The Path to Matcha Repurchase: Ritual Attractiveness, Self-Congruence, and Preference

Abstract Rituals are deeply embedded into our culture and society, especially in the way we consume food. However, little literature are found that study rituals through the lense of consumer behavior especially in beverage industry. To better understand the impact of ritualized experience, a structural study of factors are design. A structural model was built to investigate the impact of consumer based self-congruence, product self-congruence self-congruence, and ritual experience on repurchase intention, with the underlying product preference as a potential mediator. This research used quantitative method, and seven hypotheses were proposed and study by collecting and analyzing empirical data using the Partial Least Squares Structural Equation Modeling (PLS-SEM) bootstrapping route analysis. The results of the empirical analysis reveal that the product preference process has the most direct effect on repurchase intention. Importantly, the results show that the two factors of actual self-congruence and product self-congruence did not show direct link with repurchase intention, nevertheless, both had extremely significant and favorable impact on the product preference variable. On the contrary, the Ritual Experience follows a robust partial mediation model and at the same time increases the consumer’s predisposition to repurchase the product. This research contributes to self-congruity and experiential marketing theory by mapping the exact cognitive limits of identity matching, and showing the dual-route, habit-forming robustness of ritualized consumption. The data also show a high impact of product preference on customers’ loyalty, preference and overall satisfaction. Keywords: Ritualized Experience, Consumer-Self Congruence, Product-Self Congruence, Repurchase Intention, Product Preference