The Hare and the Tortoise: Do Earlier Adopters of Online Channels Purchase More?

Earlier adopters of a product or service tend to be more valuable than later adopters. Does this empirical generalization equally apply to earlier adopters of a multichannel retailer's new online channel too? This study segments customers on the basis of their responses to a new online channel and investigates the effects of their online channel adoption on purchase volumes across segments. The data cover 12.5 years of purchase history and individual transactions at a large multichannel French retailer of natural health products. Contrary to conventional wisdom, it is not innovators or early adopters, but rather the late majority segment that purchases more than the other segments, both before and after online adoption. Adoption of the firm's new online channel does not influence purchase volumes of heavy shopper segments (late majority and innovators), whereas light shopper segments tend to increase their purchases after adopting this new channel.     

Web 2.0 service adoption and entrepreneurial orientation

The purpose of this study is to investigate the relationship between Web 2.0 service adoption and entrepreneurial orientation (EO). For this purpose, this article conducted multivariate analysis of variance (MANOVA) using Web 2.0 service adoption groups (high and low adopters) as an independent variable and EO as dependent variable, measured with four variables: innovativeness, risk taking, autonomy, and competitive aggressiveness. The results show that there are significant differences in EO, overall and for each dimension, between the two groups (high adopters/low adopters of Web 2.0). High adopters of Web 2.0 have a stronger EO in terms of all the four of the individual EO dimensions.     

Critical innovation characteristics influencing the acceptability of a new pharmaceutical product format

This paper investigates the Critical innovation characteristics that influence the acceptability of a new pharmaceutical product format as perceived by medical service providers. Professional service providers act as "surrogate adopters" as they decide about the adoption of a product intended for their clients' use. We employ a qualitative research approach to explore which product related characteristics physicians evaluate when assessing the acceptability of a new product format in the pharmaceutical market. The main results concern (1) the distinct nature of a distributed adoption decision-making, (2) the refinement of relevant innovation attributes in a medical service context, and (3) the contextuality of innovation adoption. The research results show that innovation characteristics cannot be feasibly studied without taking into account the adoption context, here the medical service encounter and its institutional environment. Managerial implications of these findings are discussed.     

Modern Technology in Provincial Offices: Some Empirical Evidence

Data from some 300 business service offices in eight British provincial cities is used to show that the adoption of information processing and telecommunications (IPT) equipment has been selective in relation to the status, function and location of establishments. Possession of certain kinds of IPT equipment increases the likelihood of other items being present. There is an inverse relationship between size of urban area and attitudes towards office technology and its adoption. Offices can be classified into a minority of positive adopters; a much larger group of conservative adopters; and a residual group of traditionalists, resolutely refusing to adapt their working practices.     

Innovativeness in product usage: A comparison of early adopters and early majority

A field study was conducted to examine if time of adoption (i.e., purchase innovativeness) was systematically related with use innovativeness, product involvement, and extent of product usage. The results showed that early adopters had significantly higher use innovativeness and product involvement as compared to the early majority. Although usage variety was higher for early adopters, no significant differences were found in usage frequency between the two groups. Use innovativeness and involvement mediated the relationship between purchase innovativeness and usage variety. © 1994 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.     

Different determinants at different times: B2B adoption of a radical innovation

This research aims to empirically determine which factors best explain business to business adoption of a radical, high-tech innovation early in the diffusion process. Early lifecycle data collection provides insights about the differences in determinants of adoption at different times in the product diffusion process. The results indicate that differences do exist between the determinants of early adoption, intent to adopt later, and unawareness of the innovation. The influencers of earliest adopters appear to be innovation-focused: the perceived benefits of the innovation as well as the strength of the producer network positively relate to early adoption; early adopters also tend to perceive the technology in the innovation as less different than previous technology than do those who intend to adopt later. The influence of a champion within the adopting firm, the ability of the firm to sense and respond to new technology, and the depth of technology knowledge within the adopting firm are significant influencers across multiple stages of diffusion, showing that firm-internal traits are particularly important influencers of adoption. Laggard firms are missing the critical firm traits that lead to information gathering and understanding of innovations. In addition to contributing to adoption research theory and methodology, this research has implications for innovation-marketing and innovation-adopting firms.     

