Beyond the click: Building brand bonds through online customer experience

Authors: Zhao-Hong Cheng; Chia-Han Chang

Journal: Corporate Management Review. Dec. 2025, 45(2): 135-189

Keywords: Informativeness, entertainment, social presence, sensory appeal, consumer-brand identification, product type

Abstract:
Creating compelling customer experiences has become a critical strategy for firms seeking to enhance competitiveness and expand market share. Although prior literature has recognized customer experience as a multidimensional construct, empirical investigations remain limited, especially within the context of online customer experience. Addressing this gap, the present study examines the effects of four key dimensions of online customer experience, namely informativeness, entertainment, social presence, and sensory appeal, on customer-brand identification (CBI). Moreover, this study incorporates product type (i.e., search goods vs. experience goods) as a moderating variable to assess category-based differences in how experiential dimensions affect CBI. Based on 300 valid responses collected from an online survey of Apple iPhone consumers, structural equation modeling results reveal that informativeness, social presence, and sensory appeal exert significant positive effects on CBI. Furthermore, the impacts of all four experiential dimensions on CBI are amplified in the context of experience goods relative to search goods. The current study offers both theoretical and managerial contributions. Theoretically, it clarifies how online customer experience shapes brand identification and demonstrates that this effect differs across product types. Managerially, it highlights that enhancing informativeness, social presence, and sensory design is particularly effective in strengthening CBI and loyalty, especially for experience goods.