touch-points and consequently to have stronger brand experiences. Also, the findings confirm the impact of the perceived information credibility and the brand experience on the perceived product quality, which influences the propensity to search and to purchase online.