Customers' Psychological Ownership towards Personalized Spaces on e-Commerce Sites

Some leading e-Commerce sites (B2C) provide customers with over-personalized spaces which do not seem to be necessary. Why do the site providers provide such unnecessary capabilities for customers? Is it an effective marketing strategy? This study proposes the concept of “psychological ownership” for examining the impact of e-Commerce sites’ personalized spaces on customer perception and behavior. Research questions are: first, can customers develop feelings of psychological ownership towards particular spaces on e-Commerce sites? Second, what are the relationships between customers’ psychological ownership and their perception of the personalized spaces? Third, what is the impact of the sense of psychological ownership on customers’ behavior on e-Commerce sites? A causal model is proposed to test hypotheses based on the research questions. Finally, strategic implications of customer psychological ownership for e-Commerce marketing will be discussed.