Abstract: The degree of crowding in shopping environment has an important impact on consumer behavior. With the method of scenario experiments, this paper examines the impact of social crowding on consumers’ willingness to share electronic word-of-mouth and its mechanism and boundary conditions. The results show that social crowding has a significantly positive impact on consumers’ willingness to share electronic word-of-mouth, that the immersion plays a mediating role in it, and that the degree of overlapping situation can adjust the strength of the relationship between social crowding and consumers’ willingness to share electronic word-of-mouth: when the degree of overlapping situation is lower, the impact of social crowding on the willingness to share electronic word-of-mouth is significant; when the degree of overlapping situation is higher, the impact of social crowding on the willingness to share digital word-of-mouth is not significant.

Key words: social crowding; overlapping situation; sharing of electronic word of mouth