Consumers’ Journey between Liquid and Solid Consumption

Abstract

Sharing economy brought changes both at the macroeconomic and the individual level. New models of consumption, such as the liquid one, are becoming very frequent, shaping countries’ productive systems and consumers’ habits. This paper—combining both theoretical approaches—aims at measuring the individual characteristics that induce consumers to prefer liquid versus solid consumption. First, the article contextualizes the topic from a broader, macroeconomic perspective, and later on, it narrows its angle of view making it rather microeconomic and behavioral. In this specific regard, by means of a cluster analysis, four profiles of consumers are identified: (1) Rational and liquid; (2) Hybrid and question mark; (3) Solid in transition; (4) Hyper solid. Characteristics as well as theoretical and managerial implications are outlined for each cluster. This research focusing on emerging consumer behavior contributes to the current debate on solid and liquid consumption (i) exploring the continuum between these two extremes, (ii) defining a first behavioral profile of customer that are traveling between solid and liquid state and (iii) designing a possible way to target such a blurred and fast evolving customer that mostly qualifies a global and rapidly evolving economic environment.

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