Disentangling the respective impacts of assortment size and alignability on perceived assortment variety

Assortment size is considered to influence strongly perceived assortment variety, but this influence depends on assortment organization. We consider assortment alignability (i.e. the degree of comparability between products) and show how it interacts with size to influence perceived variety. When assortment is structured along a unique important attribute (e.g. flavor or format), alignability influences perceived variety but size does not (Study 1). When this attribute is not important, only size influences perceived variety (Study 2). When assortment is structured along several attributes (e.g. flavor and format), alignability positively influences perceived variety, and assortment size reinforces this effect (Study 3).     

Dazing Diversity: Investigating the Determinants and Consequences of Decision Paralysis

This article makes new contributions to the assessment of negative effects on consumer choice behavior due to high product variety by (1) developing a holistic framework to identify the determinants and, for the first time, consequences of decision paralysis; (2) introducing a novel construct, namely, tendencies toward paralysis, that refers to the extent of decision makers’ preference (a) to maintain the status quo, (b) to omit, and/or (c) to delay choice, as well as providing an appropriate measurement model incorporating these three dimensions of decision paralysis that previously have been analyzed only separately; and (3) analyzing potential moderating effects of decision makers’ predisposition toward maximizing on the proposed model. The developed structural equation model as well as the conceptualization and operationalization of the novel construct are verified using data from the German cellular phone market. The model constructs of preference uncertainty and anticipated regret are evidenced to be the fundamental drivers of the formation of tendencies toward paralysis. In this context, the characteristics of variety under consideration—number, alignability, and complexity of alternatives—turn out to be appropriate parameters in avoiding decision paralysis. Moreover, a significant negative relationship between tendencies toward paralysis and subsequent customer satisfaction points out the importance of these findings for future research and business practice.     

Steering customers to the online channel: The influence of personal relationships,learning investments,and attitude toward the firm

Understanding the consequences of customer steering is a key challenge of multichannel customer management. Although many firms are faced with the question whether customers should be steered to the online channel to realize the potential benefits of this channel, little is known about the circumstances under which customers will be unreceptive to the online channel and displeased if they are steered. This research addresses this critical gap and examines the impact of customer steering with assortment modifications on customers' online migration decisions and overall satisfaction in three experimental studies. The results highlight the importance of three contingency factors: personal relationships in the current channel, learning investments into the online channel and attitude toward the steering firm.     

Explaining customers' switching patterns to brand delisting

Delisting is frequently used by retailers to strengthen their negotiating position against manufacturers. However, both parties have to consider the risk of potential reactions when customers are faced with a reduced or modified assortment and thus, different choice. This research investigates customers' switching behavior if a brand is delisted by taking into account context theory. The results of two real-life quasi-experiments reveal that customer responses depend significantly on the context and that manufacturers may encounter substantially larger losses than retailers. Two further online experiments support the hypotheses on the existence of negative context effects for brand removals. Managerial implications can be derived and recommendations for further research are developed.     

Analyzing Customers' Switching Intentions in the Telecom Sector

ABSTRACT

Mobile Number Portability (MNP) has not only affected customers' behavioral patterns, but also increased competition among telecom operators. Against this backdrop, the study examines the relationship between customers' switching intentions and attitude towards MNP, customer loyalty, and switching barriers. It also investigates the impact of these intentions on actual switching or staying behavior of customers. Data were collected from a sample of 260 telecom customers comprising university students. Findings reveal that customers' switching intentions would largely depend upon switching barriers perceived by them. Switching intentions predict both actual staying and switching behavior. Our understanding of switching barriers is limited to those involved in switching from a current service provider to a new service provider. Future research can examine the barriers associated with returning to the original provider and the effect on the decision to leave in the first place, especially in the case of contractual agreements such as BSNL. The present study will help practitioners and telecom service providers in understanding the factors affecting customers' switching intentions to prevent switching.     

