Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services最新文献

{"title":"Bridging logistics and payment to build trust in African E-Retail: The role of logistics service quality, payment drivers, and cultural influences","authors":"Chaimaa El Aissoug ,&nbsp;Thai Young Kim ,&nbsp;Xueqin Wang","doi":"10.1016/j.jretconser.2025.104471","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.jretconser.2025.104471","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>E-commerce adoption in Africa is shaped by distinct logistical and payment challenges, requiring a nuanced understanding of logistics service quality (LSQ), payment drivers (PDs), and cultural influences. This study develops an integrative framework to examine how LSQ and PDs influence e-customer satisfaction, trust, and purchase intention within the African e-retail sector, using Morocco as a case study. Findings reveal that timeliness and shipping conditions significantly impact e-customer satisfaction, whereas product availability has a negligible effect, reflecting the persistence of traditional retail alternatives. Furthermore, ease of payment emerges as the strongest determinant of e-customer trust, surpassing payment security, and emphasizing the need for seamless payment experiences.</div><div>This study extends Transactional Trust Theory by demonstrating that cash on delivery (COD) serves as a trust-enhancing mechanism in low-trust, high-uncertainty environments, thereby mitigating perceived risk through physical verification before payment. The results also highlight the moderating role of COD, strengthening the effect of timeliness on satisfaction while weakening concerns over shipping conditions, and attenuating the impact of payment security on trust. Additionally, cultural dimensions—uncertainty avoidance and short-term orientation—influence social influence, shaping e-payment adoption.</div><div>By bridging logistics efficiency, payment trust mechanisms, and cultural moderating effects, this study offers theoretical contributions to e-commerce trust formation and practical insights for e-retailers and policymakers. The findings advocate for localized strategies, including hybrid payment models that balance digital integration with consumer trust preferences, fostering a smoother transition toward digital financial inclusion in emerging markets.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":48399,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services","volume":"88 ","pages":"Article 104471"},"PeriodicalIF":13.1,"publicationDate":"2025-08-11","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144809949","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":"Navigating the shifting landscape of multi-level user demands: A novel hybrid approach for identifying product opportunities and directions","authors":"Qing Li ,&nbsp;Jie Lin ,&nbsp;Chao Wang ,&nbsp;Shuaiyong Xiao ,&nbsp;Xiaoyan Jiang ,&nbsp;Zijuan Hu","doi":"10.1016/j.jretconser.2025.104460","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.jretconser.2025.104460","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>In a highly competitive and frequently changing market environment, businesses need to precisely capture and dynamically track user demands in order to optimize products and maintain a competitive advantage. However, as product homogenization increases and replacement rates rise, the focus of user demands has extended from the overall experience to more fine-grained product features, and indicating a dynamic evolutionary trend. This research proposes a hybrid framework for identifying product improvement opportunities and optimization directions. First, we develop Multi-Level User Demands Extraction Model (MDEM) to automatically mine multi-level user demand features. Second, we introduce the Sentiment-Intensity-based Satisfaction Evaluation (SI-SE) and the Attention Measurement (AM) to model and assess user demands from satisfaction and attention perspectives. Finally, we propose Dynamic Opportunity Algorithm (DOA), which incorporates temporal trends of satisfaction and attention to identify high-value product improvement opportunities. We implement and evaluate the proposed approach on vehicle products as a case study. The findings demonstrate that this method can effectively reveal the multi-level structure of user demands, accurately capture the dynamic change characteristics of demands, and thus effectively identify key product improvement opportunities, assisting businesses in developing specific and feasible product optimization strategies. This study provides an important methodology and tool for analyzing user demands and optimizing products.