The Impact of Mobile App Adoption on Cross-buying: The Moderating Roles of Product Category Characteristics and Adoption Timing

With more and more companies introducing mobile apps and consumers using them during the purchase journey, it is increasingly important to understand the consequences of app adoption on behavioral outcomes. This paper investigates the impact of app adoption on the number of additional products purchased by customers (i.e., cross-buying) and how this effect varies across different product categories and different customers. We focus on two key product category characteristics (utilitarian vs. hedonic nature and perceived risk) and on adopters who vary in their adoption timings (early vs. late adopters). Using data from an online retailer and a combination of propensity score weighting with difference-in-differences and Heckman correction estimation techniques, the results show that app adoption has a positive effect on cross-buying overall, but the effect varies greatly across products and consumers. App adoption promotes additional product purchases for hedonic products but leads to less cross-buying for utilitarian products. In addition, early adopters purchase a higher number of additional product categories than late adopters, with this difference decreasing over time and for new consumers compared to existing customers. These results offer novel insights into the behavioral consequences of app adoption and provide managers with useful recommendations for improving the effectiveness of their mobile app investments.     

Transaction Cost and Institutional Drivers of Supplier Adoption of Environmental Practices

Research concerning a supplier’s voluntary adoption of environmental practices has focused on buyer influence and supplier leadership values. These explanations are pertinent to early adopters, but other theoretical perspectives are needed to understand why later adopters, who tend to be more conservative, may or may not be likely to adopt environmental practices. Two theoretical lenses may be used to better understand later adoption processes. First, transaction cost economics examines implementation costs that have not been considered in previous research. A transaction cost economics perspective suggests that suppliers are more likely to adopt environmental practices if their information seeking, bargaining, and enforcement costs are minimized. Second, institutional theory can be applied to drivers within the supply base. The institutional theory analysis reveals that supplier adoption of environmental practices is more likely if coercive, normative, and mimetic institutional forces are in play.     

Consumer Goods Packaging Innovation and its Role in the Product Adoption Process

Packaging has emerged as an important competitive tool. An innovative package can pre-empt a market position, create a new market and lead to greater sales and profits, just as an improved or reformulated product can. This report investigates the adoption process for packaging innovations in food and food-related items. It seeks to answer certain questions pertaining to the adoption process: Do early adopters differ from the general population? What factors serve to accelerate the rate of adoption of packing innovations by consumers? What kinds of packinging innovations become successes? The results of a small-scale empirical study comparing early adopters of packaging innovations with the general populations provide some answers to these questions. The report concludes with recommendations to management for successful innovative packaging.     

The adoption of direct banking services

The adoption of new products and services is of increasing importance to many industries. This is especially so for those organisations that are marketing technological innovations. In this paper a model of the perceived innovation attributes and the personal characteristics of adopters and non‐adopters was developed, based on literature and consumer research. These are then tested using a questionnaire concerned with the UK market for direct banking services. The results are presented in detail which indicate that the model presented is an excellent predictor of adoption behaviour. From these results a number of interesting implications have been highlighted for marketing practice.     

Which consumers are willing to pay for smart car healthcare services? A discrete choice experiment approach

The technology adoption lifecycle model categorizes consumer groups in the new concept products and services market, based on different characteristics and needs, into innovators, early adopters, early majority, late majority, and laggards, in order of adopting new products and services. This study aims to estimate heterogeneous consumer preferences and willingness to pay for a new concept convergence service, the smart car healthcare service, using a choice experiment questionnaire and a hierarchical Bayesian mixed logit. We found that consumers were willing to pay an additional 3000 to 6000 KRW/month (2.65–5.29 USD/month) for a service that measured both physical movement and vital signs compared to either the former or the latter. It was also found that they were willing to pay about 3000 KRW/month (2.65 USD/month) more for a service that provides health condition predictions compared to one that provides only the current health condition. In addition, customers who were young, innovative, and favored the utility of healthcare services showed a lower sensitivity to service fees than those who were not. Thus, they were found to have a greater willingness to pay for advanced smart car healthcare services.     

