Beyond the Price Tag: Impact of AI-Driven Emotional Appeals and Price Sensitivity on Pet Product Purchase Decisions

Abstract

The pet product industry is seen to grow with the involvement of pet humanization in consumer behaviour patterns. The high use of artificial intelligence in digital marketing has a significant influence on customers' pet product purchase decisions. This study uses the Stimulus–Organism–Response (S–O–R) framework so as to study the impact of price sensitivity and emotional influence on pet product purchase decisions. In this model, price sensitivity forms the stimulus, emotional attachment and emotional response are treated as the organism, and purchase decision represents the response. Through a structured questionnaire, data were collected from 205 pet owners. To test the proposed relationships, statistical tools such as correlation, regression, and path analysis were conducted. To strengthen the predictive insights, machine learning techniques such as linear regression, random forest, and decision tree models were used. The findings reveal that the emotional response plays the most significant role in influencing purchase decisions, followed by price sensitivity, while emotional attachment shows a weaker direct effect. Earlier studies on emotional consumption and pet humanization are supported by these results. The increasing importance of emotional AI in shaping consumer behaviour in digital pet product markets is highlighted in this study.