Examining shopping enjoyment: personal factors, word of mouth and moderating effects of demographics

Abstract Shopping enjoyment represents an important research concept within the consumer behaviour and marketing communication field. The purpose of this research is to explore direct influences of personal factors (attitudes toward the advertising, the need for individuality/uniqueness, price sensitivity) on shopping enjoyment, its impact on the word of mouth communication (WOM) and the moderating effects of demographic variables (gender and education) on these relationships. The research was conducted on the representative sample of 1000 Croatian respondents. The variety of statistical techniques, including SEM, was employed for data analysis. The results show that personal factors positively influence shopping enjoyment, which is positively related to WOM communication. Furthermore, the results confirm the moderating effects of gender and education on the relationship between the shopping enjoyment and WOM. These research findings contribute to the scientific knowledge enrichment and offer some practical marketing implications. Namely, the marketing experts can better understand the consumer’s factors impacting shopping enjoyment, which can enable them to adequately assess the necessary appeals and to create an effective and persuasive marketing communication. At the end, the paper addresses the research limitations and offers some future research directions.


Introduction
Shopping enjoyment represents an individual's personality trait, linking the shopping trip with great pleasure and enjoyable aspects (Bellenger & Korgaonkar, 1980;Odekerken-Schröder, De Wulf, & Schumacher, 2003;in Wong, Osman, Jamaluddin, & Yin-Fah, 2012). Shopping motivation, including the associated shopping enjoyment, has been a key research area in consumer shopping behaviour over the past few decades (Wagner & Rudolph, 2010;in Kotze, North, Stols, & Venter, 2012). Besides innovativeness, shopping enjoyment denotes a growing tendency among the consumers, affecting the beliefs, attitudes and behavioural intentions toward the pop-up retail (Kim, Fiore, Niehm, & Jeong, 2010). Moreover, it constitutes an important part of consumer shopping motives (Gomez, Arranz, KEYWORDS shopping enjoyment; personal factors; demographic variables; consumer behaviour; word of mouth; structural equation modelling (e.g. South Africa, Malaysia, Thailand, etc.). The results of this study could be beneficial for marketing experts/managers, who can use them for marketing strategy creation, especially when considering the target market communication.
The paper includes six sections. The introductory part is followed by a literature review presented in the second section. The research methodology constitutes the third and research results the fourth section of the paper. Finally, the theory development and research results are discussed in the fifth section, while the sixth section covers the managerial implications, research limitations and future research directions.