Rewarding customers who keep a product: How reinforcement affects customers' product return decision in online retailing

A lenient product return policy represents the status quo of current return management practice in online retailing because it increases customers' order tendency. However, at the same time, many customers tend to return products under this policy, which incurs considerable costs for retailers. The present research introduces a keep reward (i.e., providing incentives to keep a product) as a new promotion strategy to improve the conventional lenient policy. Drawing on operant conditioning, the authors propose and test the reinforcing effect of a keep reward on customers' keep decision, compared to the conventional lenient policy. Results of a qualitative pilot study suggest that a keep reward is generally feasible in online retailing practice, especially in the low‐ to mid‐price segment and with rewards that are linked to future purchases. Two experimental studies verify the positive effect of a keep reward. Study 1 shows that it substantially increases keep intention compared to a conventional lenient policy. Study 2 shows that the effect on keep intention is moderated by customers' online shopping frequency, and this moderating effect is mediated by repurchase intention. In particular, the keep reward is most effective among frequent shoppers because they are more inclined to repurchase and thus, benefit from the reward. In summary, both studies support the keep reward as a valuable add‐on to the conventional lenient policy because order intention remains comparably high, while keep intention is higher. Theoretical implications and recommendations for online retailers on how to implement a keep reward in different industries are discussed.     

The informational value of multi-attribute online consumer reviews: A text mining approach

In the digital age, customers use online reviews to minimize the risks associated with purchasing a product. Major online retailers help customers choose the right product by exposing reviews that received many “helpful” votes at the top of the review section. Given that reviews that have received the maximum helpfulness votes are considered more important in purchase decisions, understanding determinants of helpfulness votes offers clear benefits to online retailers and review platforms. This study focuses on the effect of review informativeness, which is measured by the number of attributes discussed in a review, and its interplay of review valence on customers' perception of review helpfulness. We applied a word-level bigram analysis to derive product attributes from review text and examined the influence of the number of attributes on the review's helpfulness votes. More importantly, we also suggested the moderating role of review valence. Estimation results of the Zero-inflated Poisson models on 21,125 reviews across 14 wireless earbuds indicated that as more attributes are discussed in a review, the more the review can earn helpfulness votes from customers. Furthermore, the positive association between the number of attributes and helpfulness was enhanced among negative reviews. This study contributes to customers' information processing literature and offers guidelines to online retailers in designing a better decision support system.     

The new wave of AI-powered luxury brands online shopping experience: The role of digital multisensory cues and customers’ engagement

Academic literature retains a dearth of empirical evidence of the cutting-edge aspect of artificial intelligence (AI)-powered digital assistance and digital multisensory cues, despite the prospect of these factors on real-life customers' luxury brand online shopping experience. Thus, the aim of this study is to examine the significant pathway and effects of AI-powered digital assistance toward customers’ luxury brand online shopping experience. Drawing on S–O-R (Stimulus, organism, and response) and TRAM (Technology Readiness and Acceptance Model) paradigm, a multi-method research design was deployed to investigate constructs. Firstly, semi-structured interviews were utilized to explore customers' online behavior under the luxury brands and information technology aspect. Secondly, survey data were collected and analyzed by using partial least squares structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM) and fuzzy-set qualitative comparative analysis (fsQCA). The PLS-based analysis of quantitative data confirmed the exploratory insights of qualitative findings, establishing the connections of AI-powered digital assistance, customer engagement, and customers' luxury brand online shopping experience. Research findings also suggest that customer engagement plays a mediation role in the relationship between AI-powered digital assistance and customers' luxury brand online shopping experience. Besides, digital multisensory cues moderate the relationship between AI-powered digital assistance and customer engagement. Further, fsQCA complements the findings of PLS-SEM that reveal the significant combination of factors that lead to the perceptions of customers' luxury brand online shopping experience.     

Understanding the impact of online customers’ shopping experience on online impulsive buying: A study on two leading E-commerce platforms

Research offers some indication that the online customers' shopping experience (OCSE) can be a strong predictor of online impulsive buying behavior, but there is not much empirical support available to form a holistic understanding; whether, and indeed how, the effects of the OCSE on online impulsive buying behavior are affected by customers' attitudinal loyalty and self-control are not well understood areas of research. In this study, we examine how functional and psychological dimensions of the OCSE influence online impulsive buying within e-commerce platforms. We will investigate customers' attitudinal loyalty as a mediator between the OCSE and online impulsive buying behavior, and the customers' self-control as a moderator between customers' attitudinal loyalty and online impulsive buying. To analyze these relationships we will conduct an online survey (n = 1489) with customers of two leading Chinese e-commerce platforms: Jindong and Taobao. The findings from structural equation modeling indicate a positive relationship between the tested dimensions of the OCSE and customers' online impulsive buying. We also find a mediating role of customers' attitudinal loyalty and negative moderation of customers’ self-control. Theoretically, the findings contribute to the literature regarding online impulsive buying and the online customer experience. For managers, the findings stress the importance of ethical management with regard to the online shopping experiences.     

