1. Introduction

As women have made significant strides in social, economic, and educational fields, they have become an indispensable force in the workplace, significantly enhancing women's economic independence and autonomy. This change has not only provided strong support for the female consumer market but also driven its continuous prosperity. According to the latest research report from QuestMobile, as of January 2024, the number of active female users on China's mobile internet has exceeded 608 million, marking a significant increase in women's consumption capacity and the booming development of the "She-economy."

Meanwhile, national brands have also undergone significant transformation in recent years. With the rapid rise of the national economy and the promotion of technological innovation, national products have gradually caught up with international brands in terms of quality, design, and service, winning the favor and trust of more and more consumers. As consumers' understanding of national products deepens, the awareness of supporting national products has also been increasingly strengthened, becoming a new consumption trend.

In an era where consumer sovereignty is increasingly prominent, user experience has become a key factor influencing consumer decision-making. Based on the in-depth analysis of national product purchasing behavior, it is of great significance to understand consumer needs and grasp market trends. Female consumers, while they pursue material satisfaction, they pay even more attention to inner fulfillment and pleasure. These unique consumer experiences and needs will undoubtedly profoundly impact the development of the national economy.

Although female consumers' purchasing behavior in the national market is becoming more active, research on how female user experience and consumer emotional responses jointly affect the willingness to purchase national products is still insufficient. Therefore, this paper aims to construct a model of female willingness to purchase national products based on user experience theory (see Figure 1), and empirically verify the impact of female user experience and female emotional responses on female willingness to purchase national products. This paper offers theoretical underpinnings and actionable insights, enabling national enterprises to devise more precise and potent marketing strategies within the "She-economy" context. It aids national brands in gaining a deeper understanding of and adapting to the evolving trends of the female consumer market, ultimately boosting their competitive edge in the marketplace.

Figure 1: Research Framework

2. Literature Review and Research Hypothesis

User Experience (UE or UX) refers to the psychological feelings of users during the process of using a product or enjoying a service. The SO9241-210 standard defines it as "people's cognitive impressions and responses to products, systems, or services that are used or expected to be used," which in layman's terms means "whether this thing is easy and pleasant to use" [1]. When Schmitt and Brakus studied consumers' experiences with brands, they found that external factors such as brand design, shopping environment, brand packaging, and brand communication can lead consumers to have sensory experiences, emotional experiences, behavioral experiences, cognitive experiences, and intellectual experiences [2,3]. These five experience dimensions are considered valid scales for measuring user experience.

Women's perception of customer service is a key factor influencing female consumers' attitudes toward online shopping, according to a 2019 Prashant study [4]. Female consumers are sensitive to factors such as price, quality, and delivery speed in online shopping, which directly affect their satisfaction and willingness to make repeat purchases [5]. Women consumers not only pay attention to the product itself during the shopping process but also value the emotional experience and psychological satisfaction in the shopping process [6]. This indicates that improving women's user experience can enhance their purchase intention for national brands [7]. Therefore, this study proposes the following hypothesis:

H1: Female user experience positively affects their intention to purchase national products.

Emotional response is the physiological and psychological reaction people have when faced with emotional stimuli, and patriotic sentiment, as a strong emotional response, has been widely utilized in brand marketing. According to research by Zhang Xueli and Wang Yuke, the online shopping experience and the interface design of women's shopping apps have a significant positive impact on enhancing consumers' emotional experiences [8,9]. Optimizing the user experience for women can strengthen their emotional satisfaction, such as happiness and contentment. Liu Yin introduced the concept of emotional design, emphasizing the role of emotional elements in improving user experience. Improving female user experience can positively affect their emotional responses, such as satisfaction and excitement [10]. Therefore, this study proposes the following hypothesis:

H2: Female user experience positively affects women's emotional responses.

National brands win consumers' emotional recognition and support by establishing brand associations related to patriotic sentiments. Therefore, in marketing, national products can stimulate consumers' patriotic emotional responses, causing consumers to attribute a sense of national pride and national identity to the brand purchase behavior, thereby enhancing their identification with and support for national products [11]. In the "She-economy" era, female consumers pay more attention to the brand value expression and the emotional value brought by consumption [12], and the patriotic emotions triggered by national products will further increase their purchase intention. In addition, impulsive buying behavior among female consumers is also significantly influenced by emotional factors [13], and their consumption needs are not limited to the material level but also include the satisfaction of spiritual life [14]. Therefore, this study proposes the following hypothesis:

H3: Female emotional responses positively affect their intention to purchase national products.

