The Function of Dominance and Arousal in Consumer Resonance with Fashion Brand Website and Store

Abstract

<p>Well-structured brand websites can develop consumer purchase confidence and positive emotions with the brand (Park & Stoel, 2005) and further develop consumer resonances (Huang et al., 2015). The function of emotion conveyed through website attributes has received increasing attention in studying different affective states that drive consumer footprints across channels. As consumers tend to respond their emotions first before logic comes into consideration in their purchase decision (Hunt, 2011), it is timely to examine the function of emotion at a brand website that takes consumer to lead the next call to action. As the function of emotion, Pleasure-Arousal-Dominance (P-A-D) affective state model (Mehrabian & Russell, 1974) suggests that pleasure, arousal and dominance states mediate actual consumer behavior such as desire to affiliate with others in the setting, desire to stay in or escape from the setting, willingness to spend time and money, and to consume. Focusing on arousal and dominance emotional state at a brand website, this study examined which website features induce consumer's emotional state and how the emotional state influences consumer resonance, triggering the intention to purchase at the brand website or the intention to visit the brand store. By employing a total of 220 usable responses, the two steps of structural equation modeling were used to validate measurement model and to test hypotheses using AMOS 20.0. All hypothese were supported which means consumer interaction with a brand website creates emotional ties and further generates consumer resonance with the fashion brand across channels (Thomas, 2001). Product presentation and personalization are key attributes directly generating consumer arousal state, consequently increasing conversion across the fashion brand channels. In addition, privacy/security and searchandising dynamics excel the dominance emotion state, mediating arousal state and finally consumer resonance in store visit and brand website shopping.</p>