Examining the mediating role of consumer desire for luxury: Can perceived sustainability and natural rarity evoke willingness to pay more?

Figures & data

Figure 1. Research model.

Table 1. Means, standard deviations, and intercorrelations among study measures.

Measures	PNR	PSUS	DES	WTP	M	SD
PNR	–				4.717	1.368
PSUS	0.557***	–			4.117	1.455
DES	0.421***	0.622***	—		3.689	1.780
WTP	0.352***	0.609***	0.657***	—	3.312	1.732

Note. PNR: perceived natural rarity measure; PSUS: perceived sustainability measure; DES: consumer desire measure; WTP: willingness to pay more measure.

*** p<.001.

Table 2. Assess the validities and collinearity issues of variables.

Variables	CR	AVE	PNR	PSUS	DES	WTP	DV	VIF
Perceived natural rarity (PNR)	0.92	0.73	–				0.85	2.07
Perceived sustainability (PSUS)	0.78	0.66	0.56	–			0.81	2.23
Consumer desire for luxury (DES)	0.77	0.62	0.42	0.62	–		0.79	2.17
Willingness to pay more (WTP)	0.95	0.96	0.35	0.61	0.66	–	0.92	2.56

Note: AVE: average variance extracted; CR: construct reliability; DV: discriminant validity shown by square root of variance shared. Off diagonal factors are correlations.

Table 3. Results of the mediation analysis.

Path relationships	Path coefficient (β)	SE
Direct effects
PSUS → WTP	0.155**	0.040
PNR → WTP	−0.066**	0.037
Indirect effects
PSUS →DES →WTP	0.443**	0.023
PNR →DES →WTP	0.085**	0.022

Notes.

** p < 0.01.

Table

Scales
Perceived sustainability (Hamari, Sjöklint, and Ukkonen 2016)
SUS1 Buying this wallet helps save natural resources.
SUS2. Buying this wallet is a sustainable mode of consumption.
SUS3. Buying wallet is ecological.
SUS4. Buying this wallet is efficient in terms of using energy.
SUS5. Buying this wallet is environmentally friendly.
Perceived natural rarity (Kapferer and Valette-Florence 2016)
PNR1. This wallet is naturally rare.
PNR2. This wallet is naturally scarce.
PNR3. This wallet uses high quality raw materials.
Consumer desire for luxury (Kapferer and Valette-Florence 2016)
DES1. I desire this wallet as it is unique of its kind.
DES2. I desire this wallet as it is produced in small series and not in mass.
DES3. I desire this wallet as it is sophisticated.
DES4. I desire this wallet as it is original.
DES5. I desire this wallet as it keeps its exclusive character.
DES6. I desire this wallet as it has a great history.
DES7. I desire this wallet as it endows class to those who use it.
DES8. I desire this wallet as it is a renowned leader in its category.
Willingness to pay more (Demirgüneş 2015)
WTP1. I will continue to buy this product If its prices increase somewhat.
WTP2. I will buy from this product, even if competitors charge a slightly lower price.
WTP3. I have so much confidence in this product for assessing the benefits of it.

Hamari, J., M. Sjöklint, and A. Ukkonen. 2016. The sharing economy: Why people participate in collaborative consumption. Journal of the Association for Information Science and Technology 67 (9):2047–59. doi: 10.1002/asi.23552.

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