Literature overview and hypotheses development
This paper investigates the individual antecedents and outcome of shopping enjoyment, as well as the moderating effects of gender and education. A conceptual model is presented in Figure 1.
Shopping enjoyment can be viewed as the pleasure that a consumer derives from the shopping process/activities (Beatty & Ferrell, 1998;in Mohan, Sivakumaran, & Sharma, 2013). It has been determined that consumers who enjoy shopping spend more time per trip, which can cause higher spending (Donovan, Rossiter, Marcoolyn, & Nesdale, 1994), and tend to be less traditional, more innovative and more actively involved in information seeking (Bellenger & Korgaonkar, 1980;in Shannon & Mandhachitara, 2008).
Attitudes toward the advertising refer to the individual characteristic of a consumer, defined as 'a learned predisposition to respond in the consistently favourable or unfavourable manner to advertising in general' (Lutz, 1985, p. 53;in Mehta & Purvis, 1995), influencing the effectiveness of specific adverts (Mehta & Purvis, 1995). An individual's general attitudes toward the advertising comprise beliefs reflecting social effects and personal factors, including the hedonistic orientation (Pollay & Mittal, 1993;in Bearden, Netemeyer, & Haws, 2011). Although no direct relationship between the attitudes toward the advertising and shopping enjoyment was found, past research implies a relationship between the shopping enjoyment and search, as well as media exposure (Smith, 1990). Shopping enjoyment is a characteristic related to engagement in the marketplace through behaviours such as exposure to mass media transmitting the product information (Bellenger & Korgaonkar, 1980;in Roehm, Pullins, & Roehm, 2002), and it should be positively related to intentions to visit websites announced in advertisements (Spears, 2015). Following a similar line of reasoning, it could be expected that the consumers who have positive attitudes toward the advertising will enjoy shopping more. Thus, the following hypothesis is proposed: Hypothesis 1. There is a significant positive association between a favourable attitude toward the advertising and shopping enjoyment.
The need for individuality/uniqueness refers to an individual's need or desire to be different from others and to express an own uniqueness (Tian, Bearden, & Hunter, 2001;in Clark & Goldsmith, 2005), as well as to strive for also expressing an own individuality while shopping (Simonson & Nowlis, 2000;in Clark & Goldsmith, 2005). Some research results suggest the existence of the relationship between the shopping enjoyment and uniqueness/variety searching, associating the uniqueness tendencies or desire for uniqueness with innovative consumers having higher levels of novelty seeking (Kim et al., 2010;Lo, 2014). It was determined that innovative consumers exhibit a need for novelty and uniqueness and also derive enjoyment from evaluating information (Engelland, Hopkins, & Larson, 2001;in Kim et al., 2010). Moreover, the consumers who enjoy shopping are less traditional and more innovative (Bellenger & Korgaonkar, 1980;in Shannon & Mandhachitara, 2008). Finally, past research suggests that consumer's shopping enjoyment is associated with novelty seeking and desire for new and unique experiences (Engelland et al., 2001;Steenkamp & Baumgartner, 1992;Venkatraman, 1991;in Saad & Metawie, 2015). Therefore, it is hypothesised: Price sensitivity can be defined as the extent to which consumers perceive the prices and changes, including their reactions to them (Goldsmith, Kim, Flynn, & Kim, 2005;in Irani & Hanzaee, 2011). According to Esomar (2012), little attention is paid to price consideration from the consumers' point of views and their reactions to those prices. Although some authors reasonably accentuate that the consumers with high levels of shopping enjoyment tendencies are typically less price sensitive (Goldsmith, Flynn, & Goldsmith, 2003;in Saad & Metawie, 2015) and less cost-conscious (Gutman & Mills, 1982;in Kang & Park-Poaps, 2010), there are certain different reflections. Some researchers (Jin & Sternquist, 2004;in Kotze et al., 2012) state that the overlooked shopping enjoyment determinant is the price saving, as consumer's endeavour for best bargains. Hedonic benefits obtained from bargaining can increase consumer's enjoyable shopping experience (Jantarat, Laisawat, & Shannon, 2010). Additionally, Cox, Cox, and Anderson (2005) and Arnold and Reynolds (2003) identify the bargain hunting as one of the possible shopping enjoyment factors. Finally, Brown, Pope, and Voges (2003) define seven segments of Internet users/shoppers, whereby one of them (convenience-oriented/recreationalists) enjoys shopping to find the best prices. Considering the mentioned and low purchasing power of Croatian consumers (Anić, 2014;Anić & Mihić, 2015), the following is hypothesised: Hypothesis 3. There is a significant positive association between the price sensitivity and shopping enjoyment.
The moderating effect of gender has its roots in social role theory and evolutionary psychology (Dennis & McCall, 2005;Dennis, Merrilees, Jayawardhena, & Wright, 2009). For a more comprehensive understanding of consumer experiences (shopping enjoyment), it is advisable to include the moderating effects based on the consumer traits. For instance, it is important to understand how demographics, especially gender differences, function in connection with other factors (Hwang, 2010). Therefore, this paper addresses the moderating effects of gender on the strength of the relationships between the consumer's individual factors (attitudes toward advertising, the need for individuality/uniqueness, price sensitivity) and shopping enjoyment. Although no such relationships in the existing empirical studies were found, some similar research results indicate the possibility of assuming these relationships.
The majority of the existing studies show that men express more positive attitudes toward advertising (Derevensky, Sklar, Gupta, & Messerlian, 2010;Okazaki, 2011;Xu, 2006) and that an individual's general attitudes toward the advertising embodies the hedonic aspect (Pollay & Mittal, 1993;in Bearden et al., 2011). Therefore, the existence of a stronger relationship between the attitudes toward the advertising and shopping enjoyment for men, unlike women, can be assumed.
Although some studies indicate that the consumer's need for individuality/uniqueness is not related to gender (Tian et al., 2001), showing there is no difference between uniqueness definitions based on gender (Miremadi, Fotoohi, Sadeh, Tabrizi, & Javidigholipourmashhad, 2011), the majority of the past research suggests the connection between these occurrences. Namely, female respondents have a higher score of similarity avoidance compared to male respondents (Berberoglu, 2014) and males are more prone to convenience seeking, whereas females value uniqueness (Noble, Griffith, & Adjei, 2006;in Kurtulus & Ertekin, 2015). Furthermore, compared to male gender identity, female gender identity is more focused on individuals than on groups (Melnyk, Van Osselaer, & Bijmolt, 2009). Finally, one study's results (Soomro, Parveen, & Danwer, 2014) indicate that females prefer to have something unique, exhibiting the strong need for uniqueness, particularly in clothing. Along with the rationale presented for hypothesis H2, these implications denote the positive effect of consumer's individuality on shopping enjoyment manifested more for women than for men.
Prior research mostly shows that, due to the traditional role of being the main household providers and value for money options seekers, women are more price sensitive and more responsive to price changes (Arink, Nef, & Favrelle, 2010;Mitchell, 2012;Rosa & Rondan, 2011). Due to the price sensitivity's relation to bargaining perspective, bargain hunting represents one of the shopping enjoyment factors (Arnold & Reynolds, 2003;Cox et al., 2005) denoting that consumers who prefer bargain hunting enjoy shopping (Gázquez-Abad & Sánchez-Pérez, 2009). Therefore, compared to men, a stronger women's influence of the price sensitivity on the shopping enjoyment can be expected. Thus, the following is proposed: Hypothesis 4: Attitudes towards advertising influence shopping enjoyment more strongly for men than for women.