Development of methodology for classification of user experience (UX) in online customer review

In e-commerce, customer feedback has become an essential source of insight into a product or service's user experience (UX). The study of UX helps to integrate customers' potential needs into the product's design. Because customer reviews in e-commerce are not structured and categorized, it is necessary to analyze UX based on customer opinions systematically. This study tries to structure UX in a product's positive/negative context through a neural network-based self-organizing map (SOM). As a result of analyzing 10,482 reviews on wireless earbuds in BestBuy, an electronic product e-commerce platform, it was confirmed that it is a suitable method for categorizing user experiences between reviews and deriving important factors. In particular, the difference in core UX elements by positive/negative context of the product was verified based on the star rating. The results of this study are expected to contribute to product improvement and business improvement that reflect customer needs by companies or designers who design products for end-users.     

Product bundling strategies in Swedish markets: links to business orientation and perceived effects on consumer influence

Product bundling is an increasingly important marketing strategy within many industries, and consumer influence on companies' ranges of product bundles is, thus, becoming an important issue. The aim of this study was to investigate product bundling strategies consumers are exposed to by some selected companies in the Swedish automobile, travel and banking industries. Bundling strategies were considered in relation to business orientation as well as the consumer's potential to influence the product bundles offered by these companies. Fourteen qualitative telephone interviews were conducted with senior representatives from the three sectors. Interview respondents were selected in cooperation with their respective companies. Results underwent interpretative analysis, and the findings indicated that business orientation is linked to product bundling techniques and to the type of customer influence on product bundling. Consumers were exposed to mixed and complementary bundling strategies, and customers of companies that apply a market orientation were found to have greater opportunities to influence product bundles directly, whereas companies that apply a production‐oriented approach were less able to respond to their customers' wishes. Consumer influence on the product bundles of production‐oriented companies was found to be of a more indirect nature.     

Evidence Supporting the Importance of Brands in Marketing Computer Products

ABSTRACT

For convenience store (c-store) management to be truly customer-focused, they must listen to their customers and provide the products that meet customers' needs. This study investigates one aspect of c-store customer satisfaction, the product mix. The purpose of this paper is to investigate c-store customers' perceptions of product offerings to expand the c-store's product mix and in turn increase customer satisfaction. Fourteen products were examined. Of the fourteen, three were rated very likely to be purchased: postal services, home style meals, and a salad bar. Differences in preference were found between gender and marital status. Men and single customers had higher purchase intentions for the home style meals than women and married customers. Suggestions for future research are provided.     

Atypical Shifts Post-failure: Influence of Co-creation on Attribution and Future Motivation to Co-create

This study investigates how the effect of the failure of co-created products or services influences: (a) internal attribution (i.e. the self) and external attribution (i.e. the firm), (b) customers' expectancies of success, and (c) customers' future motivation to co-create and contribute to recovery from failure. We use attribution theory and the attribution–expectancy framework to explain the theoretical relationships we advance and test our hypotheses in two independent experiments that stimulate co-creation through role-play and vignettes. The results show that customer co-creation shifts the attribution for failure to the self, resulting in atypical shifts in expectancy (increasing customers' expectancy of future success and motivation to continue co-creating in the future). Our results suggest that utilizing customers' efforts and skills in the co-creation of products and services can help firms to manage failure effectively. The implications of our findings on co-creation research and product and service failures are discussed, specific applications within the digital context are considered, and suggestions are offered for future research.     

