Study On The Impact Of Post-purchase Outcome Comparison On Consumer Regret

Consumer regret is an important part of customer relationship management of enterprise. This article builds a model of the impact of post-purchase outcome comparison on consumer regret, then analyzes the antecedent and its possible behavioral consequences, also some moderators of consumer regret in the industry of notebook buying and consuming. At last, it provides some advice and strategies to manage regret for decision makers of enterprise. Its findings are shown as follows:Post-purchase outcome comparison is the antecedent of consumer regret; regret has positive impacts on negative word of mouth and brand switching. In the process of comparison, consumers not only concern about product quality, price, but also service. Consumers are likely to spread negative word of mouth, promote its poor performance, advise others not to buy, but also to stop the continued purchase of the brand, resulting in the transfer of the brand, which for the vendors, is a loss, because of the customer lost.In the process of consumer regret resulting from post-purchase outcome comparison, the moderating effect of the need to compare was not significant, while self-blame and goal-relevance have played a significant moderating effect on consumer regret. The desire to compare can not moderate the degree of regret, but self-blame significantly moderated the degree of regret, the larger the self-blame, the higher the regret. Products or services to meet consumer demand or the extent of the utility can moderate the size of the intensity of regret, the more goal-relevant, the lower level of regret, whereas higher.In addition, this paper also found that the spread of negative word of mouth will lead to brand switching, which the conceptual model of the study was improved. Before consumers make their buying decisions, the information provided is very important to others, especially his friends and family, they listen to someone else's proposal, which is likely to affect the original decision, resulting in brand switching. Consumers are likely to stop using or reduce the frequency of using the brand because of others' negative word of mouth, which means brand switching, even if the consumer has been the case with the brand. Contribution of this article is:first, a model of the impact of post-purchase outcome comparison on consumer regret was built. In this paper, a large number of domestic and foreign literatures regarding regret were read, and the antecedents and consequences, also some moderators of consumer regret was summarized; second, the effect of three moderators——the need to compare, self-blame and goal-relevance on consumer regret was examined in the Chinese background, laptop purchase and consumption situation. The results showed that, self-blame and goal-relevance played a significant moderating effect on consumer regret, while the need to compare not.