The moderating impact of perceived globalness on consumers’ purchase intentions for copycats: The pleasure of hurting global brands

Copycats or “me‐too” brands imitate prominent features of market leaders with the intention to benefit from consumers’ positive associations of the imitated brand. However, the imitated market leader can be perceived as being local (=in‐group) or global (=out‐group). Employing social identity theory, Study 1 examined the interaction between copycat strategy and perceived globalness of the brand, showing that consumers have higher purchase intentions for global copycats versus a local counterpart. Study 2 shows that the interacting effect of copycat strategy and perceived globalness is moderated by consumer ethnocentrism. Further, authors demonstrate that a global copycat elicit greater schadenfreude (vs. local brand), which in turn increases consumers’ purchase intentions. Subsequent mediation analysis shows that ethnocentric consumers experience schadenfreude upon encountering copycats of global brands, which in turn increases purchase intention, whereas low ethnocentric consumers show higher purchase intentions for local differentiated brands because they deem a copycat strategy as unacceptable. Finally, Study 3 examines whether the results from Studies 1 and 2 continue to hold for theme copycats.     

A purchase decision support model considering consumer personalization about aspirations and risk attitudes

Ranking alternative products to help consumers make better purchase choices is a valuable research topic. Most previous decision support models cannot be well applied to heterogeneous consumers. This paper focuses on establishing a personalized interactive model to assist consumers make better buying decisions with less effort. For the alternative products provided by consumers, we collect online reviews and parameter configurations of alternative products and then obtain the fusing evaluative information. As consumers are dominated by bounded rationality, they only provide partially key attribute weights, based on which, we construct an optimizing model to obtain the optimal attribute weights of customers for products. Then, a satisfaction function is proposed by uniting aspiration levels and risk attitudes of consumers and a compensatory decision rules is established to rank and recommend the brands to consumers. Finally, practicability of this study is illustrated with a real car purchase case. Through the case study, it can be seen that the proposed decision support model generates a personalized list of alternatives based on consumer's own utility function about risk attitudes, aspiration levels, and preferences for product attributes, which further confirms that the proposed model can capture the personalized needs of consumers. Theoretical and managerial implications of this model as well as advantages are further illustrated.     

Comparative advertisements and schadenfreude: when and why others’ unfortunate choices make us happy

Comparative advertisements often feature situations depicting consumers who use competitors’ brands being subjected to misfortunes. We examine schadenfreude, the pleasure derived from the misfortunes of others, as an affective response elicited by comparative ads, as well as consumers’ beliefs in tempting fate as a heretofore unexamined influence thereof. Consistent with our theory, we show that comparative ads depicting the misfortunes involving lower-quality (vs. higher-quality) competitors elicit greater schadenfreude, and that this is because choosing the former is perceived to tempt fate and to be more deserving of misfortune than the latter. Moreover, heightened levels of schadenfreude in turn lead to more positive attitudes and increased purchase intentions among consumers who are more (vs. less) reluctant to tempt fate.     

The Impact of Competitiveness on Consumer Responses to Comparative Advertisements

We examine the impact of consumers' competitive tendencies on responses to comparative advertising appeals and the underlying role of schadenfreude: pleasure derived from the misfortunes of others. Consistent with our theory that the depiction of others' misfortunes is compatible with more-competitive consumers' concerns for distinguishing themselves via competition, our studies show that comparative ads are associated with greater schadenfreude, as well as more favorable attitudes and a greater willingness to pay (WTP), among more- (versus less-) competitive consumers. Further results indicate that such relatively more favorable responses among consumers with greater competitive tendencies are limited to comparative ads depicting misfortunes involving brands whose choice is more deserving of failure (i.e., lower-quality brands). Importantly, even less-competitive consumers are revealed to respond favorably to comparative ads and to experience more schadenfreude when they are assured that they will not suffer the depicted misfortune.     

The moderating effect of need for belonging and communal-brand connection on counterfeit purchasing

Developing social-links among consumers can increase firm performance but does having a communal-brand connection impact counterfeit consumption? Two studies are implemented to explore this question. Study 1 finds that there is a positive relationship between moral beliefs towards counterfeits and willingness to purchase counterfeits. Study 1 also discovers that a weak to average communal-brand connection moderates this relationship. However, study 2 reveals that need for belonging is a stronger moderator. In particular, consumers with a low to average need for belonging are less willing to purchase counterfeits when they hold unfavorable moral beliefs towards counterfeits but are more willing when they hold favorable moral beliefs. The results suggest that need for belonging levels influences a consumer's willingness to purchase counterfeit products. Managers are encouraged to promote messages to their brand communities that decrease moral beliefs towards counterfeits, such as counterfeit consumers are inauthentic and immoral.     

