AI-driven transparency across the entire customer journey, from pre-purchase to post-purchase, in the luxury goods marketing sector.

Abstract

This research aims to explore the effect of AI transparency on customer loyalty throughout the customer journey in luxury goods. AI can lead to impulse purchases and buyer's remorse, which can impact long-term customer loyalty. The research focuses specifically on the sequential relationship between the independent variables of AI transparency and the dependent variable of brand loyalty with the intervening variables of user agency, impulse buying, and post-purchase regret, and also includes the moderating variable, brand authenticity. The study design employed was a quantitative cross-sectional design that was used on a sample of 400 target subjects with high education, high English language proficiency and who actively use AI retail platforms. The data was analyzed by using a method of Structural Equation Modeling (SEM). The results reveal that transparency of AI positively influences customers' agency, and negatively influences impulse buying. This means that reduced impulse purchases result in less post-purchase guilt, which will, in turn, increase brand loyalty. Moreover, the adverse effect of post purchase regret on loyalty is greatly reduced by brand authenticity. Multi-group analysis indicates that makes an impact on consumers' loyalty are different for different income groups: for the high-income group, it is the brand authenticity that has the greatest impact on consumers' loyalty, while user agency in impulse control has the greatest impact on consumers' loyalty for the lower income group. The study ends with a holistic management model of “Preventive Transparency” (pre-purchase) and “Restorative Authenticity” (post-purchase) for luxury brands, giving them tangible opportunities to better leverage AI, mitigate consumer exposure and achieve long-term relational gains.