Understanding the psychological mechanisms underlying consumer loyalty behavior constitutes a central challenge for the behavioral sciences. Despite growing research on experiential marketing, limited attention has been directed toward understanding the conditional cognitive mechanisms that determine when and how consumption experiences translate into stable loyalty patterns, particularly in emerging market contexts where consumer behavior dynamics differ substantially from those in mature economies. The present study examines how experiential processing influences the formation of behavioral loyalty patterns, considering the moderating role of cognitive value evaluation. A quantitative, correlational, cross-sectional design was employed with a sample of 500 consumers from retail businesses in Pueblo Nuevo, Peru. The instruments demonstrated adequate psychometric properties (α > 0.88; AVE > 0.50). The results of the moderation analysis using PROCESS Model 1 revealed that the model explains 79.9% of the variance in loyalty behavior (R2 = 0.799, p < 0.001). The interaction effect was significant (B = 0.10, p < 0.001), confirming that cognitive value evaluation moderates the relationship between experiential processing and behavioral loyalty. Simple slopes analysis showed that the effect of experiential processing on loyalty intensifies as perceived value increases, ranging from B = 0.56 at low levels to B = 0.77 at high levels. The Johnson–Neyman criterion identified the transition point at 14.80. These findings contribute to consumer behavior theory by demonstrating that consumption experiences require a favorable cognitive evaluation to translate into stable behavioral loyalty patterns, with implications for Sustainable Development Goal 8 concerning sustainable economic growth. These results advance consumer behavior theory by providing an integrative moderating framework applicable beyond the Peruvian context, and offer retail managers a diagnostic tool for calibrating experiential strategies based on consumer value perception thresholds.
Cabanillas et al. (Fri,) studied this question.