Trading Data for Convenience : A Qualitative Study of Swedish Consumers’ Emotional Responses to Hyper-Personalization.

Sammanfattning

Personalization has become an important part of e-commerce. As a result of the rise of artificial intelligence, hyper-personalization has emerged, combining data with real-time analytics for anindividualized experience. This has led to questions of privacy and consumer trust within the industry. The qualitative study set out to explore how Swedish consumers navigate the trade-off between perceived benefits and privacy concerns. Through semi-structured interviews, 20 regular online shoppers, aged 21–67, shared their thoughts and feelings regarding when and how they found personalization to become intrusive. An inductive approach was used, and the data were interpreted through thematic analysis to identify key patterns and insights. The findings show that participants often had mixed emotions. While they enjoyed the convenience and relevance, they also admitted to feeling discomfort, annoyance, and a sense of being watched. However, even though concerns were common, they rarely led to changed behavior; instead, lack of knowledge, convenience, and emotions were the main factors affecting their actions. In the end, perceived value often outweighed both privacy concerns and trust.