Digital buying behavior: The role of regulatory fit and self-construal in online luxury goods purchase intentions

Drawing on regulatory focus theory, this study examines how consumers’ promotion and prevention focus influences luxury purchase intentions in an online domain. The research further investigates the interactive effects of regulatory focus, goal orientation, and self-construal through four studies. Study 1 shows that promotion-focused versus prevention-focused consumers have a greater tendency to purchase luxury goods online and in-store. Contrary to extant research regarding the compatibility between message frame and consumers’ regulatory focus, using varying manipulations, Studies 2 and 3 find the primacy of prevention-framed messages in influencing online luxury purchase intentions for promotion- and prevention-focused consumers. Further, unlike prior studies, Study 4 shows no significant interaction effect between regulatory focus, goal orientation, and self-construal and adds a possible boundary condition by demonstrating how regulatory focus and self-construal effects differ for luxury purchase online. Overall, the studies offer important contributions to theory and practice relating to luxury consumption in cyberspace.     

“I Love the Value From Shopping at Mass Merchants!” Consequences of Multichannel Shopping Value

The importance of consumer value-driven strategies is highlighted in the marketplace, especially with economic stagnation. The aim of this study is to shed light on the mechanisms underlying consumers’ value perception of, satisfaction with, and loyalty intentions toward shopping at mass merchants in a multichannel retail environment by using their shopping orientations as predictors. Findings based on a national sample online survey of 1,411 U.S. consumers revealed that multidimensional consumers’ shopping value perceptions regarding shopping at multichannel mass merchants had significant and positive effects on their consumer satisfaction with and loyalty intentions toward shopping at the multichannel mass merchants.     

Effects of art in retail environments

Artworks have been introduced to retail environments outside of the art gallery and museum setting, with the assumption that art can transfer everyday consumption experiences into special and memorable ones. However, the question on the effectiveness of the placement of artwork in retail environments in influencing consumers’ behaviors and experiences has not been addressed. Using the Sacred Heart sculpture by Jeff Koons, we conduct two studies to test the influence of art on an individual’s behavioral intention to visit a restaurant and expected experience of food consumption. Study 1 corroborates that the effect of attitudes toward an artwork on behavioral intentions is amplified when consumers’ art knowledge and levels of openness to experience are low, indicating that consumers who lack art appraisal skills are likely to be dependent on their attitude toward art. Study 2 examines the mediating roles of attitudes toward an artwork and an artist by manipulating art attractiveness and artist information as the sources of esthetic perceptions. The artist information serves as the factor boosting the effect of art attractiveness on the behavioral intention through the mediation of attitudes toward the artwork and the artist. Results show that how consumers perceive an artwork, namely artistic processing in a retail environment, is powerful in leading them to enter a store and have desirable consumption experiences. Retailers can also enhance consumer experience by selecting artworks based on target consumers’ level of art knowledge and openness to experience.     

Building consumer loyalty through e-shopping experiences: The mediating role of emotions

In the retail sector, it has become necessary for retailers to differentiate themselves using new strategies, such as managing shopping experiences. The retailer can benefit from applying these experiences in order to gain loyal customers. The purpose of this research is to advance in the analysis of the different dimensions of the e-shopping experience, identified from a literature review, and attitudinal and behavioral loyalty. In addition, this study highlights the importance of emotional experience, analyzing the mediating effect of emotional experience on the relationship between online experiences and consumers’ loyalty. The empirical research is based on a sample of 496 consumers. The results reveal that using different experiences could influence loyalty in two different ways: directly affecting attitudinal loyalty (especially when website trustworthiness is low and consumers experience more uncertainty) and indirectly affecting behavioral loyalty through emotional experience.     

Reward me,charity, or both? The impact of fees and benefits in loyalty programs

This research examines the effects of loyalty program annual fees (no fee vs. $10 fee in Study 1, and no fee vs. $10 vs. $25 fee in Study 2) and benefit structures (self benefit, altruistic benefit, and combination self/altruistic benefit in both Studies 1 and 2) on intentions to join a loyalty program (LP) and future spending if one is willing to join the LP. Using random assignment in a between-subjects research designs and general linear modeling analyses in two different studies, this research finds that an annual fee does decrease consumers’ intentions to join an LP but may also increase the future spending intentions of customers who join a fee-based LP. Furthermore, a benefit structure that shares the reward with both the customer and a charity of his or her choice is found to be an appealing option. Thus, offering a fee-based LP that provides benefits to both the user and a charity could increase a retailer’s profitability and competitiveness through additional revenues, differentiation, and image enhancement.     

