Customer Experience Formation in Online Shopping: Investigating the Causes of Positive and Negative Emotions During a Visit to an Online Store

Abstract

This study explores customer experience formation in an online shopping context by investigating the causes of customers’ positive and negative emotions during their visit to an online store. Survey data collected from 1786 Finnish online customers was used to identify individuals who experienced strong positive (N = 138) or negative emotions (N = 215) during their visit. The causes of negative and positive emotions were studied by analyzing customers’ open-ended, written explanations attributed to their emotions. Attribution theory is utilized to explain how individuals make sense of their emotions. The findings show that customers offer various explanations for the emotions evoked during a visit to an online store. Three main themes were identified with respect to the causes of such emotions and related to: (1) the online store, (2) the socio-material environment, and, (3) the customer her/himself. Customers generally blame the online store for negative emotions, whereas positive emotions are mostly associated with oneself and one’s success as a consumer. Both negative and positive emotions are to some extent explained by the sociomaterial environment. The findings demonstrate the complexity of customer experience formation. Further investigation of the topic is therefore warranted.