Hypothesis 5:
The consumer's need for individuality/uniqueness influences shopping enjoyment more strongly for women than for men.

Hypothesis 6:
The price sensitivity influences shopping enjoyment more strongly for women than for men.
It has been established that consumer behaviour studies examining the level of education as a moderating variable are scarce. Some notions (e.g. Dillard & Johnson, 2015) indicate that separating consumer education from consumer experience is challenging; therefore, it might be interesting and insightful to examine whether the education differences influence the strength of the relationship between the selected individual factors and shopping enjoyment.
According to Shavitt, Lowery, and Haefner (1998) and Kursan Milaković and Mihić (2015), less-educated consumers generally show more positive attitudes toward the advertising than well-educated consumers, possibly because the well-educated person will be more critical toward the advertising, due to having higher expectations (Kursan Milaković & Mihić, 2015). Considering previously mentioned findings and hypothesis 1, thus assuming a positive association between a favourable attitude toward the advertising and shopping enjoyment, it is more reasonable to expect a stronger relationship for less-educated than for well-educated consumers.
The consumer analysis throughout Western Europe shows that well-educated people like novelty (Findlay & Sparks, 2002). In addition, novelty seeking is associated with the need for uniqueness (Kim et al., 2010;Lo, 2014), which might suggest a relationship between the consumer's need for individuality and education. However, previous studies do not indicate a significant relationship between these two variables (Tian et al., 2001); that is, a meaningful difference between respondents' views toward uniqueness definition respecting different educational level (Miremadi et al., 2011). Therefore, the moderating effect of education on the relationship between consumer's individuality and shopping enjoyment cannot be assumed.
The majority of past findings (Beatty & Smith, 1987;Capon & Burke, 1980;in Cooil, Keiningham, Aksoy, & Hsu, 2007;Hoch, Kim, Montgomery, & Rossi, 1995;Mathwick, Malhotra, & Rigdon, 2001;in Punj, 2011;Rosa & Rondan, 2011) show that well-educated consumers collect more information prior to decision-making and have a higher aptitude for information processing, which decreases the importance of price, as well as the level of their price sensitivity. Proceeding from these notions and hypothesis 3, assuming a significant positive association between price sensitivity and shopping enjoyment, a stronger relationship for low-educated consumers than for high-educated ones can be expected.
Therefore, this can be hypothesised as follows: Hypothesis 7: Attitudes toward advertising influence shopping enjoyment more strongly for low-educated than for high-educated consumers.

