Time scarcity deals, which offer time-limited discounts, are prevalent in online shopping. These deals have two temporal aspects: deal time and lead time. Deal time, the remaining duration before the discount expires, signals scarcity and enhances the deal's appeal. In contrast, lead time, the delay between purchase and receipt/consumption, postpones gratification and diminishes the deal's attractiveness. This study proposes that as deal time and lead time fluctuate, they progressively bring consumers psychologically closer to the act of purchase/consumption. Drawing on construal level theory, we contend that firms can use image zooming as a digital tool to generate product images at various zoom levels and align with the psychological distances induced by deal time or lead time throughout the deal's availability. This strategy amplifies the positive effects of deal time and mitigates the negative impacts of lead time. Our research model is validated by data from three experiments. We discovered that (1) product image zooming affects consumers’ psychological proximity to an online deal; (2) when a deal with a short (long) deal/lead time is paired with a zoom-in (zoom-out) product image, deal evaluation and purchase intention increase; and (3) these effects are mediated by consumers’ “feeling right” experience during deal evaluation, which arises from a match between the construal levels prompted by the temporal feature and the product image. Theoretical contributions and managerial implications are discussed.

中文翻译：

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时间特征和产品图像放大对在线时间稀缺交易的影响：一个解释拟合账户


提供限时折扣的限时交易在网上购物中很普遍。这些交易有两个时间方面：交易时间和交货时间。交易时间，即折扣到期前的剩余持续时间，表明稀缺性并增强了交易的吸引力。相比之下，交货时间，即购买和接收/消费之间的延迟，会推迟满足感并降低交易的吸引力。本研究提出，随着交易时间和交货时间的波动，它们逐渐使消费者在心理上更接近购买/消费的行为。借鉴解释层面理论，我们认为公司可以使用图像缩放作为数字工具来生成各种缩放级别的产品图像，并与整个交易可用性期间由交易时间或交货时间引起的心理距离保持一致。这种策略放大了交易时间的积极影响，并减轻了交货时间的负面影响。我们的研究模型得到了三个实验数据的验证。我们发现 （1） 产品图片缩放会影响消费者对在线交易的心理接近度;（2） 当短（长）交易/交货时间的交易与放大（缩小）商品图片配对时，交易评估和购买意愿增加;（3） 这些影响是由消费者在交易评估期间的 “感觉正确 ”体验中介的，这是由时间特征和产品形象所引发的解释水平之间的匹配产生的。讨论了理论贡献和管理意义。