Does product involvement drive consumer flow state in the AR environment? A study on behavioural responses

Understanding consumers’ behavioural responses is crucial to improve the usage of augmented reality (AR) by retailers. Both in the online and offline retail market, AR enhances consumers’ shopping experiences by offering them enjoyable and immersive information about products and services. This paper explores consumers' behavioural responses by measuring the role played by product involvement in affecting the AR flow experience. To this end, the study employs a quantitative approach based on data collected from August to September 2022. Results show that consumers' involvement with products affects their AR flow experience, along with their behavioural intentions in terms of purchase intention and intention to visit the retailer’s website and recommend or share the experience. In addition, the latter two variables mediate the relationship between the AR flow experience and loyalty, showing interesting insights on high-body-involvement products. The paper ends by highlighting the main theoretical and managerial implications of these results, along with the scope for further research.     

Relationship intention and relationship quality as predictors of clothing retail customers’ loyalty

Retailers endeavour to establish and maintain strong relationships with customers in order to build customer loyalty. Unfortunately, such endeavours are not always successful as not all retail customers reciprocate retailers’ relationship efforts. Customers’ intentions to engage in relationships with retailers (i.e. relationship intentions) should thus be the starting point in building customer loyalty. Moreover, customers’ perceptions of the strength of their relationship with a retailer (i.e. relationship quality) should also be considered when building customer loyalty. The purpose of this study is to determine whether clothing retail customers’ relationship intentions and relationship quality, individually and in combination, predict their loyalty to clothing retailers. Data were collected from 511 respondents in South Africa’s greater Tshwane metropolitan area. From a hierarchical multiple regression analysis, it was found that clothing retail customers’ relationship intentions and relationship quality are individually, and in combination, predictors of their loyalty to the retailer. Results furthermore indicate that relationship quality mediates the relationship between relationship intention and customer loyalty. The findings highlight the importance of first determining customers’ relationship intentions, and then reinforcing positive perceptions of relationship quality when building customer loyalty.     

Forging meaningful consumer-brand relationships through creative merchandise offerings and innovative merchandising strategies

This research highlights the importance of retailer-consumer identity congruence – the match between the retail brand identity and the consumers’ identity. Retailers can leverage identity congruence to forge meaningful consumer-brand relationships which will result in enhanced engagement, brand loyalty, and willingness to pay. The paper discusses how creative merchandise offerings and innovative merchandising strategies contribute to the creation of a unique retail brand identity and facilitate communication of this identity to consumers. Based on interviews with retail practitioners, we formulate five ways in which retailers can establish and communicate their brand identity through creative merchandise offerings (by focusing on unique and original merchandise, leveraging local merchandise to reflect the area, making their merchandise akin to art, offering sustainable merchandise, and a high fashion product assortment). In addition, we focus on five innovative merchandising strategies which help the retailer connect the brand to the customer (creating themes, reflecting the brand story, being playful, signaling exclusivity, and virtual merchandising). We then discuss how retailers can utilize social and technological tools to amplify the retailer identity to consumers, thus increasing the likelihood that a consumer will view their identity congruent with the retail brand.     

M-atmospherics: From the physical to the digital

This research draws on the stimulus-organism-response framework to explore how traditional, physical atmospheric variables relate to consumers’ internal value responses to the m-shopping experience. Further, this research exposes how fulfillment of consumers’ utilitarian and hedonic values relate to consumers’ experience of flow while shopping and their intentions to return to the m-shopping platform. Findings suggest the stimulus-organism-response framework provides a viable perspective on the design of mobile shopping experiences. Moreover, traditional atmospheric variables influence consumers’ shopping experiences in the mobile context. Theoretical and practical implications are provided.     

Examining the antecedents and consequences of perceived shopping value through smart retail technology

This study examines the antecedents and consequences of perceived shopping value through smart retail technology. Specifically, we propose that perceived complexity, perceived advantage, perceived novelty and perceived risk of using smart retail technologies determine consumers’ perceived shopping value, which, in turn, influences their store loyalty and intentions to adopt smart retail technology. Further, we propose that consumer innovativeness moderates these relationships. Survey responses from 338 actual shoppers with prior experience of smart retail technology were used to test the research model, while structural equation modelling was used to develop the proposed hypotheses. The present study offers a better understanding of consumer adoption of smart retail technology that may help managers to develop adoption strategies for successful implementation of smart retail technology in-store.     

