Examining the role of emotion in online consumer reviews of various attributes in the surprise box shopping model

摘要

The fierce competition among retailers demands the creation of new retail models. Emotional marketing aiming to arouse consumers' positive emotions attracts demand. In this context, the surprise box model, in which a business notifies consumers through a subscription and then mails boxes of new products without repetition, has emerged to rapidly develop. This study examines the role of consumer emotions in their online review writing behavior in the context of the surprise box shopping model. We find for the attributes of product, service, and fulfillment, but not for value; consumers tend to comment more in reviews when they have an extreme emotion, either positive or negative. Consumers comment even more when they have an extremely negative emotion than when they have an extremely positive emotion. In addition, we find that subscription period, experience, and consumers' overall satisfaction affect their review behavior, which depends on the particular attributes on which consumers comment. Further, we find that consumers' positive and negative emotions play different moderating roles in affecting the influence of the subscription period, subscription experience, and satisfaction on consumers' comments depending on the attribute types. This study helps firms understand how consumers perceive and evaluate various product and service attributes in the new surprise box business model. In this way, firms can better understand consumers' need to improve those attributes with different priorities. In addition, firms can use the positive electronic word-of-mouth effects generated from online consumer reviews to achieve both cognitive and affective empathy to attract future consumers.