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":48399,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services","volume":"88 ","pages":"Article 104460"},"PeriodicalIF":13.1,"publicationDate":"2025-08-11","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144826624","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 longitudinal big data approach to theorizing consumers' continuance intention to use loyalty apps","authors":"Waqas Ahmed ,&nbsp;Mohammed A. Al-Sharafi ,&nbsp;Ali Raza ,&nbsp;Shehab Abdulhabib Saeed Al-Zaeemi ,&nbsp;Mousa Ahmad Al-Bashrawi ,&nbsp;Yogesh K. Dwivedi","doi":"10.1016/j.jretconser.2025.104453","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.jretconser.2025.104453","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>In an increasingly competitive fintech landscape, the ability to sustain user satisfaction and continuance intention beyond initial adoption is emerging as a resolute frontier. However, most prior studies have modeled continuance intention through survey-driven approaches and rarely explore organically expressed feedback in loyalty-centric fintech settings. This paper explores the nuances of post-adoption behaviors within fintech loyalty applications by analyzing the multilingual reviews posted by users on the app store as a way to mine their collective voice, or User Generated Content (UGC). Employing a sequential mixed-methods approach, we integrated confirmatory regression modeling of continuance behavior with topic modeling, sentiment analysis, hierarchical clustering, and Latent Dirichlet Allocation (LDA). Our analysis on 5669 app reviews revealed a dynamically-configured constellation of service quality, information quality, system quality, perceived usefulness, and evolving perceptions of risk. These elements enable user satisfaction and increase intention to continue using the service. It is worth mentioning that perceived risk silently acts as a dispositional control factor that can significantly erode loyalty away from positive user experiences. Merging classical theoretical approaches with unstructured user feedback enhances our understanding of loyalty within fintech in practice. This research provides a comprehensive framework to establish trust, satisfaction, and continuance use. These insights will enable developers, managers, and policy makers to forge resilient connections with users in a trust-scarce, value-starved, experience-saturated environment where lasting competitive advantage resides. We recommend that fintech loyalty platforms embed real-time feedback systems, visible security cues, and performance-aligned incentives to translate satisfaction into sustained user engagement.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":48399,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services","volume":"88 ","pages":"Article 104453"},"PeriodicalIF":13.1,"publicationDate":"2025-08-11","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144809950","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":"Service robot risk awareness and customer-directed helping from the perspective of the transactional model of stress","authors":"Won-Moo Hur ,&nbsp;Yuhyung Shin","doi":"10.1016/j.jretconser.2025.104451","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.jretconser.2025.104451","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Due to the widespread use of service robots, there is a burgeoning body of research on the potential effects of service robots on service employees' work outcomes. However, previous studies have mainly focused on the negative effects of service robot risk awareness (SRRA), overlooking the possibility that SRRA promotes proactive coping among service employees. To bridge this gap, drawing on the transactional model of stress, we propose perceived performance pressure (PPP) as a primary appraisal and customer-directed helping (CDH) as a secondary appraisal. Furthermore, we portray self-efficacy and job autonomy as moderators that strengthen the relationship between SRRA and PPP. Our hypotheses were validated via a two-wave survey conducted on 200 service employees. The results showed significant mediation between SRRA, PPP, and CDH. As expected, the positive relationship between SRRA and PPP was stronger for more efficacious employees than for less efficacious employees. Contrary to our prediction, job autonomy failed to moderate the SRRA–PPP relationship. Additionally, we found a three-way interaction effect of SRRA, self-efficacy, and job autonomy on PPP. The positive relationship between SRRA and PPP was most profound among service employees who possessed high levels of self-efficacy and job autonomy. These findings have implications for the effective management of service employees whose jobs are being replaced by service robots.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":48399,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services","volume":"87 ","pages":"Article 104451"},"PeriodicalIF":13.1,"publicationDate":"2025-08-06","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144781078","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":"Does atypical packaging design enhance the appeal of healthy food? Evidence from multiple experiments","authors":"Chonghuan Xu ,&nbsp;Shengjiao Niu ,&nbsp;Yajuan Wang ,&nbsp;Herbert Sima","doi":"10.1016/j.jretconser.2025.104458","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.jretconser.2025.104458","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>In healthy food packaging design, enterprises have always emphasized typical visual appearance to help consumers rapidly recognize and appreciate the health benefits. However, this approach has reinforced the perception that healthy food is less tasty, affecting sales. To the best of our knowledge, no studies have yet explored how to use atypical visual appearance to increase purchase intention. Based on self-determination theory, this study explored the impact of visual appearance of healthy food packaging (typical vs. atypical) on purchase intention, as well as its mechanism and boundary, through four lab experiments. The results indicated that atypical visual appearance of healthy food packaging increased consumers’ purchase intention, with self-enhancement playing a mediating role. Moreover, we explored important boundary mechanisms: self-concept clarity and persuasive message type. These findings enriched the literature about effects of visual appearance in food packaging field, while also offered insights for optimizing healthy food packaging marketing strategies.