"We Earned the Coupon Together": The Missing Link of Experience Cocreation in Shared Coupons.

The article focuses on the concept of shared coupons—coupons distributed from consumer to consumer—that combine economic savings with social sharing, and examines how experience cocreation, defined as a joint effort by coupon givers and receivers to create a shared experience before redemption, influences coupon sharing and redemption behaviors. Through multiple lab and large-scale field experiments on social media platforms like WeChat, the research finds that shared coupons without experience cocreation underperform direct coupons due to norm conflicts between economic incentives and communal relationships, whereas shared coupons with experience cocreation outperform direct coupons by advancing social goals and reducing norm conflict. Additionally, the study shows that ex post communication emphasizing the social value of coupons can increase redemption rates for low-value coupons, making them as effective as high-value coupons, while economic messages are more effective for high-value coupons. The findings offer a three-step managerial strategy—share, cocreate, and communicate—to enhance the effectiveness of shared coupons within the growing social commerce landscape.