Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services最新文献

{"title":"Pricing and financing strategies for start-ups’ innovative product: Dynamic game analysis based on consumer value co-creation","authors":"Jing Zhang ,&nbsp;Junli Wang ,&nbsp;Alfons Palangkaraya ,&nbsp;Zhangwei Feng ,&nbsp;Tie Gao","doi":"10.1016/j.jretconser.2025.104682","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.jretconser.2025.104682","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>This study explores the influence of consumer value co-creation behavior on the pricing and financing strategies of start-ups developing innovative products. A dynamic Stackelberg game model is developed to analyze strategic interactions between start-ups and consumers under three financing modes: bank financing, reward-based crowdfunding, and a hybrid of both. In single-financing modes, optimal pricing increases with consumer preference for innovation and the corporation's emphasis on consumer value but decreases with the market interest rate. This relationship holds only when the R&amp;D cost coefficient is relatively low. When it is high or consumer preference is weak, start-ups tend to shift from bank financing to reward-based crowdfunding as the consumer co-creation effort level increases. Critical thresholds emerge, where reward-based crowdfunding becomes optimal when the consumer co-creation effort level aligns with the innovation success rate. Conversely, bank financing remains preferable under low innovation success rates or high financial rigidity. In the hybrid mode, increasing the proportion of crowdfunding stabilizes profitability, balancing capital flexibility and risk. Numerical simulations and case illustrations validate how variations in consumer co-creation effort level, R&amp;D cost coefficient, and other key parameters influence optimal pricing and financing strategies. Local sensitivity analysis and robustness checks demonstrate the stability of strategic thresholds and financing transitions. Ultimately, start-ups should adopt flexible financing strategies reflecting consumer co-creation dynamics and market conditions. These findings offer theoretical and managerial implications for innovation-driven corporations operating in participatory platform environments.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":48399,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services","volume":"90 ","pages":"Article 104682"},"PeriodicalIF":13.1,"publicationDate":"2025-12-16","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145791050","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"管理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"The influence of reward qualifying conditions on participation in online referral programs","authors":"Jian Zhang ,&nbsp;Qing Lu ,&nbsp;Li Zhang ,&nbsp;David Harness","doi":"10.1016/j.jretconser.2025.104689","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.jretconser.2025.104689","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Online referral reward programs (RRPs) incentivize customers to promote products within their digital social networks by offering rewards, yet these programs often face persistently low participation. This research examines how online RRP qualifying conditions—specifically, whether rewards depend solely on the referrer's own actions or require assistance from others—shape customers' willingness to engage. Drawing on psychological reactance theory, the study investigates both the direct impact of assistance-based conditions and the mediating role of psychological reactance, as well as whether the timing of the reward offer (pre-vs. post-consumption) moderates these effects. Three scenario-based online RRP experiments conducted in gym, meal-kit, and coffee-shop contexts show that assistance-based conditions heighten reactance and reduce engagement, while post-consumption timing attenuates this reactance-driven decline. The findings advance understanding of consumer responses to online RRPs and provide actionable guidance for designing more effective digital referral strategies.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":48399,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services","volume":"90 ","pages":"Article 104689"},"PeriodicalIF":13.1,"publicationDate":"2025-12-14","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145791055","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"管理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Visual fidelity and price transparency in luxury-brand NFTs: Impacts on consumer authenticity perceptions and purchase intentions in metaverse retailing","authors":"Guanglu Liu","doi":"10.1016/j.jretconser.2025.104651","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.jretconser.2025.104651","url":null,"abstract":"&lt;div&gt;&lt;div&gt;As luxury brands expand into metaverse retail environments, non-fungible tokens (NFTs) have emerged as critical tools for digital brand storytelling and value creation. However, the translation of brand authenticity from physical to digital luxury goods remains poorly understood, particularly regarding how visual design fidelity and pricing strategies influence consumer perceptions and behaviors. This research addresses a fundamental tension in luxury NFT marketing: while high-fidelity digital representations may enhance perceived authenticity through detailed brand cues, they may simultaneously degrade authenticity perceptions by exposing the gap between digital simulation and physical product ownership. Drawing on signaling theory and authenticity research, this study investigates how NFT visual quality (high vs. low fidelity) and price disclosure strategies (transparent vs. absent) jointly influence consumer authenticity perceptions and purchase intentions for flagship luxury handbags in metaverse retail contexts.Three preregistered experiments (aggregate N = 1278) employing diverse luxury brand stimuli