Research on the Impact of Customer-to-customer Interaction on Willingness to Purchase New Products in Virtual Brand Communities: The Mediating Role of Brand Emotional Value Experience

Abstract

From the perspective of customer perceived value theory, this paper uses questionnaires to take 457 data from online platforms such as Instagram and Facebook as valid samples, and discusses the mediating effect of brand emotional value experience on the relationship between customer-to-customer interaction and customers’ willingness to purchase new products and the moderating effect of community trust on this relationship. The results show that: (1) customer-to-customer has an obvious positive impact on their willingness to purchase new products; (2) brand emotional value experience plays a significant part in mediating the customer-to-customer interaction and their willingness to purchase new products; (3) community trust positively moderates the positive impact of customer-to-customer interaction on brand emotional value experience, thus influencing customers’ willingness to purchase new products. Therefore, the research results help to enrich the research achievements of virtual brand communities, clear the effectiveness of customer-to-customer interaction on the customers’ willingness to purchase new products, further open the “black box” in which customer-to-customer interaction affects customers’ willingness to purchase new products, and define the boundary conditions for customer-to-customer interaction to influence customers’ willingness to purchase new products. In fact, the research results also provide important reference for enterprises to effectively manage virtual brand communities and promote positive output of brand communities.