In 2050, the proportion of the world’s population aged over 60 years will be close to 22% (World Health Organization [WHO], 2021). Consequently, older consumers represent a rapidly growing segment in the global marketplace. Previous evidence has indicated that decreased social interaction increases older consumers’ loneliness (Kim et al., 2005). In addition, a lack of shopping mobility also contributes to older consumers’ loneliness (Lim and Kim, 2011). Due to their lack of social contacts, older consumers have fewer ways to resolve their loneliness. However, older consumers’ social needs have not been completely met in the marketplace and adequately understood by academics.

Threats to valued social relationships, ranging from social exclusion to divorce, have been found to elevate CL (Jiao and Wang, 2018). Preliminary research has shown that affiliation deficits result in CL (Lastovicka and Sirianni, 2011). In addition, a meta-analysis of social media has indicated that a lack of social support results in loneliness (Song et al., 2014). Socially excluded consumers tend to devalue social relationships and thus experience greater loneliness (Mead et al., 2010). Similarly, a lack of psychological attachment to others has been identified as a significant antecedent of CL (Loh et al., 2021). Although prior studies have indicated that perceived solitude and social disconnectedness, rather than the actual amount of social contact, drive the sense of loneliness (Henkel et al., 2020), insufficient physical, and social activity play a role in facilitating CL (Han et al., 2022).

The prevalence of CL has been accelerated by the development of information technologies and digitalized social networks (Yang et al., 2021). For example, Instagram broadcasting behaviors increase users’ loneliness (Yang, 2016). Moreover, social media users’ exchange relationship orientation enhances their perceived SL (Matook et al., 2015). After the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic, social distancing measures have been widely used, leading to even higher levels of social isolation. Prolonged lockdowns have further amplified the deleterious effects of the COVID-19 pandemic. Previous research has reported that the pandemic crisis increases older people’s loneliness (Wong et al., 2020). Furthermore, COVID-19-related fear increases CL and alcohol consumption (Grigoropoulos and Daoultzis, 2022).

Research using the personality approach has suggested that introverted consumers reduce their loneliness by interacting with service frontliners (Kim et al., 2005; Pettigrew, 2007; Rippé et al., 2018). Moreover, a meta-analysis has indicated that Facebook users’ shyness results in loneliness (Song et al., 2014). Insecure attachment has also been verified to increase EL (Rippé et al., 2021). In addition, consumers who engage in more consumer-ethnocentric activities (i.e., buying domestic products) feel lonelier (Yii et al., 2020). Demographic variables such as socioeconomic status, the quantity and quality of interpersonal interaction (Kim et al., 2005), age (Rokach and Neto, 2005), and gender (Salimi, 2011) have also been related to differences in the severity of CL.

Loneliness always emerges within the context of a culture with normative values and practices. Culture significantly affects the causes of loneliness (Rokach and Neto, 2005). For instance, individuals in collectivistic societies report higher loneliness than those in individualistic societies (Lykes and Kemmelmeier, 2013). Chinese cultural values are generally collectivistic and center on family orientation and kinship; thus, to address their loneliness, older Chinese consumers rely on interactions with family members to address their CL more than on social interactions with others in service or consumption settings (Song et al., 2018).

The research has underscored that consumption is an effective tactic to ameliorate CL (Liu et al., 2020). Lonely consumers may consider acquiring possessions to show their status to others (Mandel et al., 2017). Although this “possession effect” recedes over time, it temporarily reduces CL (Pieters, 2013). Purchasing products that reflect a group affiliation (e.g., majority-endorsed sneakers) or consuming peer-recommended services (e.g., restaurants) helps achieve the assurance of consumers’ social self. Moreover, products/services that foster a sense of belongingness help consumers attenuate their loneliness perceptions (Yii et al., 2020). For instance, Pettigrew (2007) contended that consumption behaviors help senior consumers decrease loneliness while enhancing their affiliation. Recently, Wang et al. (2021) found that rituals in product consumption (e.g., eating Oreo cookies by following the twist-lick-dunk ritual) can reduce CL.

As a social experience, shopping is a feasible coping strategy that can play a key role in reducing CL (Smith et al., 2018). Lonely consumers go to retail stores and interact with salespeople to satisfy their need for social support (Rippé et al., 2018; Smith et al., 2018). For them, going shopping becomes a social activity to receive complementary social resources rather than an activity to acquire desired products and services (Kim et al., 2005). Thus, service establishments offer an ideal outlet for social activities and participation, thereby alleviating consumers’ perceived isolation and loneliness. Moreover, relative to material purchases, experiential purchases exert a greater impact on CL alleviation (Yang et al., 2021). For example, shopping malls have been identified as an important “third place” for lonely consumers to alleviate loneliness (Kim et al., 2005). In the restaurant service context, employees’ service manner exhibits a significantly positive effect on CL reduction (Song et al., 2018). Similarly, participation in consumption communities (Sullivan and Richardson, 2020) and holiday trips (Pagan, 2020) has been identified as effective alleviators of CL.

