Emotions in Online Shopping: Fulfilling Customer's Needs through Providing Emotional Features and Customizing Website Features

The role of emotions is an important subject of study in marketing and consumer behavior. Electronic commerce, being one of the very effective channels of marketing, should pay attention to the issue of emotions. However, Information Systems research on electronic commerce has rarely investigated the effect of fulfilling customers’ emotional needs. This research opens a new area of enquiry: that fulfilling customers’ emotional needs can be an important aspect in Internet shopping. Our findings suggest that people who have certain values desire certain features that match their values. Presumably these features can fulfill their emotional needs. Practical implications for the findings are discussed.