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":48399,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services","volume":"87 ","pages":"Article 104458"},"PeriodicalIF":13.1,"publicationDate":"2025-08-05","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144771595","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":"Reimagining retail: Technology at the frontline, across the value Chain, and toward sustainability","authors":"Carsten D. Schultz","doi":"10.1016/j.jretconser.2025.104449","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.jretconser.2025.104449","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>The retail industry is undergoing a profound technological transformation. This special issue explores how emerging technologies, such as artificial intelligence, AR/VR, digital assistants, and smart retail systems, (re-)shape customer experiences, streamline operations, and support responsible retailing. The seven featured articles investigate innovations in consumer behavior, service recovery, technology acceptance, and sustainable communication. These articles provide first insights and normative guidance for a retailing landscape driven by technological advancements. This introduction outlines future research directions across three interconnected domains: technology at the frontline, technology along the value chain, and the digital-sustainable transformation. The outlined research areas and questions aim to guide further research and strategic innovation fostering systemic transformation in the future of retailing.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":48399,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services","volume":"87 ","pages":"Article 104449"},"PeriodicalIF":13.1,"publicationDate":"2025-08-05","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144771494","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":"Consumer behavior and market substitution in the automobile retail sectors of Russia and China amidst global economic sanctions and uncertainty","authors":"Konstantin Ishumbaev ,&nbsp;Zhen Zhu ,&nbsp;Yasin Ileye ,&nbsp;Abdul Karim Armah","doi":"10.1016/j.jretconser.2025.104441","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.jretconser.2025.104441","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>This study investigates how global economic sanctions and geopolitical uncertainty influence Consumer Market Substitution Behavior (CMSB) in the automobile sectors of China and Russia: two economies that have become focal points of Western sanctions and industrial policy shifts. By integrating the Theory of Planned Behavior (TPB) with the Resource-Based View (RBV), the study models how consumer-behavioral perception constructs such as Economic Sanctions Pressure (ESP), Supply Chain Vulnerability Awareness (SCVA), Nationalistic Purchase Intent (NPI), and Perceived Brand Resilience (PBR) shape consumers’ brand-switching decisions. The results, derived from a partial least squares structural equation model using survey data from five major cities across both countries, show that ESP, SCVA, NPI, and PBR all significantly influence CMSB. ESP exerts the strongest direct effect, underscoring the powerful role of geopolitical constraints in shaping consumer choices. PBR significantly mediates the SCVA→CMSB and NPI→CMSB pathways, reinforcing the importance of brand credibility and operational reliability in substitution behavior. Multi-group analysis reveals no statistically significant differences between China and Russia in path strength, suggesting generalizability of the model across sanctioned markets. However, contextual insights indicate that Chinese consumers place slightly more emphasis on brand resilience and nationalistic sentiment, while Russian consumers are more influenced by direct market constraints. Practically, these insights emphasize the need for governments to bolster national branding and domestic production capabilities. For firms, emphasizing resilience, local value chains, and patriotic narratives can foster consumer loyalty in geopolitically strained environments. In sum, CMSB under sanctions is driven by both external pressure and internal brand signaling, making perception management critical for competitiveness.