Currently, online social activities play a critical role in consumers’ daily lives. Adolescents use social media as a primary source of social relations to cope with pandemic-induced loneliness (Cauberghe et al., 2021). Uram and Skalski (2020) indicated that social media users’ life satisfaction significantly decreases their loneliness. Moreover, technology use (e.g., e-mail, social networks) predicts lower loneliness and benefits older consumers’ mental and physical health (Chopik, 2016). Virtual interactions on social media (e.g., Facebook) help users achieve interactivity, develop social skills, and facilitate a sense of belongingness (Berezan et al., 2020), thus combating their loneliness. Yang (2016) reported that Instagram browsing decreases users’ loneliness, while Instagram interaction exhibits a similar effect only on users with a low social comparison orientation. Moreover, in contrast to text-based social media (e.g., Twitter), image-based social media (e.g., Instagram) have a greater therapeutic effect on CL (Pittman and Reich, 2016). Even sounds in mobile apps can satisfy lonely consumers’ needs for belonging by creating a sense of social presence (Poupis et al., 2021).

By considering shopping a social activity, lonely consumers can form personal bonds with others in the marketplace as substitutes for other social contacts (Rippé et al., 2018). These social contacts help consumers forge social connections (Lastovicka and Sirianni, 2011; Wang et al., 2021), fill their social voids, and blend in rather than stand out (Mead et al., 2010). Therefore, CL enhances not only consumption-oriented motivations (e.g., dining out) but also experiential-oriented motivations (e.g., traveling) (Lim and Kim, 2011). Furthermore, shopping-related experiences facilitate social reconnection and affiliation (Mandel et al., 2017). Lonely consumers tend to consider new sources of social relationships in an optimistic way and are eager to interact with others in consumption contexts (Liu et al., 2020). They purchase more domestic-choice products, which can affirm their social identity (Yii et al., 2020). Furthermore, spending and purchasing are strategically utilized by lonely consumers as affiliation tools in the service of forging social connections (Mead et al., 2010). Finally, consumption functions as a form of compensation. Compensatory consumption refers to “the desire for, purchase, or use of products/services to satisfy a psychological need” (Loh et al., 2021) and has been used by people feeling lonely to establish a sense of social connectedness (Mead et al., 2010; Yan and Sengupta, 2020). The therapeutic value of compensatory consumption has also been established (Kim and Jang, 2017). More specifically, consumers feeling lonely participate in compensatory consumption to fulfill their needs for belonging, affiliation, and self-esteem (Mead et al., 2010; Lim and Kim, 2011; Mandel et al., 2017).

According to the social compensation model (Sirola et al., 2019) and the social augmentation hypothesis (Song et al., 2014), loneliness motivates consumers to engage in online social activities to enhance their social world. Online social resources (e.g., social networking sites, social media platforms) are often readily available, representing an accessible medium to compensate for relationship deficits. Lonely consumers spend more time web surfing and on social networking platforms as a substitute for real interpersonal interactions (Berezan et al., 2020). They benefit more from social applications, such as Facebook, than non-lonely consumers do (Song et al., 2014). Moreover, the use of online travel communities for social and emotional loneliness (OTS-SEL) stimulates users’ peer communication in online communities (Lee and Hyun, 2015). In tourism contexts, social CLs positively influence tourists’ smartphone application use (Tan and Lu, 2019). In addition, tourists may engage in online peer-to-peer accommodations (e.g., Airbnb) to escape loneliness (Farmaki and Stergiou, 2019).

Lonely consumers seek out parasocial relationships with media personalities, pets, or commercial relationships in “the third place” (Song et al., 2018). For instance, loneliness increases older consumers’ parasocial interactions (Lim and Kim, 2011). CL also facilitates consumers’ efforts to develop a sense of connectedness with non-human agents (e.g., pets, products, brands) (Liu et al., 2022). Lonely consumers tend to humanize brands and products/services (Dalman et al., 2021). CL may be a key driver of anthropomorphism in online and offline consumption contexts (Chen et al., 2017). A recent study on celebrity-following behaviors demonstrated that CL predicts followers’ parasocial interactions with celebrities’ social media (i.e., visiting frequency and following behaviors) (Kim et al., 2019).