Understanding the Consumer Experience: It's 'Good To Talk'

The consumers of the 21^st Century can purchase goods and services by many off-site methods as well as by the 'traditional' mode of shopping in person. It is time to look again at the key feature that makes the traditional method popular for many consumers: the opportunity to mix with other people during the retail/service experience. This article reviews the extant literature on on-site consumer interactions, especially conversations consumers have with fellow consumers and employees. Out of the review, three inter-related strategic perspectives are proposed which store-based retail/service providers must take to compete for customer loyalty in the new millennium. They are: (1) view on-site consumers as a valuable (willing and able) human resource, (2) plan to facilitate consumer-to-consumer interactions and (3) accept some social responsibility for the quality of these interactions. There are still some significant gaps in our understanding of the social and communal elements of service experiences. A focus for future research is provided.     

Affect and Retail Shopping Behavior: Understanding the Role of Mood Regulation and Regulatory Focus

Two studies investigate the relationship between promotion and prevention focus, mood regulation, and retail marketplace evaluations and behaviors. Study 1, a laboratory experiment, finds that individuals high in promotion focus regulate their moods more than individuals low in promotion focus. Study 2, a field study, investigates the relationships between retail outcomes, regulatory focus, and the three core mood regulation constructs of mood monitoring, mood clarity, and mood repair. Results suggest that mood regulation is closely related to promotion and prevention focus, having both a direct influence on retail outcomes as well as mediating the influence of regulatory focus. Implications for theory and practice, limitations, and directions for future research are discussed.     

Are reward cards just a business deal? The role of calculative versus emotional card commitment in driving store loyalty

Recent research has challenged the wide-spread use of reward cards in the retail/service sector by arguing that in many cases, they offer rewards that fail to add value and increase loyalty to the store (Leenheer et al., 2007, Meyer-Waarden, 2015). Consequently, researchers have examined a variety of loyalty programs in order to determine which specific designs have a greater impact on the program's performance (Breugelmans et al., 2015, Meyer-Waarden, 2015). The underlying assumption of this view is that consumers will favour those programs which offer the “best deal”, potentially excluding the role of consumers’ affects in forming loyalty. In contrast to this view, this research draws on attachment theory to develop and test a more integrative model which concurrently assesses how consumers’ emotional, normative and calculative commitment to the card impacts store loyalty. We demonstrate that it is not calculative but emotional commitment that drives store loyalty in the long term. We conclude by discussing the theoretical and managerial implications of our findings, which collectively call managers to rethink current CRM practices that emphasizes rewards as a driver of customer loyalty.     

Satisfaction,loyalty and repatronage intentions: Role of hedonic shopping values

Today the Indian traditional retail shopper visiting various hypermarkets formats for purchasing and enjoying their valuable time with their family members and friends, as these formats offer hedonic shopping values. Therefore, this research paper focused on hypermarket shoppers of central India and the main objective of this study is to identify the role of hedonic shopping values on creation of satisfaction, loyalty and repatronage intentions with the help of proposed research framework based on 329 responses. Confirmatory factor analysis and structural equation modeling (SEM) is use to analyze and validate the proposed research framework. The result supports the relationship between hedonic shopping values with customer satisfaction, loyalty and repatronage intentions. The study also demonstrate the moderating role of gender on these relationship, which shows that both male and female consumer have different level of shopping behavior when it comes to see the influence of hedonic shopping values. Therefore, this research paper would help hypermarket retailers to design their retail store environment more attractively to maintain the optimum customer satisfaction level that enhance the loyalty and repatronage intentions in the customer in this current competitive retail scenario.     

Are Low Price and Price Matching Guarantees Equivalent? The Effects of Different Price Guarantees on Consumers’ Evaluations

Some retailers offer price match guarantees, whereas others offer guarantees making the same promise but labeling these low-price guarantees. Do consumers respond differently to these different price guarantee labels? To address this research question, this paper leverages insights from pricing, signaling, and regulatory focus theories to demonstrate – across multiple studies – that consumers perceive price match versus low price guarantees differently. In turn, contingent on consumers’ regulatory focus, this difference in perceptions feeds forward and influences consumers’ purchase intentions and post purchase (e.g., repurchase) intentions. This paper contributes to theory, not only by showing differences across price match versus low price guarantees, but also by being the first to jointly examine purchase and post purchase intentions relating to price guarantees. This paper also speaks to practice, noting contingencies that determine whether the price match or the low-price guarantee label should be used.     