systematically test these relationships. Study 1 establishes that high-fidelity NFT visuals paradoxically reduce perceived brand authenticity and purchase intentions compared to low-fidelity representations, despite enhanced aesthetic appeal. Study 2 reveals that transparent price information (versus no pricing) moderates this effect: when price transparency is low, the negative authenticity impact of high-fidelity NFTs diminishes, and purchase intentions rebound to levels comparable with high-fidelity designs. Study 3 employs a three-cell design (low price, high price, no price) to confirm that premium pricing serves as a compensatory signal that buffers the authenticity penalties associated with photorealistic NFT representations, while low prices amplify the negative effects of visual realism on perceived authenticity.Across all studies, mediation analyses demonstrate that perceived authenticity functions as the primary psychological pathway linking visual fidelity and price transparency to purchase intentions. Consumer familiarity with NFT technology emerges as a secondary moderator, with NFT-experienced consumers showing greater acceptance of high-fidelity digital representations. The findings extend signaling theory to digital luxury contexts by demonstrating that traditional brand signals (visual realism, price) operate differently in virtual environments where authenticity concerns are heightened. This research provides actionable strategic guidance for luxury retailers entering metaverse platforms: managers must carefully calibrate NFT visual resolution and pricing strategies to preserve brand authenticity perceptions, either investing in ultra-realistic assets paired with premium pricing or adopting stylized, lower-fidelity designs with transparent value propositions to drive conversion in digital retail environments.&lt;/div&gt;&lt;","PeriodicalId":48399,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services","volume":"90 ","pages":"Article 104651"},"PeriodicalIF":13.1,"publicationDate":"2025-12-12","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145738244","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"管理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Designer-consumer similarity matters: The effect of AI-designed products on purchase intention","authors":"Zhen Yang ,&nbsp;Allen Ding Tian","doi":"10.1016/j.jretconser.2025.104680","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.jretconser.2025.104680","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>AI has become a novel and prevalent source of product design, bringing both opportunities and challenges to the retail industry. However, research investigating AI-designed products from the consumers' perspective remains scarce. Drawing on social identity theory and the similarity-attraction paradigm, this research examined consumers' purchase intention for the products labeled as AI-designed across a series of nine experiments (and a supplementary study). Studies 1A, 1B, and 1C demonstrate that, compared to products labeled as human-designed, consumers have a lower purchase intention for products labeled as AI-designed, and this effect remains robust regardless of the perceived importance of utilitarian/hedonic attributes for a given product category. Studies 2A, 2B, and 2C unveil consumers’ lower perceived similarity with AI designers as the underlying mechanism, and address several alternative explanations, including perceived product aesthetics, decision-making style, maximizing mindset, and psychological distance. Study 3 shows that the indirect effect via perceived similarity is moderated by how closely consumers link a focal product category to their self-identities. Study 4 further reveals that the key effect is attenuated and even eliminated by human-AI collaboration, providing an effective intervention strategy. Study 5 identifies acquisition mode as another theoretically- and managerially-relevant moderator, showing that the negative effect associated with AI design disappears and even reverses when the product is acquired through rental. These results advance the understanding of consumer psychological and behavioral responses to products labeled as AI-designed and provide strategic insights for managers on how to enhance consumer receptivity to products designed by AI.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":48399,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services","volume":"90 ","pages":"Article 104680"},"PeriodicalIF":13.1,"publicationDate":"2025-12-10","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145738239","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"管理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Advanced shelf space allocation in brick-and-mortar stores: A multi-population differential evolution approach for high-impact planogram design","authors":"Xiaomo Yu ,&nbsp;Ling Tang ,&nbsp;Jie Mie ,&nbsp;Jiajia Liu ,&nbsp;Long Long","doi":"10.1016/j.jretconser.2025.104587","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.jretconser.2025.104587","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Shelf space is one of a retailer’s most valuable assets, yet designing profitable planograms remains a high-stakes, NP-hard challenge. Small layout changes can shift consumer attention, trigger substitution effects, and swing category profits, but conventional heuristics and single-population metaheuristics often collapse under tight spatial and demand constraints. This paper advances a <em>Multi-Population Differential Evolution (MP–DE)</em> framework that redefines retail shelf optimization. The model embeds two-dimensional geometry, contiguous facings, and nonlinear space elasticity, while the algorithm enforces feasibility by design, maintains diversity through island sub-swarms, and triggers adaptive restarts to avoid stagnation. Across sixty benchmark scenarios, MP–DE outperforms Genetic Algorithms, Particle Swarm Optimization, and classical Differential Evolution—delivering <em>profit gains above 15 %</em>, <em>variance reductions exceeding 50 %</em>, and statistically significant superiority on all tests. The results establish MP–DE as a <em>scalable, reliable, and profit-driven optimization engine</em> for modern retailers, bridging cutting-edge evolutionary computation with actionable planogram design.