According to the Stimulus-Organism-Response (S-O-R) model, consumers' behavioral responses are triggered by external stimuli through internal psychological processes [15]. In this model, emotional responses, as part of the organism, can be seen as a bridge connecting user experience and purchase intention. The emotional experience of female consumers during the shopping process has a significant impact on their purchase decisions. For example, increased interaction between models and products can promote the emotions and cognition of online female consumers, thereby positively affecting their purchase intention [15]. This indicates that emotional responses play an important mediating role in the purchasing decisions of female consumers. Therefore, this study proposes the following hypothesis:

H4: Female emotional responses positively mediate the effect of female user experience on their intention to purchase national products.

3. Research Design and Empirical Analysis

3.1. Questionnaire Design and Variable Measurement

The questionnaire of this study mainly consists of two parts: one is the basic background of the respondents; the other is the measurement of research variables. The variable measurement uses a Likert five-point scale, which is divided into 5 levels according to the importance of the surveyed issue, namely "1" represents "very unimportant" or "strongly disagree"; "2": "somewhat unimportant" or "somewhat disagree"; "3": "neutral"; "4": "important" or "agree"; "5": "very important" or "strongly agree".

This study measures user experience from two aspects of national products sensory experience and emotional experience. The scale of user experience refers to the scale of Brakus, and necessary modifications have been made according to the actual situation of this study to obtain a scale applicable to the research of this paper [3]. For the measurement of variables, this study selected six relatively appropriate items to assess the degree of female user experience (see Table 1).

Table 1: Female User Experience Scale and Its Literature Data

The scale for emotional responses is derived from the scale by Bearden, William, et al. been adaptively modified according to the actual situation of this study to obtain a scale suitable for the research presented in this paper [16]. This study has developed six items to assess the extent of female emotional responses (see Table 2).

Table 2: Female Emotional Response Scale and Its Literature Data

The scale for purchase intention was adapted from the scales of Gilly, Forsythe, and Shi, and modified to form the Female National Product Purchase Intention Scale (see Table 3) [17,18].

Table 3: Female National Products Purchase Intention Scale and Its Literature Data

3.2. Data Collection and Sample Description

This chapter sequentially conducts descriptive statistical analysis, reliability analysis, factor analysis, and regression analysis on the data collected by the questionnaire, and discusses the results of the hypothesis testing. The entire analysis process applied the SPSS 27.0 statistical software. This paper mainly investigates the impact of female user experience and female emotional responses on female national product purchase intention, and the target of the questionnaire distribution is the female population. After removing 22 invalid questionnaires with identical scores for all items and illogical responses between questions, the remaining valid questionnaires were 303, with a valid questionnaire rate of 90.4%.

3.2.1. Sample Descriptive Statistics

By collecting information through the first six questions of the questionnaire, statistical descriptive of the respondents' personal information can be obtained as shown in Table 4. The educational level of the respondents is generally at the university level or above, accounting for 83.8% of the total population. The age of the research subjects is distributed between 20 and 50 years old. Since women in this age group are the main target customers for national brands, about 60% of the respondents have a monthly income of more than 4,000 yuan. At the same time, 95.8% of the respondents chose to purchase national products, and 97.4% of the research subjects expressed their intention to purchase national products. By organizing the basic information of the respondents, it can be known that the research subjects generally have a higher level of education and sufficient financial support. Most of the research subjects have the experience of purchasing national products and show a strong willingness to purchase, which ensures the validity and accuracy of the subsequent research.

Table 4: Description of statistics of personal information

3.2.2. Reliability Analysis

Utilizing SPSS 27.0 for reliability analysis, the results are presented in Table 5. The Cronbach's Alpha coefficient for female user experience is 0.909, for the female emotional response it is 0.945, and for the intention to purchase national products among females, it is 0.879. All are greater than 0.8, indicating that the scales are highly reliable.

Table 5: Overall Reliability Analysis Statistics of the Questionnaire

3.2.3. Validity Analysis

3.2.3.1. Independent variable factor analysis

In the results of the factor analysis, the factor loading of item A1 was below the critical value (0.6), indicating that this item does not effectively contribute to the construction of the factor. Therefore, it was decided to consider item A1 as an invalid measure and to exclude it from subsequent variable refinement and model construction. The factor analysis of the independent variables after excluding the invalid item is shown in Table 6, with a KMO value of 0.920 and Bartlett's test being significant, indicating product validity of the scale and suitability for factor analysis.

Table 6: KMO and Bartlett's Test for Independent Variables

Furthermore, the two factors extracted in this study account for more than 74% of the variance (see Table 7), and all independent variables have factor loadings on their respective variables, with all loadings above 0.7 (see Table 8).

Table 7: Total Variance Explained by Independent Variables

Extraction method: principal component analysis.