Hypothesis 8:
The effect of consumer's need for individuality/uniqueness on shopping enjoyment will not be different between the high-educated and low-educated consumers.
Hypothesis 9: The price sensitivity influences shopping enjoyment more strongly for low-educated than for high-educated consumers.
Shopping enjoyment may influence different aspects of the consumer behaviour. Mohan et al. (2013;in Saad & Metawie, 2015) point out that a higher level of shopping enjoyment predisposition leads to higher levels of positive affect. According to Hart et al. (2007), the inclination to recommend the shopping centre to other people is one of the potential outcome variables worthy of further research, while representing an integral part of WOM communication. WOM communication can be defined as 'face-to-face' communication between the receiver and sender, perceived as the non-commercial source of information about the product, service or brand (Stokes & Lomax, 2001). It has been recognised as a powerful 'force' influencing the consumer's choice, loyalty and product or service selection/ switch (Wangenheim & Bayon, 2004). WOM communication denotes a very persuasive communication, since the sender has no personal interests in recommending the product or service and presents the information in a credible manner (Mazzarol, Sweeney, & Soutar, 2007). Past studies show that WOM communication has a greater impact on the consumer's decision-making regarding a product than the traditional marketing communication forms, like advertising (Ho & Dempsey, 2010), and that, in general, WOM is more influential than other communication types (Bickart & Schindler, 2001;Smith, Menon, & Sivakumar, 2005;Trusov, Bucklin, & Pauwels, 2009;in Bambauer-Sachse & Mangold, 2011). All of this indicates the importance of further research within this domain. The confirmed significant relationship between shopping enjoyment and WOM communication sending information can be found in only one research study (Mowen, Park, & Zablah, 2007). Previously discussed findings, the lack of research in this problem area, as well as the environmental diversity (non-western context) justify the exploration of this relationship. Thus, the following is suggested: Hypothesis 10: There is a significant positive association between shopping enjoyment and WOM sending information.
Consumer characteristics, such as demographics, were studied in a variety of contexts for establishing their moderating effects on buying behaviour (Bryant & Cha, 1996;Mittal & Kamakura, 2001;in Ranaweera, McDougall, & Bansal, 2005) and related consumer behaviour aspects. When it comes to gender differences, women behave differently than men (Stern, 1999;in Hart et al., 2007;Wong, Osman, Said, & Paim, 2014) and gender often plays a role in shopping behaviour (Shephard, Kinley, & Josiam, 2014). Therefore, the marketers are very interested in researching the gender influences on different aspects of consumer behaviour, including the shopping experiences. Unlike men, characterised by a lack of patience and a desire to finish shopping as soon as possible (Hart et al., 2007), while mostly not enjoying the shopping experience (Bakewell & Mitchell, 2004;in Kotze et al., 2012), women like shopping for a number of reasons, for example taking pride in their ability to shop and viewing the shopping process as a leisure activity (Kotze et al., 2012). Baker and Wakefield (2012;in Chen & Hung, 2015) point out that men are task-oriented (shop for economic and utilitarian reasons), while women are social-oriented (shop for fun). Consequently, the majority of the prior research indicates that women put a greater emphasis on shopping enjoyment than men (Kotze et al., 2012;Raajpoot, Sharma, & Chebat, 2008;Seock & Bailey, 2008;Workman & Cho, 2012;in Shephard et al., 2014). Moreover, a recent study based on a representative sample of consumers shows that, unlike men, women are more prone to information spreading (Kursan Milaković, 2014). Although suggesting that higher shopping enjoyment leads to greater information sending regarding women, the situation should be assessed from a wider perspective. This favours the statement of Stern (1999;in Hart et al., 2007) where the gender role related with men when shopping could be outdated or incorrect. In general, unlike women, men are thought of as being more sensitive to self-satisfaction (Kilbourne & Weeks, 1997;Weatherall, 1998), which is reflected in their behaviour. Starting from such a premise, Hwang (2010) confirms the hypothesis of males' perceived enjoyment having a stronger effect on the intention to use in an e-commerce context. Similar to this, Hart et al. 's (2007) research results indicate that the relationship between enjoyment of the shopping experience and intentions to repatronise the shopping centre appears to be stronger for males than for females. Finally, Kwon and Kwon (2007) determine that, for men, the higher shopping enjoyment leads to greater coupon use, since the shopping is not a female exclusive domain anymore, and, besides that, shopping enjoyment could be a way of lowering the socio-psychological guard preventing men from being responsive to coupon promotions due to the female gender identity association. Even though no study examining the moderating effect of gender on the relationship between the shopping enjoyment and WOM sending information was found, following a similar line of reasoning as discussed, it can be hypothesised: Hypothesis 11: The shopping enjoyment influences WOM sending information more strongly for men than for women.
No empirical support for the moderating effects of education on the relationships researched in this particular study was found. However, a similar study approach (Monsuwe, Dellaert, & Ruyter, 2004), dealing with the moderating effects of demographic factors and personal characteristics, confirmed a significant role of higher educated consumers in terms of the studied relationships, including enjoyment, and online shopping context. Moreover, Millan and Howard (2007) suggest a connection between education and shopping enjoyment, arguing that the shoppers with high school education (Browsers and Committed shoppers) are prone to in-store browsing and perceive shopping mostly as a leisure activity. Additionally, high-educated consumers are more comfortable with sharing and trusting new information (Dennis et al., 2009). These notions, and hypothesis 10, encourage research of the potential relevance of education in moderating the shopping enjoyment and WOM sending information relationship. Thus, it can be assumed: Hypothesis 12: The shopping enjoyment influences WOM sending information more strongly for high-educated than for low-educated consumers.

