Abstract
The pain point is a specific form of consumer demand and a concept that has been widely used in marketing business strategies in recent years. Pain points arise when consumers have put in enough effort to achieve their goals but have little effect. In this paper, the concept of the pain-feature matching effect is proposed by combining past research on consumer pain points and consumers’ attitudes with pain point targeting features. It is predicted that consumers’ willingness to pay may decrease significantly when the product feature matches their pain point to a high degree. This hypothesis was tested through a questionnaire experiment: by assigning products with different pain scenarios and features, the conclusion was judged based on different feedback data from participants. The results show that consumers’ willingness to pay decreases when there is high pain-feature matching. This finding adds to the theory of the effectiveness of consumer pain marketing and provides guidance to retailers on how to effectively promote product features in their business activities.