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Regret and performance uncertainty in consumer repeat choice

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Abstract

The role of regret on consumer choices has been well recognized in risky purchasing contents. Rather than outcome comparison, regret should also be contingent on the extent of consumer expectation uncertainty on performance. To explore this issue, the paper first draws some propositions based on a Bayesian updating model assuming consumer expectation as a kind of distribution. By two experiments, we show that consumers change their choice intention for alternatives with different performance uncertainty even though zero disconfirmation and no regret are experienced. Consumer experience and risk attitude moderate the change pattern.

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Acknowledgments

The authors thank the editor and a reviewer for their helpful comments. This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (70872057, 71172011, 71090402) and the Research Grant Council of Hong Kong (CUHK 4446/08H).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Marketing, School of Economics and Management, Tsinghua University, Bei**g, 100084, China

    Rong Chen

  2. Department of Marketing, Faculty of Business Administration, the Chinese University of Hong Kong, and School of Economics and Management, Southwest Jiaotong University, Chengdu, China

    Jianmin Jia

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  1. Rong Chen
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  2. Jianmin Jia
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Correspondence to Rong Chen.

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Chen, R., Jia, J. Regret and performance uncertainty in consumer repeat choice. Mark Lett 23, 353–365 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11002-011-9159-9

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