Inclusive apparel shopping experiences for older consumers in China: product attributes and retail environment

ABSTRACT

The study explored apparel shopping experiences of older Chinese consumers, which integrate apparel product and retail environment aspects from an inclusive strategy perspective. Research questions include: What factors contribute to older Chinese consumers’ satisfaction and dissatisfaction? What are the major implications of older consumers’ (dis)satisfying shopping experience? What role can fashion practitioners play to make the retail environment and apparel products more accessible to the aging segment? Critical Incident techniques were used for data collection at a community park in Beijing. A total of 151 usable critical incidents from 84 older Chinese informants (55 years and older) were included in the data analysis. Content analysis with deductive qualitative data analysis method was used. Findings suggest that the older Chinese consumers assess their shopping experiences largely based on shopping outcome achieved (product purchased). This is in contrast to the movement toward more experiential focus in the developed markets in the recent decades. A significant number of tangible product attributes (including design/styling, comfortability/fit, and material) and intangible attributes (such as price and product assortment) contributed to the older Chinese informants’ satisfying or dissatisfying shopping experience. Aspects related to retail environment, including retail atmospherics and service quality were also important, but to a lesser extent than product attributes. This study represents an early attempt to explore how the tangible and intangible aspects of product attributes and retail environment contribute to the aging Chinese consumer’s shopping experience. Findings of the Chinese older consumers’ utilitarian, rather than experiential focus in their shopping experience evaluation provide insights on this market segment and valuable implications are developed.     

The dimensions of storytelling by retail salespeople

This paper explores storytelling in retail sales to develop a more nuanced understanding of the dimensions of retail storytelling and their importance in influencing consumer behavior. A mixed-method approach is taken to first qualitatively develop understanding of the structure of storytelling in a retail context and then quantitatively test the impact of various storytelling dimensions on consumer purchase intentions. Storytelling is common in retail sales encounters and consumers perceive multiple dimensions of storytelling. Some of these dimensions – story relevance, story humor, and storytelling ability – influence consumers' consumption behavior. This research begins to establish parameters for future examination of the use of storytelling in retail selling and informs managers of specific elements of storytelling on which to focus future training efforts.     

Asymmetric Effects of Regulatory Focus on Expected Desirability and Feasibility of Embracing Self‐Service Technologies

This research draws on regulatory focus theory to examine the asymmetric effects of regulatory focus (promotion focus versus prevention focus) on expected desirability and feasibility of using self‐service technologies (SSTs) in a retail setting. To study consumers’ SST trial intention from the perspective of regulatory focus theory, this research first integrates the attributes of SSTs explored in prior studies into a desirability–feasibility framework. The proposed asymmetric effects of regulatory focus (promotion focus versus prevention focus) lie in both scope (on desirability, feasibility, versus both desirability and feasibility) and valence (positive versus negative): The promotion focus facilitates consumers to recognize both desirability (consumption value) and feasibility of using SSTs, whereas the prevention focus inhibits consumers from understanding the feasibility‐related attributes of SSTs. In addition, it is proposed that the promotion focus contributes to the easement of consumers’ technology anxiety, whereas the prevention focus has a reverse effect. Furthermore, expected desirability (consumption value) and feasibility both positively influence consumers’ intention to adopt SSTs, whereas technology anxiety negatively affects consumers’ trial intention. Structural equation modeling is used to test the overall model, and the results support the hypotheses in general.     

Cognitive and affective constituents of the consumption experience in retail service settings: effects on store loyalty

Based largely on the recently growing experiential marketing stream, this study explores the joint effects of cognitive assessments of and emotional responses to service experiences on store loyalty in a retail service setting. Experience-related cognitions and store-related cognitions based on evaluations of the service experience, as well as the subsequent positive and negative emotional responses on the part of the customers, are modeled and investigated in terms of effects on store loyalty. Empirical data were collected through a survey of 518 consumers in four coffee shops of two major chains. The results suggest that consumer evaluations of the service experience and store environment may influence store loyalty, both directly and indirectly, through both negative and positive emotional arousals. The relative effects of each construct through different mechanisms are the primary research questions investigated in this study. Managerial implications and future research directions are also discussed.     

Are households ready to engage with smart home technology?

ABSTRACT

This paper contributes new knowledge regarding consumers’ preparedness for smart home technology adoption. This research bridges together three important frameworks – the technology readiness index (TRI) 2.0, consumer engagement, and perceived risk and trust – to understand consumers’ intentions to adopt smart home technology. We examine both direct and indirect effects, with results demonstrating the model explains 77% variance of consumers’ imagined engagement with smart home technology and 74% variance of intentions to adopt; hence, our model has greater predictive power than others proposed in the literature. Theoretically and managerially, we demonstrate a new pathway to consumers’ adoption of smart home technology in two ways. First, we depict the impact of consumers’ general perceptions of technology (TRI) on opinions and imagined engagement experiences with smart home technology. Second, we show how opinions and imagined experiences with smart home technology impact their intentions to adopt.