Consumer Adoption of Mobile Internet Services: An Exploratory Study

This study provides a framework that captures the antecedents of mobile internet adoption and the willingness to pay for such service. The theory of reasoned action and components of a theory of innovation adoption were integrated into a research model of consumer adoption of the mobile internet. The hypothesized model included service quality perceptions (fixed internet and mobile technology service), beliefs about mobile internet, and individual difference variables to explain intention to adopt mobile internet. An online questionnaire was used to gather data. The results showed that beliefs and quality perceptions play a significant role in influencing intentions to adopt mobile internet. In particular, beliefs about mobile internet are positively related to the adoption; quality perceptions of fixed internet are found significant to negatively influence adoption intentions, but positively relate to willingness to pay for using mobile internet. Mobile service usage, and peer influence are found non-significant to influence adoption intentions. Fixed internet usage was found negatively affect adoption intentions. Computer skills, knowledge of mobile internet and career mobility are all found positively related to the adoption. In addition, innovation driven consumers are more likely to adopt mobile internet, and intention to adopt plays an important role in shaping actual mobile internet use. Implications of results and directions for future research are examined.     

Customer behavioural intentions towards mobile money services adoption in Ghana

This study examined the determinants of mobile money service usage intentions and assessed the effect of social influence (SI) on mobile money services adoption and behavioural intentions (BIs). The sample of the study comprised 300 mobile money service users in Ghana. Guided by the conceptual framework and two theories identified to have an effect on technology adoption and consumer behaviour, eight hypotheses were developed and tested using Structural Equation Modelling Techniques. It is discovered that perceived ease of use, perceived usefulness, perceived trust and perceived cost of use have a strong influence on mobile money service usage. The study found SI to have a significant effect on the adoption and BI. Providers ensure that their mobile application services are simple to operate, fulfil specific consumers’ needs, protect consumers’ accounts to ensure trust and are affordable, hence positively influencing consumers’ adoption of services.     

Credit cards in a Chinese cultural context—The young, affluent Chinese as early adopters

This research examines the attitudes of early adopters towards holding and using credit cards, especially how the ‘young and affluent Chinese’ view credit cards, in the Chinese cultural context. The findings indicate that frequent users of credit cards are more inclined to agree that: they display traits of new product adopters; credit cards offer them greater convenience; and others regard them as being more au-fait with technology, and more financially aware. The research also reveals a fear of loss of financial control when using credit cards that may impede its rate of adoption in China.     

"Babies Cost Less at Tesco"

Through research undertaken in several child adoption agencies, the authors examine the ethical consequences of the use of marketing techniques in the child adoption process within England and Wales.

Increasingly child adoption organisations and social work professionals are made accountable via the language of customer service and performance measurements. The use of commercial techniques such as marketing is justified on utilitarian grounds. However, any utilisation of marketing within the child adoption process is forced to ensure that the child is not de-centred. Here, the authors argue, there are tensions between the humanitarian project that is child adoption, and the unease produced by viewing the child as human 'product'. The use of marketing in child adoption raises issues related to the objectification and commodification of the child and prospective adopters. Within child adoption it is assumed that we must engage with the child as 'face' (Bauman 1995). But will these assumptions stand the encroachment of marketing techniques into this very sensitive area?     

