Abstract

In order to facilitate consumer purchase and prevent unwanted post-consumption behaviors, marketers in sensitive contexts are constantly searching for embarrassment-avoiding strategies. This study investigates the impact of embarrassment on consumer behavior during the purchase of a sensitive product, defined as a good whose utilization is strictly connected to needs perceived as intimate and private by the consumer. The findings clarify the relationship between social presence and product genre on embarrassment arousal, highlighting a general tendency to abandon the sales point when embarrassment is elicited.Marketing implications are discussed, proposing multichannel distribution as a way of reducing embarrassment arousal through disintermediation.