The growing presence of social media influencers (SMIs) is increasingly modulating consumer behaviour in the travel industry. Trust is a vitally important topic in influencer and tourism marketing and is responsible for creating and maintaining successful long-term relationships between organizations and consumers. This study uses customer journey theory to explain the impact of SMI trust on customer travel decision-making and focuses on evaluating the role of customer journey constructs (including desire, information search, evaluating alternatives, purchase decisions, satisfaction and experience sharing) in mediating the interrelation between SMI trust and the dimensions of customer journeys. Using Smart PLS to analyze the data collected, the results indicate that consumer trust in SMIs has a positive effect on each phase of travel decision-making. Moreover, each step of the decision-making journey mediates the trust effect on the next step, having a spillover effect on the whole journey, implying continuous SMI input. Tourism marketers are advised to use SMIs to increase and stimulate the desire to travel as clearly, a means by which consumers search for information about their next journey. Besides SMIs as a marketing tool, their trustworthiness serves as a highly important aspect to successfully influence tourists’ destination decision making.

In the 21st century, green consumption has risen into a global trend, which inclines cosmetic companies to be more environmental-friendly and to have a larger green product portfolio to satisfy these new consumers’ needs. Social media contributed to this trend, shaping consumers’ attitudes into more environmentally conscious behavior. The present study applied the Theory of Planned Behavior (TPB) to explain the impact of Social Media on consumers’ purchase intention and motivation (altruism and egoism). Based on empirical investigation, an online survey was developed to measure the proposed conceptual model. The reliability and validity of the reflective constructs were tested using partial least squares (PLS) modeling technique. The results indicate the importance of social media on consumers’ attitudes, subjective norms, altruistic and egoistic motivations, and the impact of these variables as the antecedents of green cosmetics purchase intention. These results have important theoretical implications. They revealed that external factors such as social media as an information source, have an important role in consumer motivation formation and green cosmetic purchasing intentions. The findings are relevant for marketers to implement better communication strategies on social media to increase consumers’ motivations and purchase intention toward green cosmetics.

Energy waste is an emerging issue worldwide, with energy conservation goals, such as conscious energy consumption, playing a crucial role in helping the environment. The rapid growth of smart appliances has led to the development of mobile applications, with an increased interest among policymakers to design eco-saving plans for optimizing power and battery consumption. This study aims to explore the usage intention of energy-efficient applications, through young consumers’ energy conservation behavior, behavioral characteristics, and COVID-19 pandemic experience. Based on empirical investigation, a survey was applied in Romania among 590 mobile app users. The data were tested using partial least square structural equation modeling (SmartPLS, version 3). The results indicate the impact of behavioral characteristics, namely, energy conservation attitude, subjective norms, and environmental knowledge on young users’ energy conservation behavior. The influential effect of COVID-19 on energy-saving behavior was also proven. Energy conservation behavior, and functional and hedonic values positively influence Millennials’ and Gen Zers’ energy-efficient app usage intentions. The study also discusses some implications for policymakers, marketers, and software developers, as well as providing theoretical suggestions for future work.

Research background: Faced with multiple media scandals concerning the pollution resulting from manufacturing activities, and encouraging the overconsumption of clothing, international fast fashion retailers have often had to resort to the elaboration and implementation of sustainable strategies aimed at environmental protection and reducing resource consumption. Generating customer satisfaction and loyalty depends increasingly on the extent to which retailers manage to employ socio-environmental responsibility besides the traditional retail store attributes. The purpose of this article: The objective of the paper is to evaluate the influence of consumer-oriented store attributes in generating satisfaction and loyalty towards the fast fashion store, highlighting the influence of socio-environmental responsibility on the two constructs. Methods: Based on the literature review, a conceptual model considering the effects of stores? attributes on store satisfaction and store loyalty and influenced by socio-environmental responsibility is proposed. Data were collected with the help of face-to-face administrated questionnaires before the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic in an emerging market (Romania). The data were analyzed via structural equation modeling in SmartPLS, for the three considered consumer generations: Generation X, Millennials and Generation Z. Findings & value added: For all consumer generations, all store attributes contribute to the direct generation of fast fashion store satisfaction and store loyalty; nevertheless, the intensity varies in levels of significance. Socio-environmental responsibility does not significantly determine store satisfaction, but does have a strong influence on fast fashion store loyalty. The results detailed according to the generations indicate a similar situation: each store attribute influences the satisfaction of one or other generation, apart from socio-environmental responsibility. This work makes an essential contribution to the extension of the generational theory, highlighting the various individualities, perceptions, and behaviors. This cross-generational research broadens knowledge on how different consumer generations behave when shopping from fast fashion stores. The research also extends the S-O-R model, which is used to understand the relationship between store attributes (stimulus), consumer satisfaction (organism), and consumer loyalty (response) towards fast fashion stores.

Research background: The trajectory of virtual shopping has evolved beyond two-dimensional interfaces toward highly immersive, three-dimensional environments. As the retail sector pivots into the metaverse, delineating the fundamental shifts in consumer behaviour becomes paramount. Traditional technology acceptance models frequently lack the granularity required to capture the sensory and psychological depth inherent in virtual reality, necessitating a more sophisticated theoretical approach to decode how users interact with high-fidelity digital storefronts. Purpose of the article: This research proposes a novel, multidimensional framework designed to capture the inherent complexity of consumer decision-making within immersive virtual shopping contexts. By synthesizing technological affordances with psychological evaluations, this investigation seeks to address a pivotal research question: To what extent do latent technological drivers and cognitive-perceptual factors interact to determine consumer adoption within 3D spatial retail? By answering this, the study unravels the mechanisms through which virtual store environments catalyse behavioural intentions. Methods: A structured online survey was administered across Romania employing a virtual snowball sampling technique, stratified by three distinct age cohorts: under 25, 25–44, and above 45. The proposed conceptual model was statistically validated through Partial Least Squares Structural Equation Modelling (PLS-SEM), facilitated by SmartPLS version 4.0. This analytical approach was selected for its robustness in handling complex structural relationships and its efficiency in estimating path coefficients within multi-construct frameworks. Findings & value added: This research underscores that metaverse store perception is a foundational antecedent in shaping consumer experiences and behavioural outcomes within virtual shopping environments. A positive valuation of the storefront enhances key experiential attributes—specifically interactivity, social engagement, and environmental authenticity—which collectively serve as pivotal drivers for metaverse shopping adoption. Concurrently, Artificial Intelligence (AI)-powered virtual assistants emerge as a critical mechanism for enhancing consumer uptake of metaverse shopping platforms. Conversely, contrary to some extant literature, avatar characteristics and social interaction demonstrate a negligible influence on consumers' behavioural intentions toward metaverse shopping. The study adopts the Stimulus-Organism-Response (S-O-R) framework to elucidate how specific metaverse stimuli—namely, the technological and perceptual affordances of a virtual store—shape consumers’ internal states and emotional evaluations (Organism), such as immersion-related affect and trust. The resulting behavioural response encompasses the propensity to engage in metaverse shopping and the subsequent intention to embrace virtual retail paradigms.