Situation-based shifts in consumer web site benefit importance: The joint role of cognition and affect

We considered the reasons why customers who plan to use a web site require different benefits in different situations and investigated two ways by which the differences can occur. Apparently, relative benefit importance shifts due to changes in cognitive fit between each web site benefit and customers’ situations, and, due to changes in their anticipated affective states in these situations customers’ benefit focus also changes. Furthermore, the number of benefits that customers rated as important differed, depending on their anticipated affective state. Jointly the findings provided insight into how and why consumer benefit importance varied by situation.