新能源汽车早期采用者特征识别

在低碳经济时代,作为创新产品的新能源汽车,虽然倍受关注,但消费市场仍难有突破。而新能源汽车早期采用者特征的识别,对于早期市场推广极其重要。国外研究表明,新能源汽车早期采用者大多比较富裕且教育水平高,比平均车主年龄稍大,更多的是女性;此外,"混合家庭"是早期新能源汽车的主要利基市场,时尚环保者和驾车成本敏感者是潜在的早期主要采购人群。这些研究结论对我国新能源汽车市场早期推广有着重要启示。     

The competing roles of variety seeking in new brand adoption

We examine how consumers' attribute-level variety-seeking behaviors can explain their propensity to adopt a new brand in the consumer packaged goods (CPG) market. We leverage consumers' purchase history among extant brands prior to a new brand introduction as an indicator of the new brand adoption upon its launch. We incorporate variety seeking at two product attribute levels – brand and flavor – and find that variety seeking along these two dimensions predicts different outcomes for new brand adoptions. The estimation results of our discrete-time hazard model show that consumers' brand-level and flavor-level variety-seeking behaviors affect their likelihood to adopt a new brand in different manners: consumers who purchase various brands are more likely to adopt a new brand, whereas those who choose various flavors are less likely to adopt a new brand. The results also show that the new brand's price promotions and in-store displays can affect the role of variety seeking in consumers' new brand adoption. We assess the robustness of our findings by replicating our empirical model with an additional measure of variety seeking as well as a variety-seeking measure in another product category.     

Spatial diffusion of a new loyalty program through a retail market

Retailers who wish to launch new innovations into their markets can be much more effective if they understand the geographic forces which affect consumer adoption of those innovations. A research field which studies this process is spatial diffusion. This paper explores and models the processes and driving forces of spatial diffusion across a market area following the launch of a new loyalty card program by a national retailer. Event history modeling is used to estimate the effects of distance, the impact of the firm’s marketing efforts, and the role of previous adopters in influencing the speed and spatial pattern of the adoption process. The results, in addition to yielding new insights into the processes involved in spatial diffusion, support previous findings on the importance of targeting the Innovator adopter group in a new product launch.     

Engaging the commodified face: the use of marketing in the child adoption process

This paper evaluates the ethical consequences of the use of marketing techniques in the child adoption process within England and Wales. Since 1995 the political climate in the UK has seen a reassessment of the manner in which the state organises care for children who are within its legal guardianship. Successive UK governments have acknowledged the under‐utilisation of child adoption as a moral and efficient means of child‐care. However, the presentation of child adoption in a more active fashion involves concerns about the manner in which child adoption has been organised. Increasingly child adoption organisations and social work professionals are being made accountable through the language of customer service and performance measurements. The use of commercial techniques such as marketing is justified on utilitarian grounds. However, any utilisation of marketing within the child adoption process is forced to ensure that the child is not de‐centred. Legislation requires that the needs and welfare of the child are the first consideration for the adoption agency. Here we begin to see tensions between the humanitarian project that is child adoption, and the unease produced by viewing the child as human ‘product’. This invites analysis via critical theory. The use of marketing in child adoption raises issues related to the objectification and commodification of the child and prospective adopters. Within child adoption it is assumed that we must engage with the child as ‘face’ (Bauman, 1995). But will these assumptions stand the encroachment of marketing techniques into this very sensitive area?     

Asymmetries in the Effects of Drivers of Brand Loyalty Between Early and Late Adopters and Across Technology Generations

Mobile marketing activities are growing at a rapid pace. The success of mobile marketing hinges on consumers' adoption of mobile devices. However, consumers' mobile device adoption is not well understood at the brand (e.g., Apple, Nokia, Samsung) level. We propose a conceptual framework linking mobile device brand loyalty (repurchase intention) to its drivers including perceived value, brand satisfaction, brand attachment and trust, and develop hypotheses about the moderating roles of adopter type and mobile technology generation in some of these linkages. We test these hypotheses using structural equation modeling on a unique cross-sectional dataset of attitudes toward mobile phone brands spanning two technology generations, 2.5G and 3G. The results reveal important asymmetries between adopter types and between technology generations: early adopters of mobile devices emphasize perceived value, whereas late adopters rely on brand satisfaction in developing brand loyalty; and consumers depend more on trust and less on perceived value in developing loyalty for the new generation than for the existing generation. We outline how brand managers of mobile devices should adapt their marketing strategies to different adopter types and technology generations.