Consumers' Perceptions of Online and Offline Retailer Deception: A Moderated Mediation Analysis

This research examines the effects of consumers' perceptions of retailers' deceptive practices on their evaluations of online and offline retailers. Results from two samples of consumers (shopping in online versus offline channels) show the direct and indirect influence of consumers' perceptions of retailers' deceptive practices on consumers' evaluations, including product satisfaction, retailer satisfaction and word-of-mouth. Perceptions of deception influence retailer satisfaction through product satisfaction, and word-of-mouth through retailer satisfaction. These mediated effects are further moderated by the online vs. offline purchase channel. Implications for theory and management are discussed.     

Peer presence promotes popular choices: A “Spicy” field study on social influence and brand choice

Retail research has highlighted how the presence of others can affect consumers' brand evaluations, purchase intentions, and choice behavior. This field study investigated whether the presence (vs. absence) of peers and other consumers, respectively, could influence consumers' propensity to purchase popular brands (i.e., a market leader) within a given product category. Consumers at a supermarket were observed when standing in front of a spice shelf and their choices were analyzed as a function of whether they shopped alone or in the presence of peers versus other consumers. The results revealed that peer presence, but not the mere presence of other consumers, increased consumers' inclination to make popular brand choices, and that this effect was mediated by their stated familiarity with the chosen brand. As such, peer presence seems to increase consumers’ reliance on heuristics and the accessibility of concepts linked to popularity, leading to congruent popular brand choices. Moreover, consumers shopping in the presence of others generally took a longer time before choosing a brand and touched slightly more products in the presence of other consumers. Taken together, these results contribute to theory refinement in social influence from ecologically valid conditions and offer a set of implications for companies, store managers, and people working in the food industry.     

Do as You Say,or I Will: Retail signal congruency in buy-online-pickup-in-store and negative word-of-mouth

Buy-online-pickup-instore (BOPIS) services have become an increasingly important part of a retailer's omnichannel strategy. When service failures (e.g., stock-out) occur, consumers may resort to negative word-ofmouth (NWOM) to share their evaluation of the retailer's BOPIS service. While a retailer's service recovery policies (e.g., cross-channel substitution) may help to fulfill its service intent, the extent to which these two signals can improve consumer satisfaction and diminish their NWOM intent remains unknown. Drawing from both service recovery literature and signaling theory, we conducted a series of five experiments and find that the intradimensional congruity of the signal set communicated by the retailer during its BOPIS service process depends on both its operational capability and the consumer's own predilection regarding the product category. These insights collectively indicate that while a retailer's operations need to support service policies to provide a congruous BOPIS service process, substitution policies offered to consumers during the transaction need to consider the extent to which a consumer's purchase decision is hedonic or utilitarian. In turn, this finding suggests that a retailer's category management needs to consider BOPIS substitution in terms of both product assortment and inventory policies.     

The end of the world as we know it? The influence of online channels on the luxury customer experience

Luxury brands claim to offer consumers pleasure and prestige and deliver high profits to retailers. While the global demand for luxury goods is increasing, consumers expect that the purchasing process these goods will accommodate their preferences on how, where, and when they want to purchase them. The changing nature of luxury markets and customers' purchasing behavior makes it necessary to understand why customers would choose an online channel to purchase luxury offerings. What are the features that make so appealing, attracting consumers towards them? Our study explores customers' motivations, the benefits and the experiences they are expecting and perceiving from the Online Luxury Experience (OLX). We examine the OLX and establish three corresponding luxury customer segments using online channels to purchase their luxury goods and services: the purists, opportunists, and e-lux. We highlight the differences between the segment's customer journeys and the implications for theory and luxury customer experience management.     

Pre‐purchase and post‐purchase satisfaction and fashion involvement of female tennis wear consumers

This study examined the relationship among pre‐purchase and post‐purchase satisfaction and fashion involvement of women who participated in tennis. As women's activities in sports, including tennis, are growing, it is necessary to investigate their clothing needs in order to meet consumers’ needs. A final sample consisted of 124 women who attended a Cortec United States Tennis Association Women's Pro Tournament. The questionnaires were personally distributed and collected during the tournament. The theoretical base for this study was the Engel, Blackwell, and Miniard model on consumer decision making. There was a positive significant relationship between pre‐purchase satisfaction and post‐purchase satisfaction (P < 0.01). There was a positive significant relationship between pre‐purchase satisfaction and fashion involvement (P < 0.001). Also, there was a positive significant relationship between post‐purchase satisfaction and fashion involvement (P < 0.001). Comfort was identified as the most important clothing attribute and fit the second most important for women to achieve satisfaction before and after purchasing tennis apparel. Seventy‐two percent of the women indicated the need for improved fit of tennis wear. Women of all ages reported garment length as a problem for each garment type. Two major reasons for not purchasing tennis clothing were high prices and inappropriate sizes.     

