Consumer Innovation Fatigue in Digital Commerce: Scale Development and Validation

Rapid digital transformation has accelerated the frequency with which firms introduce product updates, platform enhancements, and feature innovations in e-commerce environments. While continuous innovation is typically associated with improved functionality and customer value, limited research has examined its potential psychological costs for consumers. This study introduces the concept of consumer innovation fatigue (CIF), defined as a psychological state of exhaustion arising from repeated exposure to ongoing innovation-related changes in digital products and online platforms. Following established scale development procedures, this research develops and validates a measurement scale for CIF. Item generation combined insights from prior literature with qualitative evidence from consumer interviews, followed by expert evaluation to ensure content validity. Using survey data from two independent samples of digital consumers in Saudi Arabia, exploratory factor analysis (n = 225) identified a unidimensional six-item scale. The scale was subsequently validated using partial least squares structural equation modeling (n = 361), confirming its reliability, convergent validity, and discriminant validity. The findings further demonstrate nomological validity by showing that exposure to continuous digital innovation significantly increases CIF, which in turn leads to innovation avoidance in online consumption contexts. By conceptualizing and empirically validating CIF, this study contributes to electronic commerce research by highlighting a previously underexplored psychological consequence of rapid innovation cycles in digital environments. The validated scale provides a useful instrument for future research examining consumer responses to ongoing technological change in e-commerce ecosystems.