Sample, data collection and measurement scales
The empirical research was based on a representative random stratified sample of 1000 respondents from the Republic of Croatia. The personal telephone interviewing technique was performed in cooperation with the social research agency. The measurement instrument was a highly structured questionnaire used for evaluating the consumers' attitudes. The rest of the questionnaire dealt with demographic data about the consumers. The sample structure is shown in Table 1. Scale items used for this research refer to a Likert scale of five degrees (1 indicating 'strongly disagree' and 5 'strongly agree'). The measures were adapted from the relevant prior research and were modified to a certain degree for this research. The items measuring the consumers' attitudes toward the advertising were adapted from Pollay & Mittal (1993;in Bearden et al., 2011) and Mehta and Purvis (1995). The items measuring the consumer's need for individuality/uniqueness were adapted from Singelis, Triandis, Bhawuk, and Gelfand (1995), Tian et al. (2001) and Triandis and Gelfand (1998;in Bearden et al., 2011). Used price sensitivity items were adapted from Lichtenstein, Ridgway, & Netemeyer (1993;in Bearden et al., 2011) and Sproles and Kendall (1986), Sproles and Sproles (1990;in Bearden et al., 2011). Items used for measuring the shopping enjoyment construct were adapted from Dawson, Bloch, and Ridgway (1990) and Lumpkin (1985), while the WOM sending information measurement items were taken from Mowen et al. (2007).

Confirmatory factor analysis
Confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) was used for testing the reliability, validity and unidimensionality of the measurement scales. CFA was done in AMOS 23 using the maximum-likelihood method and considering the thresholds suggested by Hair, Black, Babin, and Anderson (2010). For this purpose, the measurement model was developed and assumed the following: each statement (manifest variable) loads on only one factor (latent variable), error terms are independent and factors are correlated. The first two specifications, along with the acceptable model fit, measure the unidimensionality (Kline, 2011). The confirmatory factor analysis results can be seen in Table 2.
The CFA indicates that the measurement model fits the data well: Goodness of Fit Index (GFI) = 0.956, Adjusted Goodness of Fit Index (AGFI) = 0.941, Normed Fit Index (NFI) = 0.949, Comparative Fit Index (CFI) = 0.966, Root Mean Square Error of Approximation (RMSEA) = 0.04. All items load on the intended factors and exhibit the statistical significance. As it can be seen from Table 2, composite reliability (CR) and average extracted variance (AVE) indicate that the reliability and convergent validity of constructs are adequate (latent factors are well explained by their observed variables). Correlation analysis was used to assess discriminant validity, along with the square roots of AVE values (Table 3), indicating that discriminant validity is established, since the square roots of AVE are greater than the inter-construct correlations. Based on the CFA assumptions and results, it can be said that the measurement scales exhibit the characteristics of reliability, validity and unidimensionality.