Loneliness impairs self-regulation, logical reasoning, and time perception (Wang et al., 2021). Thwarted belongingness makes consumers consume, even in personally unfavorable ways, for social affiliation (Mead et al., 2010). Thus, CL has been associated with impulsive, unhealthy, and problematic consumption (Atalay and Meloy, 2011; Rippé et al., 2021). Mead et al. (2010) contended that socially excluded consumers may exhibit distinct spending and consumption strategies. Consumers who experience essential relationship deficits, relative to consumers who experience inessential relationship deficits, engage more often in impulsive consumption (Sinha and Wang, 2013). Moreover, CL increases solitary consumption (e.g., alcohol consumption) while decreasing social consumption (spending time with others) (Arpin et al., 2015). Loneliness-induced coping strategies are significantly associated with adolescents’ unethical consumption behaviors (e.g., underage smoking) (Gentina et al., 2018). In addition, CL signals a priority for self-focused or self-oriented consumption (e.g., self-gifting) for hedonic rewards or a carpe diem mentality (Rippé et al., 2018; Fumagalli et al., 2022). Hence, loneliness has been considered the most significant predictor of problematic internet use (Ceyhan and Ceyhan, 2008), conspicuous consumption (Liu et al., 2020), and the consumption of sugar-containing foods and beverages (Doan et al., 2022).

Value co-creation has an inherently social nature; it facilitates a process that is conducive to promoting interactions and relationships among consumers and service providers (Li et al., 2022). Surprisingly, CL has rarely been related to customer value co-creation behaviors [i.e., customer participation, customer citizenship, customer-to-customer interaction (CCI), and customer-employee interaction]. The social motivations resulting from CLs may facilitate more service interactions during value co-creation (Li et al., 2022). Lonely consumers may engage in value co-creation as an outlet to seek social connectedness (Rippé et al., 2018). Furthermore, prior research has asserted that positive and lasting social relationships are important in helping people combat loneliness (Baumeister and Leary, 1995). Social interactions alone cannot help individuals combat loneliness, so the quality of the interactions should also be taken into account (Heinrich and Gullone, 2006). From this perspective, it is presumable that the effects of the co-creation experience on CL vary with service interaction quality (Li et al., 2022). Future research should focus on the links among CL, service experience, interaction quality, and other factors (e.g., S-D orientation) that enhance the therapeutic effects of value co-creation (Li et al., 2022). In addition, CCI has been found to significantly influence consumers’ social wellbeing (Altinay et al., 2019). Older consumers view fellow customers as a source of social contact and actively engage in CCI to combat loneliness. However, some studies have questioned the value of CCI (Nicholls and Gad Mohsen, 2015). The presence of other customers and lonely consumers’ anticipated evaluations also influence their choices and behaviors during public consumption (Wang et al., 2012). These mixed findings imply that there may be conditions under which the effect of CCI changes. For instance, introverted consumers may not benefit from interactions with unfamiliar fellow consumers because of their social anxiety (Her and Seo, 2018). In addition, loneliness has been related to a perceived lack of control over outcomes (Gierveld and Tilburg, 2006). Thus, lonely consumers are more likely to have an external service locus of control, which influences their value co-creation performance and service outcomes evaluation (Li et al., 2022).

In terms of social functions, CL alerts consumers to engage in various consumption behaviors to alleviate loneliness (Fumagalli et al., 2022). CL has been operationalized as a chronic personality trait or a set of incident-induced temporary perceptions (Mead et al., 2010). However, the majority of CL research has focused on chronic loneliness, and very little is known about whether transient loneliness has similar effects in terms of consumer behaviors (Arpin et al., 2015). Thus, an interesting research question arises: do the social relationships established while shopping/purchasing help counteract chronic CL? If so, how long does this effect persist? Scholars should clearly articulate the definition of CL (as a situational or trait variable) in future studies and elaborate their differences. Moreover, whether and how different types of consumption reduce CL have yet to be examined (Song et al., 2018). For example, social interactions in retailing contexts may help reduce consumers’ SL but are less likely to alleviate their EL. Demonstrating the distinction between the different types of consumption is important for deepening our understanding of lonely consumers’ behaviors (Sinha and Wang, 2013). Another route for future research relates to the impacts of different types of CLs on consumption behaviors. Previous research has not distinguished SL from EL (Loh et al., 2021). Future research should consider CL as a multifaceted concept and investigate the effects of the type of loneliness on the service experience and prospective consumption. In addition, lonely consumers have a greater preference for services or products characterized by social attributes (Yang et al., 2021). However, not all social experiences are equally effective in reducing loneliness (Lykes and Kemmelmeier, 2013). Relative to material-based consumption, experience-based consumption leads to higher levels of social wellbeing (Kim and Jang, 2017). More specifically, experiential purchases (e.g., travel and sightseeing) can effectively enhance the social connections among consumers and others (Pagan, 2020; Yang et al., 2021). Moreover, hedonic consumption (e.g., leisure activities), relative to instrumental consumption (e.g., buying shampoo), may exert a greater influence on CL reduction. Limited research has examined the effects of specific consumption experiences on CL, providing an additional direction for future research.

