Journal of Consumer Behaviour最新文献

Online grocery shopping has become increasingly important in daily life. Consumers use the helpfulness of electronic word-of-mouth (eWOM) to reduce uncertainty and risk in online grocery shopping. Emotions such as positive arousal (e.g., energised) and calmness (e.g., relaxed) are often found in the eWOM of food products. However, little is known about the influence of emotions on eWOM helpfulness and how the effects of emotions on the helpfulness of online reviews differ in cultures. This study conducted an experiment to examine the impact of positive arousal and calmness on the helpfulness of eWOM regarding healthy and unhealthy foods in Japan and the USA. We found that cultural factors influenced the effect of arousal on eWOM helpfulness. For Japanese participants, positive eWOM with low arousal was more helpful than that with high arousal. In contrast, for US participants, positive eWOM with high arousal was more helpful than that with low arousal. In both countries, credibility mediated the relationship between arousal and review helpfulness. This study extends the literature on eWOM helpfulness and affect valuation theory. Our findings provide insights for companies on using eWOM in advertising campaigns and for consumers on writing helpful eWOM.

Because of growing digitalization, consumers are confronted with more and more new technologies. Digital ecosystems and digital platforms are of great importance in this context. One possibility for monetizing the services offered on digital platforms is the freemium pricing model. In light of increasing competition, it is important for platform operators to know as much as possible about the usage behaviour of their consumers. In particular, they need to know what factors influence the termination behaviour of paying users. The empirical study is based on data from 20,319 paying users of a freemium platform that offers information on equestrian sports. Using a logistic regression, several possible influencing factors on the probability of termination are examined. Among other things, the study shows that the termination probability is greater if the paying user has chosen a shorter subscription. Users who have already terminated their subscription before their current one are also at greater risk of churn. Premium users with high levels of involvement and members who receive notifications about new content on the platform are less likely to quit. The number of video views is also negatively related to the termination probability. Freemium providers can use this information to predict terminations and take appropriate action, such as special offers for users at risk of termination.

Influencers' personal stories on social media can shape consumer behavior. Yet little is known about how intimacy, valence, and topic of self-disclosure affect perceptions of credibility. In two studies, results reveal that intimate (vs. non-intimate) self-disclosure reduces perceived message appropriateness and influencer credibility, while positive (vs. negative) self-disclosure enhances it. Furthermore, the effect of positive intimate self-disclosure on appropriateness is stronger for topics related to mental health (vs. relationships). This research broadens the theoretical understanding of how consumers perceive influencer credibility by analyzing various dimensions of self-disclosure, providing practical insights for integrating self-disclosure into social media recommendations.

The article synthesizes online impulse buying research conducted through a systematic literature review (SLR) approach. The present review covers the diverse range of literature, from 2001 to 2024, conducted using the SPAR-4-SLR protocol. Drawing upon the theory-context-characteristics-method (TCCM) framework, a literature synthesis provides an overview of article's descriptives, underpinning theories, contextual overview and methodological aspects. The review also highlights the variables related to the antecedents, mediators, moderators and consequences of online impulse buying and proposes the integrated conceptual framework of the concept. Lastly, the review highlights the gap in the literature and offers insightful directions to advance research in online impulse buying domain. Overall, this review is an attempt to make significant theoretical and practical contributions to the field of online impulse buying research.

The promise of the metaverse as a collective, virtual, and shared social space is revolutionizing digital retail. This study provides groundbreaking insights into customer experience in immersive metaverse environments, as well as into how these experiences on metaverse platforms influence customers' real-world consumption behaviors. Drawing upon data from metaverse platform users in the US, this study identifies the specific antecedents of a positive customer experience on metaverse platforms, including the role of social presence and trialability. Further, it demonstrates the potential for purchase spillovers from the metaverse to traditional retail channels, extending the omnichannel retail literature. In addition, it examines how early-stage versus long-term users of the metaverse shape users' intentions to revisit metaverse platforms. Based on our results, we offer a comprehensive model of customers' metaverse behaviors, which may be used to predict and enhance customers' purchase intentions across channels. Our results also demonstrate that the metaverse is not merely a parallel digital retail channel but instead an influential extension of the customers' real-world consumption. From a managerial perspective, we offer metaverse operators and retail brand managers insights into how an engaging and immersive customer experience in the metaverse can be developed to support metaverse platform growth, and targeted brand strategies that translate into real-world gain for both the brand and the customer. The findings suggest that metaverse platforms must deliver customer experiences at a very high level to prevent stagnation in metaverse usage intentions; therefore, managers can confidently continue investing in relevant strategies to fuel metaverse platform growth.