Detection of potential customers’ empathy behavior towards customers' reviews

The aim of the current study is to identify potential customers' empathy behavior and their behavioral reactions based on appraisal and stimulus–organism–response (SOR) theories to customers' reviews of financial services firms using lexicon-based unsupervised learning techniques. After filtering, we obtained 30263 reviews from the Yelp dataset of financial service companies. We examined the connections between several sorts of emotional dimensions and different types of behavioral reactions of potential consumers using lexicon-based unsupervised machine learning methods. Our findings show that the various types of customer sentiment have a significant impact on potential customers' emotional experiences on social media platforms, prompting them to behave differently. Furthermore, potential consumers' reactions to the customers' reviews varied according to their seven emotional aspects. The study is the first to examine the impact of potential customers' empathetic behavioral reactions on customers' evaluations using lexicon-based unsupervised learning techniques.     

Making customer relationship decisions: Analytics v rules of thumb

This article explores how customer management decisions are made in the leading Nordic retail banks and whether these decisions are driven by mainstream analytical approaches to customer lifetime value available through the banks' CRM systems, or by rule of thumb heuristics. The results indicate that the use of managerial heuristics is surprisingly widespread and, counter-intuitively, that rule of thumb heuristic-based decision making frequently outweighs measures such as customer lifetime value with regard to customer management decisions. The implications are considerable because if successful banks are making widespread use of heuristics, managers and academics would benefit from understanding the conditions under which heuristic decision making can be more successful than an analytic approach. This understanding, in turn, may highlight a limitation of CRM systems and point to a more flexible approach to customer management decisions in which experience-based managerial heuristics modify data from formal CRM systems.     

Joint modeling of effects of customer tier program on customer purchase duration and purchase amount

Nowadays, many supermarkets implement a customer tier program to increase their profits because it is expected to raise customers' willingness to purchase by setting thresholds. However, designing an appropriate program is difficult because each customer's heterogeneous purchase behavior is difficult to capture. Therefore, we simultaneously modeled purchase frequency and amount through a marked point process approach while considering program effects and customer characteristics. The results clarified that the points pressure effect was particularly strong among customers who originally visited the store infrequently and had not attained the threshold set up in the customer tier program many times in the past. In addition, we found that the three-tier customer tier program was superior to the two-tier program with respect to the operating income in supermarkets.     

The effect of item reduction on assortment satisfaction—A consideration of the category of red wine in a controlled retail setting

This study aims to investigate the effect of item reduction on assortment satisfaction within the red wine category. The study conducted an online experiment using a simulated online wine store. Lowest selling wines were removed after the first buying phase, and the respondents repeated the browsing process in the reduced assortment. A questionnaire measured the shift in perceptions. The results show that assortment perceptions can be maintained in the face of item reduction. There is also a strong association between category familiarity and assortment satisfaction, with differing levels of assortment satisfaction between high and low category familiarity groups. The presence of a favourite item also plays a role in maintaining assortment perceptions. The results suggest that retail managers can reduce assortments by removing low selling items while not affecting customers' assortment perceptions. Furthermore item reduction can be used to increase consumers' satisfaction if they are unfamiliar with the product category. This particular study is limited in the sense that the results were obtained exclusively in an online environment. Future studies may therefore be useful in validating these results in brick and mortar wine outlets.     

Customers' Satisfaction Factors Regarding University Food Court Service

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to identify university customers' satisfaction levels regarding foods and services in the food court at Oklahoma State University. A survey of 276 customers was conducted regarding customer satisfaction levels of foods and services. Results indicated that food quality was found to be the most important factor contributing to customers' overall satisfaction. It is suggested that management should pay attention to the freshness, appearance, and nutrition of the food to increase the customers' satisfaction. Moreover, focusing on product differentiation by offering convenience packaged Asian, Mexican, and Italian cuisines may prove to be a potential variable contributing to customers' purchasing patterns.     

Ambient scent and consumer behavior: a field study in a florist's retail shop

Numerous studies have shown that ambient scents influence human behavior including customers' behavior in real retail environments. However, the effects of scents in a closed-in plant and flower shop have not yet been examined. This study proceeded to measure customer behavior in two different situations taking place in a French flower shop: when lavender aroma was diffused and when it was not. The results showed that lavender aroma increased both the number of customers who bought plants and/or flowers and the amount of purchasing.