Personality, mood, or emotion? Influence of customer trait and state during the cellar door experience on sales and word-of-mouth intention: A Bayesian approach

Direct-to-customer sales provide higher returns, maximising the profitability of wine businesses. While recent research has expanded the understanding of the sales relationship developed during a cellar door experience, individual influences on this relationship remain under-researched. The current study examines the direct-to-customer sales relationship co-created with staff during a cellar door experience. The influence of a participant’s personality, mood, and emotion on onsite sales and intention to recommend the experience was captured through an online questionnaire completed by 136 customers during their cellar door experience. A Bayesian Network was produced to determine the influence of states and traits on purchase and loyalty behaviours. Results showed all outcome variables were sensitive to wine-evoked emotions, aroused mood, and neuroticism. Additionally, results show that cellar door staff make an invaluable contribution to maximising profitability. The developed framework provides cellar door managers and staff with a valuable guide to create engaging cellar door experiences which are essential to maximising overall winery profitability.