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缩放对在线时间稀缺交易的影响：解释拟合帐户


提供限时折扣的时间稀缺优惠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，标志着稀缺性并增强了交易的吸引力。相反，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。这项研究提出，随着交易时间和交货时间的波动，它们会逐渐使消费者在心理上更接近购买/消费行为。根据解释水平理论，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，并与交易时间或整个交易可用性期间的交货时间引起的心理距离保持一致。该策略放大了交易时间的积极影响，并减轻了交付时间的负面影响。我们的研究模型通过三个实验的数据得到验证。我们发现（1）产品图像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/前置时间的交易与放大(缩小)的产品图像搭配时，交易评价和购买意向增加； (3)这些效应是由消费者在交易评估过程中的“感觉正确”体验所调节的，这种体验是由时间特征和产品图像所引发的解释水平之间的匹配而产生的。讨论了理论贡献和管理意义。