Customer trust, value expectations, and engagement behaviours with blockchain-enabled smart wine packaging

This thesis explores the strategic application of blockchain-enabled smart packaging (BSP) in the wine industry, examining how marketers can leverage this technology to build trust, enhance perceived value, and facilitate customer engagement behaviours and decision-making. The rapid integration of smart packaging into retail environments has transformed how customers interact with products, necessitating a deeper understanding of how these technologies influence customer perceptions of trust and value. However, customer perceptions of BSP for wine and the mechanisms underpinning trust and value perceptions of BSP remain unexplored. The research aims to (1) uncover the nature of trust in BSP and (2) how BSP can enhance customer engagement behaviours by fostering trust and meeting value expectations, particularly in the context of the wine industry. The thesis comprises four empirical chapters (Chapters Three, Four, Five, and Six), each representing distinct studies that contribute to a comprehensive understanding of BSP in the wine marketing context through complementary methodologies. Common to each empirical study is customer engagement behaviour, which is the core objective of smart packaging applications for wine customers. The thesis follows two lines of investigation, industry-focused and scholarly-focused, to explore BSP in the wine context, centring on blockchain and smart wine packaging as a marketing interface for information provision, product authentication, and customer decision support.