Search results

This study aims to investigate the responses of young Chinese consumers with different cultural characteristics to negative brand information about electric vehicles.

The current study is quantitative research with an experimental method. It shows two different levels of severity for negative publicity and asks participants to self-report through questionnaires.

Chinese young consumers, being collectivist and of high uncertainty avoidance, tend to search for and spread information; consumers with low power distance search and share information more under low information severity. In addition, information search positively affects brand attitude under lower severity; negative word-of-mouth intention negatively affects brand attitudes at both severity levels.

The current study examines the influence of personal cultural values on information searching and negative information dissemination among young consumers, providing insights to complement previous studies. Furthermore, it explores how such exposure influences young consumers’ brand attitude and intention to purchase. Limitations include simple sample scopes and single-product stimuli.

This research highlights the importance of cultural dimensions in shaping young consumers’ responses to negative publicity. Marketers worldwide should consider cultural influence and develop specific strategies to address negative information about different products. Understanding customers’ unique characteristics and preferences can help marketers effectively tailor their approaches to counter negative publicity.

This study originally provides a supplement to prior studies on cultural dimensions and consumer behavior and provides suggestions to marketers on young Chinese consumers.

Showrooming presents a complex and evolving challenge to retail managers, as it signifies the emergence of new forms of exchange rules. The purpose of this research is to investigate how factors responsible for information search and evaluation affect showrooming and also consider the consumer mindset as a moderator.

This research undertakes three experimental designs to investigate how the push (i.e. assortment size), pull (i.e. price discount), and mooring (i.e. sunk cost) factors influence consumers' showrooming intention. Specifically, consumers' maximizing tendency plays the role of moderator.

The results reveal that push, pull, and mooring factors are significantly related to consumers' showrooming intention. Furthermore, the findings show that maximizers have higher showrooming intention than satisficers in the context of the push, pull, and mooring factors.

By integrating the push-pull-mooring framework and the maximizing mindset theory, this research proposes a novel research model and the empirical testing results support six hypotheses. The findings add to the body of knowledge in showrooming behavior by taking consumer mindset into account. The results also provide implications for practitioners to develop their retail strategies.

This research investigates the effects of consumers' online information searching on their dining satisfaction in upscale restaurants during the pandemic. Customers frequently rely on online sources to gather information about upscale restaurants prior to their visits.

Data from 307 diners across the top ten popular upscale restaurants in Hong Kong were analysed by using SEM to explore the links between customers' needs, information search, restaurant attributes and customer satisfaction.

This study uncovers customers' online search behaviours and identifies restaurant attributes that are associated with customer satisfaction, which were not typically emphasised before the COVID-19 pandemic. Driven by their social and psychological needs, customers devoted more time to reading written comments by other consumers compared to visual images or self-descriptions from restaurants. Only service attribute significantly influenced customer satisfaction, while food and price attributes were not significant.

The findings of this study provide valuable insights for researchers and practitioners, shedding light on the altered needs and preferences of consumers following the unprecedented health crisis.

This study contributes to the development of expectancy disconfirmation theory and needs theory through the investigation of consumers' online information searching behaviours and dining satisfaction in upscale restaurants during the pandemic. By identifying the most important attributes influencing customer satisfaction, this research can aid upscale restaurants in developing effective marketing strategies and enhancing customer experiences.

This study explores the direct relationship between social media user-generated content (UGC), online search traffic and offline light vehicle sales of different models.

The long-run equilibrium relationship and short-run dynamic effects between the valence and volume of UGC, online search traffic and offline car sales are analyzed by applying the autoregressive distribution lag (ARDL) model.

The study found the following. (1) In the long-run relationship, the valence of online reviews on social media platforms is significantly negatively correlated with the sales of all models. However, in the short-run, the valence of online reviews has a significant positive correlation with all models in different lag periods. (2) The volume of online reviews is significantly positively correlated with the sales of all models in the long run. However, in the short run, the relationship between the volume of online reviews and the sales of lower-sales-volume cars is uncertain. There is a significant positive correlation between the volume of reviews and the sales of higher-sales-volume cars. (3) Online search traffic has a significantly negative correlation with the sales of all models in the long run. However, in the short run, there is no consistent conclusion on the relationship between online search traffic and car sales.

This study provides a reference for managers to use in their efforts to improve offline high-involvement product sales using online information.

The purpose of this paper is to develop a systematic literature review on the sunk cost effect from consumers’ perspectives. By applying a comprehensive approach, this paper aims to synthesise and discuss the impact of financial and behavioural sunk costs on consumers’ decisions, judgements and behaviour before and after purchasing. This study also identifies potential research avenues to inspire further studies.

Following a search in the Scopus and Web of Science databases, a systematic literature review was conducted by identifying and analysing 56 peer-reviewed articles published between 1985 and 2022 (November). Descriptive and content analysis was implemented based on the selected papers to examine and synthesise the effect of sunk costs on consumers’ choices, evaluations and actions in a comprehensive approach; uncover research gaps; and recommend paths for future research.

The research results found in the literature are discussed according to five related themes: factors affecting the sunk cost effect; the impact of past investments on purchasing decisions; consumers’ post-purchasing evaluation, behaviour and choices; the mental amortisation of price; and the sunk cost effect on loyalty and switching.

The originality of this study lies in the comprehensive approach to the sunk cost effect from consumers’ perspectives. This review paper synthesises and discusses the research results found in the literature related to financial and behavioural sunk costs that can influence consumers’ decisions, judgements and behaviour before and after paying for a good or service.

This research analyses the searching, interacting and purchasing behavior of shoppers seeking semidurable and fast-moving consumer goods in an immersive virtual reality (VR) store, showing how physical examinations and visual inspections relate to purchases.