Research suggests that authentic branding strategies should focus on consumers' actual self rather than their ideal self; that is, brands that match consumers' ideal self are perceived as too psychologically distant from their present self and, thus, as inauthentic. This study challenges this prevailing notion by proposing the novel perspective that ideal self-congruence is more influential than actual self-congruence in driving authenticity. Contrary to the view that brands matching consumers' ideal self are deemed inauthentic due to psychological distance, our research, encompassing four empirical studies, demonstrates that ideal self-congruence significantly enhances positive authentic pride while effectively reducing negative hubristic pride more than actual self-congruence. Furthermore, this study not only reveals that ideal self-congruence is more strongly associated with authentic pride than actual self-congruence but also reshapes the theoretical understanding of the role of self-congruence in the realm of authenticity. Our findings therefore contradict previously cited but hardly empirical arguments by demonstrating that ideally self-congruent brands positively affect perceived brand authenticity more than actually self-congruent brands. Thus, we recommend brands to focus authentic marketing strategies on consumers' ideal self to positively influence consumer behavior.

Metaverse is an emergent technology that facilitates consumer interaction and participation in various activities within an integrated virtual environment. Considering the Metaverse's swift growth, comprehension of the perspectives and inclinations of its prospective users is critical. Considering configuration and complexity theories, this article examines the causal patterns of factors and fragmented perspectives concerning using Metaverse applications (M-apps). It does so by examining how functional (ease of use, privacy), social (interactivity, presence), and personality (locus of control, openness to experience) factors combine as causal configurations to describe consumer adoption (MTA). Hence, fuzzy-set qualitative comparative analysis is employed to empirically examine the proposed configurational model by analyzing a sample of 372 Chinese consumers of different M-Apps. The notable MTA was determined to be explained under four distinct solutions with varying configurations of function, social, and personality in various combinations. The findings of this paper's complexity analysis constitute a scholarly and practical contribution to consumer acceptance of M-apps, allowing for the customization of Metaverse functionality to meet every consumer's needs.

This study aims to investigate various types of values consumers experience within the meal kit delivery context, their influences on satisfaction and word-of-mouth (WOM), and the moderating effects of demographics between consumer values and satisfaction with a mixed-method approach. The qualitative study employed a critical incident technique that analyzed consumers' online reviews, resulting in 285 critical incidents. The analysis revealed five themes of consumer value unique to the meal kit usage, including excellence, convenience, monetary value, epistemic value, and self-esteem. The quantitative study from an online survey of 300 consumers used a structural equation modeling, which provided support for the influences of the five consumer values on satisfaction, subsequently enhancing consumers' WOM behavior. Besides, the multi-group analysis revealed that the impacts of consumer values on satisfaction depended on their marital status and household income. This study contributes to the consumer behavior literature in three areas. First, it expands the consumer value literature by identifying multiple dimensions of consumption values unique to meal kit delivery that gained popularity during the COVID-19 pandemic. Second, this study contributes to the consumer satisfaction and loyalty literature by demonstrating the impacts of different dimensions of values on consumer responses. Lastly, it expands our knowledge of consumer demographic characteristics that change the dynamics between consumer values and satisfaction. The findings provide valuable insights into the fast-growing meal kit industry and allow the service providers to better align their products/service attributes with the values consumers appreciate.

When exposed to advertisements, consumers are often suspicious of brand claims. To that end, prior research has explored how individuals evaluate claims to form a judgement under a state of suspicion. Yet, consumer research has not examined how suspicion affects consumers' suspension of their judgement towards the brand. We experimentally investigate the effects of three (low vs. moderate vs. high) levels of consumer suspicion on judgement suspension. Study 1 shows that compared with low or high levels, moderate levels of suspicion lead to significantly higher judgement suspension. Studies 2 and 3 replicate this inverted U-shaped effect for additional brand and product category contexts and unveil that uncertainty towards the brand mediates the effect of suspicion on judgement suspension. In turn, the impact of uncertainty towards the brand on judgement suspension is mediated by product imagery. This research corroborates the effects of suspicion on consumer judgement suspension.

The wall of differentiation between genuine recommendations by social media influencers and brand-sponsored promotions has become thinner since brands are increasingly sponsoring influencers to promote their products and services. This study has followed a qualitative research method using the grounded theory approach to conduct in-depth, one-to-one, semi-structured interviews with 25 social media users to delve into influencers' brand paid promotions and sponsorship disclosure, which marks a grey area in influencer marketing. The results delineate the grey characteristics of influencers through three main themes: (1) Disclosure of paid promotions/ non-promotions (i.e., content factors), (2) Consumer conviction conundrum (i.e., context factors), and (3) Social media users' avoidance behaviour (i.e., consequences). This study also defines ‘Sinfluencer’ (i.e., commercially motivated influencers who hide their paid partnerships) and elucidates ‘evaluation’ as a critical step, thereby extending the discussion on the social media engagement cycle.