Data preparation for SEM modelling
The additional tests were successfully conducted for detecting the outliers and testing the normality of distribution (skewness, kurtosis, tolerance, Variance Inflation Factor (VIF)), colinearity (correlation analysis, multiple regression analyses) and homoscedasticity (Levene's and correction tests). Univariate and multivariate outliers were detected and removed from further analyses (n = 960).

Structural equation modelling (SEM)
Based on the measurement model, the structural model was developed. The structural parameters were estimated with a maximum likelihood method in AMOS 23 (covariance  based). The goodness-of-fit indices suggest that the structural model fits the empirical data well: GFI = 0.949, AGFI = 0.933, NFI = 0.940, CFI = 0.957, RMSEA = 0.05. Chi square test was significant (χ 2 = 486.019, df = 145, p < 0.001); however, χ 2 is sensitive to the sample size and rejects the model when dealing with big samples (Barrett, 2007;Hooper, Coughlan, & Mullen, 2008;Kenny, 2012). Estimated standardised structural coefficients values for testing hypotheses 1-3 and 10 are shown in Table 4. Given the corresponding statistically significant structural coefficients, the results show that the consumer's favourable attitudes toward the advertising represent the most important predictor of the shopping enjoyment, followed by the price sensitivity and the need  there is a significant positive association between a favourable attitude toward advertising and shopping enjoyment. supported h2: there is a significant positive association between the consumer's need for individuality/ uniqueness and shopping enjoyment. supported h3: there is a significant positive association between the price sensitivity and shopping enjoyment. supported h4: attitudes towards advertising influence shopping enjoyment more strongly for men than for women. Rejected h5: the consumer's need for individuality/uniqueness influences shopping enjoyment more strongly for women than for men. Rejected h6: the price sensitivity influences shopping enjoyment more strongly for women than for men. Rejected h7: attitudes toward advertising influence shopping enjoyment more strongly for low-educated than for high-educated consumers. Rejected h8: the effect of consumer's need for individuality/uniqueness on shopping enjoyment will not be different between the high-educated and low-educated consumers. supported h9: the price sensitivity influences shopping enjoyment more strongly for low-educated than for high-educated consumers. Rejected h10: there is a significant positive association between shopping enjoyment and Wom sending information. supported h11: the shopping enjoyment influences Wom sending information more strongly for men than for women. supported h12: the shopping enjoyment influences Wom sending information more strongly for high-educated than for low-educated consumers.
supported for individuality/uniqueness. Furthermore, shopping enjoyment has a positive and strong impact on WOM sending information.
Moderating effects of gender and education were tested based on the individual estimation (Table 5) for 2 × 2 groups (females, males, low-educated, high-educated) followed by the multi-group analysis. For this purpose, the Stats Tools Package was also considered.
Multi-group analysis was used to test differences of the gender and education groups at all path levels (H4-H9, H11-H12). Two models, unconstrained (χ 2 = 1798.493, df = 725, p < 0.001) and constrained (χ 2 = 1861.685, df = 797, p < 0.001), were tested. The analysis revealed no group differences at the overall model level (p = 0.76), but at the path levels. Therefore, each path level for each group was tested with respect to the group's χ 2 and χ 2 thresholds resulting from the unconstrained and constrained model comparisons. The analysis showed that groups are different only along the shopping enjoyment influencing WOM sending information path (H11 and H12) at level p < 0.05, indicating the existence of a stronger moderating effect of male group and high-educated consumers. The results regarding all tested hypotheses are shown in Table 6.