The Moderating Influence of Country of Origin Information Seeking on Homophily and Product Satisfaction

ABSTRACT

The purpose of the research was to investigate when consumers concurrently select a range of retail products online, what percentage of products need country of origin (COO) identification. Moreover, will COO information seeking positively moderate the relationship between homophily and product satisfaction. Participants were recruited through an online survey platform (MTurk). The results appear to be the first to quantify the number of retail products within a basket that need some form of country of origin (COO) identification. Electronic word of mouth (eWOM, e-reviews) has become an important factor in the purchasing process for consumers. When COO information is unavailable, consumers will search online reviews to determine the COO of products. When reading the e-reviews, consumers will also evaluate the reviewer and the similarities they share. If they are not similar (low in homophily) their satisfaction with the product is low. By contrast, when homophily is high, product satisfaction is high. Specifically, as homophily increases, an individuals' need for COO information seeking has a positive moderating effect on their perceived product satisfaction. Online retailers promoting their products could benefit from sales increases due to their ability to provide COO information at a low cost, which in turn, provides ease, peace of mind and purchase satisfaction for consumers.     

Group service recovery strategies effectiveness: The moderating effects of group size and relational distance

The extant service recovery literature focuses on consumers' responses to individual failures. However, group service failures are in fact common, but they have received insufficient research attention. This study contributes to theory and practice by applying social impact theory to explain the social nature of group failures. Findings from two studies show that group size and relational distance substantially affect consumers' response to group service recovery strategies. Specifically, private economic recovery creates less consumer satisfaction as group size increases, whereas consumers with a distant social relationship are more satisfied with public recovery for both economic recovery and social recovery. However, consumers with close relationships are more satisfied with public economic recovery and private social recovery. Apart from offering practical insights, this study expands the theoretical understanding of service failures, suggesting that they occur in a complex social ecology instead of relatively simple dyadic interactions between service providers and consumers.     

Cents of self: How and when self-signals influence consumer value derived from choices of green products

Consumers choosing between green and conventional products often believe such choices imply trade-off decisions, such that green products provide morally-related advantages but embody price or quality-related disadvantages compared to standard products. We study the consequences of such trade-offs for consumer value in the context of privately consumed green products. To develop our theoretical model, we draw from the perspective of self-signaling – consumers' act of signaling information about their internal qualities to their own self through choice. We explore how and when self-signals from such trade-off decisions influence consumer value gained from comparative choices of green versus standard products. Six studies were conducted, using divergent measures of the dependent variable, multiple product categories, and measured as well as manipulated self-concept clarity (SCC). We find a joint effect of self-signals from comparative choices and self-concept clarity on consumer value, such that positive self-signals lead to incrementally higher satisfaction and willingness to pay for consumers with low SCC but not significantly so for those with high SCC. Results show that this joint effect may occur for consumers with low SCC because they gain incremental value from perceived self-concept alignment – a state that is construed from the perception that a self-signal is aligned with the consumer's self-concept. This study contributes to marketing research by proposing and testing a novel mechanism that can underlie self-signaling.     

Energy efficient household appliances in emerging markets: the influence of consumers' values and knowledge on their attitudes and purchase behaviour

This research integrates both motivational and cognitive approaches to better understand consumers' purchase behaviour of energy efficient household appliances in emerging markets. A unique values, knowledge, attitudes and behaviour model was developed, and then validated by obtaining data from Vietnamese consumers which yielded 682 usable responses. The findings confirm that consumers with stronger adherence to egoistic values are more likely to develop negative attitudes towards environmental protection, and they tend to formulate positive attitudes towards individual inconvenience associated with the purchase of energy efficient appliances. In contrast, biospheric and altruistic values facilitate consumers' purchase behaviour by enhancing their attitudes towards environmental protection, and by also reducing their attitudes in relation to individual inconvenience. Interestingly, consumers with high knowledge about energy efficient appliances tend to believe that the purchase of such products is important for environmental protection, and they are likely to negate the perception of inconvenience associated with the purchase. Attitudes were found to be significant determinants of both purchase intention and behaviour. The implications for policymakers, marketers and other stakeholders are discussed and future research directions presented.     

Spillover effects from unintended trials on attitude and behavior: Promoting new products through access-based services

Access-based services (ABS) provide an opportunity for brands to promote their new products by enabling (unintended) trials. However, the mechanisms and impact of consumer exposure to products in ABS and the subsequent potential spillover effects on both the brand and the product perception are largely unknown. Our hypotheses are derived from the information integration theory (IIT) and subsequently tested. Study 1 is a field study investigating an unintended trial moderated by involvement and positive experience. The results indicate the positive effects of the unintended trial on product and brand attitudes, brand purchase intention, and word of mouth. In line with IIT, these effects are more pronounced for positive trial experience, although in contrast to IIT, they are less pronounced for high-involvement consumers. While the results of Study 2, an online experiment, show substantial effects of both trials compared with nontrials, they also reveal that intended and unintended trials have a similar impact on attitude, but ABS experiences have a stronger positive impact on brand purchase intention. We thus recommend that brand managers promote not only new products but also their brands in unintended trials. This study fills a gap in current discussions about the trial effect(s) of ABS.     

