The effect of mobile application-driven customer participation on bakery purchase behavior: Evidence from a field experiment

Abstract

This paper empirically examines individual and joint effects of two types of customer participation (CP)-mandatory and replaceable-within a mobile app on bakery purchase behavior. This research conducts a field experiment to track customer decisions on whether to participate in in-app CP events-store loyalty program enrollment and store satisfaction survey-and whether to change their purchasing amount and frequency. After controlling other influencing factors, the authors performed ANOVA with the sample of 19,065 bakery customers' behavioral decisions. The results confirm that mandatory CP has a positive effect on purchase behavior, while replaceable CP has mixed effects across stores. In addition, the results confirm that customers who engaged in both types of CP increased their purchase amount and frequency, compared to customers who engaged in one type or neither. The study suggests hospitality firms should motivate customers to engage in mandatory and replaceable CP to enhance customer loyalty cost-effectively.