Discussion
The purpose of this research was to determine the influence of personal factors on the consumer's shopping enjoyment, its impact on the WOM sending information and the moderating effects of gender and education on these relationships.
The results show that personal factors influence shopping enjoyment, exhibiting different significance and intensity. Namely, the consumers who enjoy shopping have positive attitudes toward the advertising, exhibit the need for individuality/uniqueness and are price sensitive. Positive attitudes toward the advertising have the strongest impact on shopping enjoyment, followed by the consumer's price sensitivity and the need for individuality/ uniqueness. Thus, hypotheses 1-3 are supported. Individuality/uniqueness results are in accordance with the expectations, based on similar past studies (e.g. Engelland et al., 2001;Steenkamp & Baumgartner, 1992;Venkatraman, 1991in Saad & Metawie, 2015. Price sensitivity insights are consistent with some previous expectations and results (e.g. Arnold & Reynolds, 2003;Cox et al., 2005;Jantarat et al., 2010;Kotze et al., 2012). The gained results regarding the attitudes toward the advertising and shopping enjoyment relationship represent novel findings.
Regarding demographics, gender and education do not moderate the relationships between personal characteristics (attitudes toward the advertising, need for individuality/ uniqueness, price sensitivity) and shopping enjoyment; therefore, hypotheses 4-7 and 9 are rejected. No difference between high-educated and low-educated consumers, regarding the moderation of the individuality/uniqueness and shopping enjoyment relation, was found; therefore, hypothesis 8 is accepted. These results might be seen as novel insights, suggesting that demographic variables of gender and education do not significantly moderate the strength of the relationship between the researched personal factors and shopping enjoyment when it comes to studying Croatian consumers.
Furthermore, the consumers who enjoy shopping have a high tendency to send WOM information, which led to hypothesis 10's acceptance. This result is in accordance with one other study (Mowen et al., 2007) and greatly enriches the existing knowledge.
Moreover, the results show that gender and education significantly moderate the relationship between shopping enjoyment and WOM sending information, indicating a stronger moderating effect in terms of male and high-educated consumers. Therefore, hypotheses 11 and 12 are supported. These results (for both gender and education) represent novel findings.

Conclusions
Besides the scientific contributions, this research has several practical marketing implications. Namely, these findings offer the marketing experts valuable understanding of consumers' factors influencing shopping enjoyment, which plays an important role in consumer behaviour and marketing communication strategy, especially for the appeal creation in advertising. The results reveal that a consumer who enjoys shopping has positive attitudes toward the advertising; has a need to express an own individuality/uniqueness; is price sensitive and is prone to spreading positive WOM communication. Furthermore, the results show that the relationships between the shopping enjoyment and WOM sending information have a stronger relevance for male and high-educated consumers.
Given the results, marketing experts should pay attention to the role of personal characteristics and demographics when formulating the communication messages. Since male and high-educated consumers perceive the relationship between the shopping enjoyment and WOM sending information more strongly, the marketing communication strategy of the companies, when trying to associate the offers with the enjoyable shopping environment and striving to elicit the WOM sending information, as an efficient promotional tool, should enhance communication toward such consumers. Moreover, to induce shopping enjoyment it might be helpful to include the individuality/uniqueness appeals in advertising. Some new, unusual and original products/services and/or events and experiences could be offered to the consumers as well. While creating a communication strategy, marketing experts should address the price sensitivity, providing the rational arguments appealing to discounts and savings. It is important to develop a positive message in order to create positive attitudes toward such a message or an advert. Reaching the consumers who enjoy shopping is a safe path toward reaching the customers willing to spread positive WOM.
Besides contributions, it is necessary to consider the research limitation, which can be sought within the national economic parameters characterised by the recession, thus potentially accentuating the consumers' attitudes and behaviour when it comes to price sensitivity perceptions.
Further research on shopping enjoyment could focus on enriching the existing model with some additional personal, cultural and/or situational (categories of) factors and testing the model on particular products/services/industries.

Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.