Consumers' willingness to pay for ethical consumption initiatives on e-commerce platforms

• 来源期刊: 农业科学学报（英文版）
• 年，卷（期）: 2021,（4）
• 所属期刊栏目: Section 3: Innovation and inclusive development for poverty alleviation
• 页码范围: 1012-1020
• 页数: 9页
• 语种: 英文
• DOI: 10.1016/S2095-3119(20)63584-5

摘要

Despite China's fast-growing e-commerce and its great achievement in promoting poverty alleviation through consumption, little is known about Chinese consumers' online ethical consumption. Using the payment card elicitation method, this paper designs a within-subject survey and a between-subject survey to investigate Chinese consumers' quality perception and preference for apples from poverty-stricken areas. The results show that before "information shock", emphasizing that taste and safety attributes of apples from poverty-stricken areas are the same as the conventional ones, Chinese consumers on average are willing to pay a 31％ premium for apples from poverty-stricken areas. After "information shock", both the within-subject and between-subject designs show a minimal drop of the premium, implying that the ethical attribute is the main motivation for buying apples from poverty-stricken areas. The regression results show that quality perception of private attributes has significant effect on consumers' willingness to pay (WTP) for apples from poverty-stricken areas, and trust in government supervision of e-commerce plays an essential role in motivating online ethical consumption.