Exploring crowding effects on collectivists? emotions and purchase intention of durable and non-durable goods in East Asian night markets

In East Asia, consisting of societies strongly collectivist in nature, a marketing style called the "night market"-essentially a large bazaar which can cover many city blocks-is very successful in spite of the notable crowding and limited space. Although there has been research on crowding in store environments in Western societies, that demonstrated the negative role of crowding stimuli in consumer response, given the long-standing success of night markets in East Asia, those findings are obviously not universal. Hence, the purpose of this research is to investigate crowding effects in a collectivist culture and shed light on why these night markets can be so successful. This research devises two experiments to look for causal congruencies in Taiwanese night markets. Each experiment is in line with one product type-durable or non-durable- for specific products which one commonly finds in Asian night markets. The results indicate that shoppers have different responses to crowding stimuli with respect to each of these types. The results provide new findings and offer useful insights for marketers as they formulate marketing strategies, particularly involving environmental design and considerations of product type in collectivist cultures.