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":48399,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services","volume":"90 ","pages":"Article 104587"},"PeriodicalIF":13.1,"publicationDate":"2025-12-10","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145738241","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"管理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"GETUSP: Goal-oriented topic modeling framework for unique selling point discovery","authors":"Saeran Park ,&nbsp;Sangmin Lee ,&nbsp;Jiyoon Lee ,&nbsp;Minjeong Ma ,&nbsp;Joonghoon Kim ,&nbsp;Younsun Kim ,&nbsp;Pilsung Kang","doi":"10.1016/j.jretconser.2025.104640","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.jretconser.2025.104640","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>The Unique Selling Point (USP) is essential for articulating a product’s unique strengths to customers, facilitating its competitive success in the market. However, traditional USP discovery approaches often rely on subjective judgment. This limitation leads to a gap between the USP planned by companies and the USP that truly resonates with consumers. To address this gap, topic modeling has been applied to customer reviews, but existing methods face challenges in performing USP-centered clustering, and the derivation of effective USPs is constrained due to ambiguous topic interpretation. We propose GETUSP, a two-stage USP discovery framework designed to extract and recommend USPs from customer reviews. In the first stage, Goal-Oriented Topic Modeling clusters reviews to identify interpretable, sentence-level USP candidates, overcoming the limitations of traditional methods. In the second stage, the Unique Selling Score quantitatively evaluates these candidates by incorporating consumer-perceived benefits and differentiation from competitors. This approach enables effective identification, evaluation, and prioritization of USPs that align with consumer needs and stand out in the market. Experimental results demonstrate that GETUSP outperforms baseline methods in terms of Precision@k and delivers consistent performance across diverse products. These findings confirm its practical applicability and highlight its potential for guiding data-driven USP discovery in various industries.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":48399,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services","volume":"90 ","pages":"Article 104640"},"PeriodicalIF":13.1,"publicationDate":"2025-12-10","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145738242","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"管理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Mirroring desire: Narcissism, psychological ownership, and purchase intentions for self-replicated sex robots","authors":"Amit Mahimkar","doi":"10.1016/j.jretconser.2025.104674","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.jretconser.2025.104674","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Self-replicating technologies are reshaping how consumers engage with technologically constructed versions of the self. Yet little is known about the psychological processes that motivate adoption of devices modeled after one's own likeness. Addressing this gap, the present study investigates how narcissistic autosexuals, individuals sexually attracted to themselves, form intentions to purchase self-replicated sex robots, a context that illuminates broader identity-based consumption dynamics. Drawing on symbolic self-completion theory, a moderated mediation model was developed in which narcissism predicts purchase intentions directly and indirectly through psychological ownership, with self-concept clarity proposed as a boundary condition. Survey data from 406 self-identified autosexuals provided full support for the model. Narcissism increased purchase intentions and strengthened psychological ownership of the self-replicated robot. Psychological ownership, in turn, predicted purchase intentions, mediating the narcissism–intention link. Self-concept clarity weakened all direct effects: when clarity was high, narcissism exerted little influence on ownership or purchase intentions; when clarity was low, all pathways intensified. The indirect effect was strongest among individuals with the least defined self-views. The study contributes a novel examination of autosexual consumers—an understudied identity segment—and extends symbolic self-completion theory by showing that identity symbols can be psychologically fused with the self even prior to purchase, and that this fusion depends on the coherence of one's self-definition. Managerially, the findings inform identity-driven strategies for hyper-personalized technologies, and socially, they highlight emerging ethical concerns related to self-objectification, relational distortion, and consumer vulnerability.