Sustainable Development of Rural E-Commerce: Exploring the Cognitive Themes and Emotional Expressions of Consumers When Purchasing Agricultural and Sideline Foodstuffs Online

Maintaining stable sales of agricultural and sideline foodstuffs is vital for the sustainable development of rural e-commerce. Exploring consumers’ thematic cognition and emotional expressions can help better understand their consumption behavior, thereby boosting the sales of agricultural and sideline foodstuffs. This paper applies the customer-value hierarchy model (C-VHM) as the theoretical research framework. It employs Mini Tag Cloud, a text analysis software, to analyze 8,227 consumer reviews on agricultural and sideline foodstuffs purchases from a well-known e-commerce platform in China. The research reveals that when purchasing agricultural and sideline foodstuffs online, customers primarily focus on four themes: product taste, product logistics, seller service, and cooking methods and target consumers. Among these, product taste and cooking methods and target consumers are the themes most likely to trigger consumer dissatisfaction. Furthermore, our semantic network analysis, theme classification, and sentiment analysis support Propositions of the C-VHM, particularly at the attribute and consequence levels. However, no factors related to social value goals were identified in the review texts. Instead, we observed personal goals such as care for family members, especially children and the elderly. Our study enriches the literature on consumer behavior related to rural e-commerce and the purchase of agricultural and sideline foodstuffs. It is expected to provide practical insights for stakeholders such as rural e-commerce platforms and logistics service providers, promoting the sustainable development of rural e-commerce.