Determinants for Effects of Celebrity Negative Information: When to Terminate a Relationship with a Celebrity Endorser in Trouble?

This study examines three factors that influence consumers’ brand evaluation and purchase intention under negative celebrity information. The study is designed to investigate the effects of consumers’ perceived associative strength between celebrity endorser and brand, the role of congruence between a celebrity endorser's negative information and his/her endorsed brand, and the effects of consumers’ level of brand commitment. The study's findings suggest that congruence or “fit” between a celebrity endorser's negative information and an endorsed brand moderates a consumers’ evaluation of brand and purchase intentions. The study finds that a strong associative link between the brand and the celebrity endorser leads to lower brand evaluation as well as lower purchase intention. It also finds that consumers with a higher level of brand commitment are less likely to react negatively to a celebrity's bad publicity than are consumers with a lower level of brand commitment. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed.     

Do brands benefit consumers?

Advertising exists to communicate information about, and promote, brands—using ‘brands’ in the broadest sense. Brand owners, it might be believed, are thereby promoting their own interests. This paper explores the extent to which consumers benefit. Brands provide economic value for money, functionality in developing the requisite quality of products to solve consumer problems and psychological satisfaction. Thus functional benefits are intrinsic to the brand and its component products, psychological benefits are in the mind of the consumer and economic benefits relate to the exchange transaction. Brands are diverse, offering different benefits in different ways to different consumers at different times. Any aggregation of brand (dis)benefits therefore needs to be treated with caution. The picture is not wholly positive and consumer concerns with branding need to be factored in. The defence is the marketplace itself: consumers are free to choose. Retailer brands meet the demand, where it exists, for alternatives to manufacturer brands. Some consumers are undoubtedly confused for part of the time but branding is a long-term investment. Manufacturer brand leaders fifty years ago are brand leaders today. They would not exist at all if enough consumers did not continue to buy them.

This article considers these consumer concerns alongside the arguments for brands, except for the last (values) which is outside its scope. In general, the economic case today is secure even though earlier economists considered brands restricted competition. The bottom line of any remaining concern is whether consumers are satisfied that brands provide value for money. If consumers feel satisfied, then they are satisfied whether or not others think they should be. General consumer satisfaction with brands' value for money is none the less an inference drawn from the literature and analysis. Similarly, functional and psychological benefits appear to outweigh disadvantages but empirical research is needed to establish the extent of consumer (dis)satisfactions.     

Material Distortion of Economic Behaviour and Everyday Decision Quality

Misleading information and unfair commercial practices have to be viewed against the background of what consumers otherwise do, i.e., what their purchase decisions look like when no misleading information or no unfair commercial practices are in place. This article provides some of this background by studying how consumers sample information when making an in-store purchase decision. This was done by an eye-tracking study which reveals to what extent consumers succeed in purchasing the products that best meet their purchase intentions when only a representative amount of misleading information is present. The study shows that decisions were suboptimal in relation to what the consumers claimed they wanted to purchase. Only in one product category did consumers in this study actually look at products that were slightly better than average, and as a result, they mainly selected products that were just as often poor as good. If the proportion of bad purchase decisions based on misleading information is small enough, perhaps it might be better to direct the authors’ attention to other ways of improving the decision environments that consumers encounter. In addition, the eye-tracking study provides some insight into how consumers sample information when making an in-store purchase decision. The present data show that consumers invested on average of less than 1 s to look at products.     

Accessing and affording sustainability: the experience of fashion consumption within young families

Despite the ever increasing levels of fashion consumption, neither retailers nor consumers have as yet implemented sustainability principles to a significant degree. This is despite the fact that sustainability principles are increasingly understood and will be applied by consumers, as long as affordable alternatives in mainstream fashions are available. In a highly competitive fashion retail sector, there exists an opportunity for UK high street fashion retailers to differentiate their brand image through aligning products with consumers' moral frameworks. Using phenomenological interviews, this research explores the fashion consumption experiences of professional women with young children and living in or near Edinburgh, with particular focus on their expression of their own sustainability concerns in their day‐to‐day practices. The findings reveal that in the absence of suitable products, information and labelling, consumers apply heuristics to their choices, especially price. They refer to the more familiar ethical food market which serves as a metaphor for fashion‐related practices. They talk about trustworthy retailers and about how they deal with and rationalize their own practices where they reveal an obvious attitude‐behaviour gap. The women's role of providing for the family adds further complexity in a sector which provides affordable alternative options.