Consumer collecting behaviour and the effects of randomised acquisition

Collecting is a natural behaviour, which marketers facilitate to increase hedonic pleasure across diverse consumer products. A potent tactic combined with collecting is to randomise what product is acquired upon purchase. Whilst the tactic proves to be lucrative on a global scale, legal and ethical issues have been raised, indicating a need for greater understanding. The thesis consists of three papers. The first paper is a systematic literature review, critically synthesising 30 years of consumer collecting behaviour research. Key themes highlight personal fulfillment and social motivations for consumers to collect. Additionally, deficits were found in theory, methodology, and context to provide guidance for future research. Building on the first paper, the second paper uses qualitative research to explore collecting behaviour for physical products in opaque packaging. Findings are presented in a customer journey framework including the potential addictive loop of repeat purchases. This is a novel behaviour, induced by combining the goal to build collections with randomising outcomes from the packaging. However, also present are gambling-like concerns and ethical challenges. The final paper focuses on collecting digital goods through randomised outcomes, by employing an experimental approach with interactive game simulations. Achieving the goal to collect a complete set is found to increase intentions for purchase and word-of-mouth, both of which are moderated by individual differences in novelty-variety seeking. Throughout the thesis, the examination of randomised product acquisition contributes to consumer collecting behaviour, in addition to discussions of uncertainty marketing and basic psychological needs theory as fundamental concepts. The thesis also provides insights to practitioners on ways to integrate collecting in their offerings, as well as helping inform policy makers to mitigate potentially harmful consequences.