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":48399,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services","volume":"90 ","pages":"Article 104674"},"PeriodicalIF":13.1,"publicationDate":"2025-12-10","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145738240","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"管理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"A dual-orientation framework integrating explicit and silent information for Mobile game improvement and publicity: An asymmetry and term-level CR analysis based on online reviews","authors":"Yanze Liu ,&nbsp;Tian-Hui You ,&nbsp;Bing-Bing Cao ,&nbsp;Junrong Zou","doi":"10.1016/j.jretconser.2025.104677","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.jretconser.2025.104677","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>This study proposes a dual-orientation framework for mining customer requirements (CRs) from online reviews to support product improvement and publicity in mobile games. Existing research often overlooks silent information embedded in unmentioned CRs, limiting the effectiveness of strategic decision-making. Our framework integrates explicit and silent information through term-level asymmetry analysis. Specifically, BERTopic and BW-CNN are used to extract CRs and sentiments, while SHAP quantifies their influence on satisfaction. A four-quadrant perception model is developed to conduct asymmetry analysis of silent information, and the Kano model is applied to perform asymmetry analysis of explicit feedback. Finally, LIME-based term contribution analysis integrates these perspectives to evaluate the priorities of CR improvement and publicity. Experiments on 72,000 reviews from eight mobile games demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed method in providing a comprehensive understanding of customer perceptions and supporting more targeted product improvement and publicity strategies.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":48399,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services","volume":"90 ","pages":"Article 104677"},"PeriodicalIF":13.1,"publicationDate":"2025-12-10","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145738238","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"管理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"The new frontier of customer understanding: Financial satisfaction and AutoML in banking","authors":"Manuel Alonso Dos Santos ,&nbsp;Carmen Zarco-Fernández ,&nbsp;Francisco Liébana-Cabanillas","doi":"10.1016/j.jretconser.2025.104601","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.jretconser.2025.104601","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>The objective of this study is to examine the factors associated with financial satisfaction using microdata from the Bank of Spain's Financial Competence Survey (2016 and 2021). Machine learning allows us to explore a wide range of possible predictors of financial satisfaction, overcoming the limitations of traditional approaches. The proposed methodological design combines predictive accuracy with interpretability, capturing hierarchical effects and interaction patterns that traditional approaches often overlook. The results consistently highlight household income and employment status as key structural factors, while perceived financial constraints, ability to meet expenses, and financial concerns emerge as influential perceptual correlates. The comparative analysis reveals two complementary segmentation logics: one dominated by objective resources and another focused on perceptions and planning behaviors, with evidence of a shift between 2016 and 2021 toward the growing importance of subjective assessments. This approach enables us to identify the variables most strongly associated with financial satisfaction, complementing existing models in the literature. Substantively, the results highlight that financial well-being is not only related to objective resources but also to how individuals interpret and manage them. These associations should be understood as correlational patterns rather than causal effects. From a managerial perspective, the findings underscore the need for retail financial institutions to integrate perceptual and behavioral dimensions into segmentation strategies to anticipate dissatisfaction, tailor services, and strengthen long-term consumer relationships.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":48399,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services","volume":"90 ","pages":"Article 104601"},"PeriodicalIF":13.1,"publicationDate":"2025-12-10","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145738243","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"管理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"The effect of cross-gender endorsement in live streaming:the moderating role of sexually related products","authors":"Shuwei Mo ,&nbsp;Yixing Yang","doi":"10.1016/j.jretconser.2025.104676","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.jretconser.2025.104676","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>This study investigates the impact of cross-gender endorsements in live-streaming e-commerce on consumer behaviors, revealing the mediating pathway through engagement atmosphere and the boundary of sexually related products (e.g., intimate apparel). Based on 325,298 livestreaming records from Douyin (TikTok China), Word2Vec-RF sentiment analysis and econometric regression are employed. The findings indicate that cross-gender endorsements (e.g., male streamers promoting female-targeted products or female streamers promoting male-targeted products) reduce livestream sales. Further mechanism analysis demonstrates that the engagement atmosphere (e.g., danmaku emotion, virtual gifts and purchasing display) in live streaming mediates this relationship. Simultaneously, sexually related products activate consumers’ short-term mating motives and mitigate status quo bias, thereby weakening the negative impact of cross-gender endorsements on livestream revenue. The research uncovers the dynamic interplay between gender roles and product categories, providing theoretical support for e-commerce platforms to optimize streamer-gender matching strategies.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":48399,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services","volume":"90 ","pages":"Article 104676"},"PeriodicalIF":13.1,"publicationDate":"2025-12-10","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145738236","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"管理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}