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":48399,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services","volume":"87 ","pages":"Article 104441"},"PeriodicalIF":13.1,"publicationDate":"2025-08-05","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144771498","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":"Anthropomorphic design in AI Recommendation: Heterogeneous effects of big five personality traits","authors":"Wanshu Niu ,&nbsp;Liqiang Huang ,&nbsp;Yahe Tan","doi":"10.1016/j.jretconser.2025.104448","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.jretconser.2025.104448","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>This study investigates the impact of varying levels of AI anthropomorphism on individuals with different Big Five personality traits in the context of product recommendations. Drawing on the Big Five personality model, we elaborated on the interactive effects of AI anthropomorphic design, i.e., the non-, low-, high-anthropomorphized AI and user personality traits on users’ interests to interact with AI. Our experimental findings reveal that users with high extraversion, high agreeableness, high conscientiousness, or high openness are more interested in interact with low-level anthropomorphic AI than non-anthropomorphic AI, but show no difference in interaction interests with low- and high-level anthropomorphic AI. In contrast, users with low extraversion, low agreeableness, relatively low conscientiousness, relatively low openness, or high neuroticism showed no difference in interaction interests with non- and low-level anthropomorphic AI, while tend to interact more with high-level anthropomorphic AI than low-level anthropomorphic AI. Moreover, the higher the AI anthropomorphized, the more the users with low neuroticism are interested in future interaction with AI. Users with extremely low conscientiousness or extremely low openness prefer highly anthropomorphic or non-anthropomorphic AI over low-anthropomorphic AI. This paper enriches theoretical insights into the literature on anthropomorphic AI design and Big Five personality traits, and provides practical guidelines for personalized AI recommender design.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":48399,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services","volume":"87 ","pages":"Article 104448"},"PeriodicalIF":13.1,"publicationDate":"2025-08-05","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144771492","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 more congruent, the better? The role of recommendation content congruence on consumers' click-through intention in in-feed advertising","authors":"Wenfang Fan,&nbsp;Bingjia Shao,&nbsp;Yong Zhang","doi":"10.1016/j.jretconser.2025.104463","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.jretconser.2025.104463","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>While format similarity is recognized as influential for in-feed ad performance, research on ad congruence has largely overlooked the role of congruence between ads and surrounding recommendation content. Drawing on the elaboration likelihood model, this study examines how this ad-recommendation content congruence influences consumer responses to social media in-feed ads. The results of four experiments show an inverted U-shaped relationship between ad congruence and consumers’ click-through intention, mediated by depth of information processing. Furthermore, the results demonstrate this effect is moderated by the in-feed channel (subscription vs. recommendation) and ad execution style (informational vs. narrative). Specifically, the subscription channel and informational ad execution amplify the positive effects of moderate congruence. These findings contribute theoretically by highlighting the potential downsides of excessive congruence and offer practical guidance for optimizing in-feed ad placement on social media platforms.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":48399,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services","volume":"87 ","pages":"Article 104463"},"PeriodicalIF":13.1,"publicationDate":"2025-08-05","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144771493","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":"Human-AI collaborative recovery: How recovery sequence and strategy order drive consumer forgiveness","authors":"Guangmei Yang ,&nbsp;Bingjia Shao","doi":"10.1016/j.jretconser.2025.104452","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.jretconser.2025.104452","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Collaboration between artificial intelligence (AI) robots and human employees in service recovery is becoming increasingly prevalent. However, the impact of human-AI collaborative recovery on consumer forgiveness and its underlying mechanisms remain unclear. Drawing on role congruity theory and dual-process theory, we propose and validate a theoretical model examining how the human-AI collaborative recovery sequence (human employees before AI robots vs. AI robots before human employees) and recovery strategy order (emotional before economic vs. economic before emotional) influence consumer forgiveness. Three experimental studies with 1011 participants demonstrated that when human employees are present before AI robots, implementing the emotional before economic recovery strategy order can increase consumers' expected responsibility of the corporation, thereby promoting forgiveness. Conversely, when AI robots are used before human employees, adopting the economic before emotional recovery strategy order can increase consumers' emotional empathy toward the enterprise and promote forgiveness. This study contributes to the theoretical understanding of human-AI collaboration in AI service marketing and offers practical advice for optimizing recovery strategies in AI service failures.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":48399,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services","volume":"87 ","pages":"Article 104452"},"PeriodicalIF":13.1,"publicationDate":"2025-08-05","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144771495","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}