Table 8: Component matrix after rotation of the independent variables

3.2.3.2. Dependent variable factor analysis

As shown in Table 9, the KMO for the dependent variable's factor analysis is greater than 0.8, and the Bartlett's are significant, indicating that the scale is valid and suitable for factor analysis. The factors explain more than 85% of the variance, and all item factor loadings are above 0.7, indicating a high degree of match between the factors and the items. It can be seen that the scale's validity is confirmed (see Table 10).

Table 9: KMO and Bartlett's Test for Dependent Variables

Table 10: Component matrix after rotation of the dependent variable

3.2.4. Regression Analysis

The relationships between model variables need to be tested using regression analysis. In Model 1, the dependent variable is female purchase intention for national products, and the independent variable is female user experience; in Model 2, the dependent variable is female emotional response, and the independent variable is female user experience; in Model 3, the dependent variable is female purchase intention for national products, and the independent variable is female emotional response; in Model 4, the dependent variable is female user experience, and the independent variable is female emotional response. The analysis is shown in Table 11.

Table 11: Multiple regression analysis of respective variables and dependent variables

As can be seen from Table 11, the adjusted R² values for the models are 0.337 and 0.578, indicating that the models have product explanatory power. The results show that female consumers, stimulated by user experience, can form a positive intention to purchase national products (β=0.583), thus hypothesis H1 is supported; female consumers, stimulated by user experience, can elicit a positive emotional response (β=0.735), hypothesis H2 is supported; female consumers can form a positive intention to purchase national products (β=0.761) due to their emotional response, hypothesis H3 is supported;

The mediation effect testing method examines the mediating effect of female emotional response between female user experience and the intention to purchase national products among females. The specific steps are: (1) to test whether female user experience has a significant impact on their intention to purchase national products; (2) to test whether female user experience significantly affects female emotional response; (3) to include both female user experience and female emotional response in the model to regress on the intention to purchase national products among females and to test whether the regression coefficient of female user experience on their intention to purchase national products significantly decreases or becomes insignificant after adding female emotional response. Since the significance of steps 1 and 2 has been verified in the previous multiple regression analysis, this part only verifies step 3, comparing Model 4 with Model 1. The results are shown in Table 12:

Table 12: The mediating role of women's emotional response in their user experience and purchase intention of national products

A comprehensive comparison of Model 1 and Model 4 shows that in Model 1, the regression coefficient of female user experience on their intention to purchase national products is 0.583, indicating a significant positive impact. In Model 4, when emotional responses are introduced, the regression coefficient of user experience on purchase intention decreases to 0.05, and the significance level increases significantly to 0.365. The impact of female user experience on their intention to purchase national products essentially disappears, while the regression coefficient for the impact of female emotional response on their purchase intention of national products is 0.724. This indicates that the influence of female consumers' user experience on purchase intention is realized by generating positive emotional responses. Female emotional response plays a full mediating role in the relationship between user experience and the intention to purchase national products, that is, H4 is supported.

4. Conclusion

As a primary consumer group, female consumption behaviors and trends have changed significantly in the context of the "She-economy". The research outcomes demonstrate that female user experience and emotional responses positively affect the purchase intention for national products among females. They are more likely to purchase products that trigger positive emotional responses. Meanwhile, female emotional responses exert a significant positive mediating effect between user experience and the national products purchase intention, which due to the unique psychological and behavioral traits of female consumers in the purchasing processes.

In terms of theoretical contributions, this paper reveals the specific mechanisms of action among female user experience, female emotional response, and the intention to purchase national products among females. This not only enriches the study of the "She-economy" theory but also provides new perspectives for understanding female consumer behavior and expands the research domain of user experience theory and emotional response theory in the context of national product purchase behavior.

For national brands, enhancing the user experience for females and evoking emotional responses can effectively strengthen the purchase intention for national products among females. Companies should focus more on improving the emotional experience of female consumers, which can in turn enhance their willingness to purchase. A better understanding of the needs and behavioral characteristics of female consumers, along with the development of more effective marketing and product strategies, can help national brands capture a larger market share and competitive advantage in the "She-economy" era. For female consumers, this paper helps them better understand their consumption behavior, thereby making more rational purchasing decisions. Strengthening self-awareness of their consumption behavior can assist female consumers in making choices that better align with their needs and values.

This paper also has certain limitations. Due to the limitations of sample selection and data collection, the conclusions of this study may have some regional and cultural differences; if the impact of backgrounds such as aesthetics on emotional responses is considered, additional experimental subjects from different fields are needed for further research. Future research needs to further expand and improve in terms of sample selection, data collection, and considering more influencing factors, to enhance the accuracy and universality of the research.