Around 60 participants completed two forced-purchase tasks using a head-mounted display with visual and motor-tracking systems. A second study using a pictorial display of the products complemented the VR study.

The findings indicate differences in shopping behavior for the two product categories, with semidurable goods requiring greater inspection and deliberation than fast-moving consumer goods. In addition, visual inspection of the shelf and products was greater than a physical examination through virtual handling for both product categories. The paper also presents relationships between visual inspections and product interactions during the searching stage of purchase decisions.

The research consists of two types of implicit measures in this study: eye-tracking and hand-product interactions. This study reveals the suitability of implicit measures for evaluating consumer behavior in VR stores.

To provide a dynamic view on accommodation choice behaviors during the pandemic, this study aims to examine the impact of recent trends on prospective travelers’ preferences for hotels and Airbnb.

The paper adopts a mixed methods approach that incorporates three independent studies (experimental analysis, online search pattern analysis and an econometric event study) to understand customer decision-making behaviors.

The findings indicate that travelers prefer Airbnb entire flats/apartments to hotels when the pandemic is trending upward. This result externally validates travelers’ preference toward Airbnb during periods of high risk. Interestingly, when the trends go downward, however, the same behavioral pattern was not identified.

This study provides important empirical insights into how the evolution of health crises influence customer decision-making for hotels and Airbnb. Future research needs to consider the role of socio-demographic factors in accommodation selection behaviors and examine how travelers react to cleanliness levels between Airbnb and hotels.

As one of initial studies that empirically examine Airbnb customers’ decision-making behaviors in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic’s trends, this study provides a dynamic view on how the evolution of the pandemic influences accommodation choice behaviors.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the antecedents of customer satisfaction during mortgage purchases. Mortgage demand in the USA has reached an all-time high because of an increase in housing demand after COVID-19. Nonetheless, several customers are dissatisfied with their service providers. Customers who actively search the market gain more information about mortgage providers and use this information to define expectations for lenders. The only way there will be customer satisfaction is if lenders meet these expectations. Therefore, it is economically significant for mortgage lenders to discover the antecedents of mortgage satisfaction.

In this study, the partial least squares approach was used to test the hypothesis that satisfaction was influenced by objective knowledge, familiarity and search intensity among a sample of customers (n = 4,512) from the National Survey of Mortgage Originations who had purchased a mortgage in the USA between 2019 and 2020.

The results of structural modelling showed that familiarity (β = 0.23 and p = 0.01) with and knowledge (β = 0.16 and p = 0.01) of mortgages significantly affected consumer satisfaction during mortgage purchase. Search intensity (p = 0.01) mediated the relationship between knowledge, familiarity and satisfaction.

The primary implication is that mortgage service providers should prioritise educating customers about the mortgage buying process on their websites and in person. So managers must actively assist clients in having realistic expectations. Second, mortgage companies should establish a presence on third-party mortgage comparison websites to ensure that customers actively consider alternatives, thereby increasing customer satisfaction.

This study is unique in being an exploratory study to examine the antecedents of mortgage satisfaction using a public data set. This study uniquely examines the National Survey of Mortgage Originations data set with partial least squares approach to examine underlying customer attitudes.

Neuromarketing is a marketing communication field that applies neuroscience and physiological research tools to study consumer behavior toward stimuli, viz., ads and brands. This study aims to assess research trends in the neuromarketing field on the most influential journals, authorships, countries, citations and co-occurrences. The Scopus database is used to analyze identified articles from 2013 to 2022 and for the eligible research articles, a “systematic methodological review” (SMR) on consumer behavior through neuromarketing approach was done. “Visualization of Science (VOS)” viewer and “Biblioshiny” by R-studio software have been used for mapping the keyword analysis, co-citation analysis and author occurrence analysis. It was further found that of the top 10 academic institutions, the list is dominated by the six Asian institutions. It was further witnessed that journal “Physiology and Behavior” is trending as the most dedicated and emerging journals on neuromarketing and consumer behavior. Asian nations such as Bangladesh, China, India, Indonesia, etc., are turning out to be an emerging collaborators and publishers in this niche area of research, thereby giving tough competition to most developed countries. The findings of the thematic mapping show that neuromarketing is itself a very novel and newest area of study and topics such as “human marketing,” “neuromarketing,” “consumer behavior” and “electroencephalography” are new dimensions that can be looked upon in future.

Contextual cues have become a hot research topic in the field of mobile consumer behavior, owing to the continuous rise of digital marketing. However, the complex online shopping scene makes it challenging to directly identify the association between the characteristics of contextual cues and consumer behavior. Presently, few studies have only systematically extracted and refined the types and characteristics of contextual cues. The purpose of this study is to explore the types and mechanisms of contextual cues in online shopping scenarios.

This study uses the word2vec algorithm, grounded theory and co-occurrence cluster method, along with online shopping word-of-mouth (WOM) text and consumer behavior theory, in order to explore different types of contextual cues and its efficiency from 5,619 comment corpus.

This study puts forward the following conclusions. (1) From the perspective of online shopping, contextual cues comprise aesthetic perception cues, value perception cues, trust-dependent cues, time perception cues, memory attention cues, spatial perception cues, attribute cues and relationship cues. (2) Based on the online shopping scenarios, contextual cues and their interaction effects exert an effect on consumer satisfaction, recommendation, purchase and return behavior.

The study conclusions are helpful to further reveal the deep association between contextual cues and consumer behavior in the process of online shopping, thus providing practical and theoretical enlightenment for enterprises to not only effectively reshape the scene but also promote the consumers' active purchase behavior.