Title: Enabling customer engagement through perceived social influence and self-enhancement and assessing its impact on brand love: a study of online buying of electronic wearables

Authors: Mukesh Ranakoti; Pradeep Joshi

Addresses: Graphic Era Hill University, Dehradun, Uttarakhand, India ' Graphic Era Hill University, Dehradun, Uttarakhand, India

Abstract: India ranks as one of the quickest-growing global internet marketplaces for consumers, and therefore, the development of customer engagement is essential to strengthen the customer-brand relationship. This research intends to study the perceived social influence (PSI) and self-enhancement (SE) as two influencers of customer engagement (CE). It also ascertains brand love as an outcome of CE concerning the online buying of electronic wearable products. Statistically, it investigates the mediating role of self-enhancement between PSI and CE. We tested our hypotheses using online survey data from 286 respondents. The results of this investigation confirm the significance of PSI and SE as two precursors for CE and the contribution of CE to the development of brand love. Moreover, the results provide significant positive mediation effects of self-enhancement between perceived social influence and customer engagement. It is suggested that online marketers should ensure that customers feel sufficient self-enhancement and social influence to enhance customer engagement while doing online buying.

Keywords: customer engagement; CE; online buying; electronic wearable products; self-enhancement; SE; perceived social influence; PSI; brand love; BL.

DOI: 10.1504/IJEB.2025.147305

International Journal of Electronic Business, 2025 Vol.20 No.3, pp.342 - 366

Received: 23 Apr 2023
Accepted: 30 Jan 2024
Published online: 14 Jul 2025 *

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