The literature has paid little attention to how loneliness affects consumers and how consumers react in the new era (Sirola et al., 2019; Loh et al., 2021). For example, the development of intelligent technologies [e.g., service robots and intelligent personal assistants (IPAs)] facilitates the establishment of two-way parasocial relationships among consumers and service entities (Henkel et al., 2020). It has also been postulated that social robot services (e.g., communication and entertainment) have the potential to support lonely consumers (Henkel et al., 2020). Companion robots can ameliorate users’ loneliness through emotional support (Odekerken-Schröder et al., 2020). Therefore, service robots (e.g., Pepper by SoftBank) and IPAs (e.g., Amazon’s Echo Alexa) have the potential to offset the negative impacts of the pandemic while building rapport with consumers (Henkel et al., 2020). However, no empirical work has examined the above effects. Furthermore, intelligent technologies are increasingly considered emotional connectors, and the effects of social/emotional CL on consumer behavior toward intelligent technologies (and vice versa) should be investigated in emerging consumption contexts.

According to social surrogacy theory (Poupis et al., 2021), consumers seek out social surrogates to combat loneliness (e.g., pets, favored TV programs). Consumers’ identification with anthropomorphized objects helps facilitate a sense of connection (Loh et al., 2021). Odekerken-Schröder et al. (2020) proposed that intelligent technologies, from IPAs to humanized robots, can play three different roles (e.g., personal assistants, relational peers, and intimate buddies) in counteracting CLs. Thus, it is reasonable to suggest that each role offers specific social relations and contributes differently to CL alleviation, especially among adolescent consumers who are heavy users of smart digital devices and internet-based services. In addition, research has noted that online social networking cannot compensate for offline social deficits to adequately counteract loneliness (Sirola et al., 2019). The displacement hypothesis explains that time spent on a particular social medium (e.g., Facebook or online games) replaces time spent on other social mediums (e.g., family and friends) (Song et al., 2014). Heavy usage provides “leaner and less satisfying” social interactions, exacerbates social isolation, and worsens users’ psychological wellbeing (Yii et al., 2020). That is, CL may explain the dynamic link between changing social situations and social media behaviors. Future CL research could further clarify the paradox of social networking and the conditions under which these relationships vary.

Impacted by the coronavirus, human service delivery has been considered harmful and even lethal to both sides of the service dyad (Henkel et al., 2020). Service industries have had to adopt more technology-enabled services (e.g., contactless service) to increase their business. However, these pandemic-induced consumer experiences may also evoke CL (Rippé et al., 2021). The elevated loneliness caused by the pandemic quarantine may amplify and intensify vulnerable consumers’ negative psychological reactions to the pandemic crisis (Grigoropoulos and Daoultzis, 2022). Even amid the easing of pandemic-induced service measures, lonely consumers may continue to live under restricted social contact and suffer negative psychological outcomes (Henkel et al., 2020; Li and Huang, 2022). Thus, understanding what and how service practices are effective in alleviating CL during, and even after, the COVID-19 pandemic is essential to the service literature.

Loneliness can be a fleeting mood or a persistent experience that changes over time (Berezan et al., 2020). It motivates consumers to purchase products/services to achieve social connectivity (Mead et al., 2010; Pieters, 2013). However, consumption practices have been found to decrease while increasing CL. For example, shopping can be a coping mechanism to mitigate CL, even if only temporarily (Forman and Sriram, 1991; Rippé et al., 2018). Consumers can cheer themselves up by self-gifting, which has been proven to reduce negative moods while reinforcing positive moods (Rippé et al., 2021). Short-term consumption behaviors can assuage CL while enhancing consumers’ perceptions of social connection (Fumagalli et al., 2022), but a long-term reliance on consumption may undermine the high-quality social resources that are essential to dispelling loneliness (Sinha and Wang, 2013). A basic premise underlying CL studies is that the sense of loneliness motivates consumer behaviors that aim to alleviate it. Thus, loneliness should first be considered an antecedent of consumption behaviors and then be cured. More empirical attempts should further examine the reciprocal relationships between consumer behaviors and CL over time.