Consequences of personalized product recommendations and price promotions in online grocery shopping

Shopping convenience can be turned into a competitive advantage for online grocery retailers. Consequently, we study how personalized product recommendations (recommendation agents) and price promotions (algorithmic pricing) compensate for the negative impact that consumer's perceived cognitive effort causes on loyalty. By default, the relationship from perceived cognitive efforts to attitudinal and behavioral loyalty is negative, yet these results demonstrate that personalized price promotions lessen the negative impact, while personalized product recommendations do not have such an influence. The findings contribute to a better understanding of personalized marketing activities in today's data-driven online grocery retailing.     

Exploring the influence of online reviews and motivating factors on sales: A meta-analytic study and the moderating role of product category

Online reviews, which significantly influence product sales, have been a central research topic in the field of marketing. Meanwhile, some motivating factors related to online retailers have been linked to product sales. While several articles have examined the impact between online reviews and motivating factors on product sales, many of the conclusions drawn are contradictory. From 28 studies focusing on online reviews and sales, this study performs a meta-analysis to analyze the true impacts of six review-related factors (i.e., the number of reviews, star ratings, standard deviation of ratings, helpfulness, review length and sentiment), and two motivating factors (i.e., price discounts and special shipping) on product sales. Meanwhile, this paper also studies how one product-related factor (i.e., product age) and one reviewer-related factor (i.e., reviewer's reputation) influence the relationship between online reviews and product sales. In addition, to study the moderating effect of product category, we divide the selected literature into two subgroups which are search and experience products. The results indicate that only review length and special shipping have no significant impact on product sales, while product category has a valid and specific moderating effect on the relationship between these determinants and sales. The presented conclusions will have important implications for academic research and for future industry practice.     

From Fatwallet to eBay: An investigation of online deal-forums and sales promotions

Sales promotions are an important part of retail advertising strategy. Traditionally, research on sales promotions has generally assumed that the buyers are end consumers who do not engage in reselling, in large part due to high transaction costs. However, the recent Internet related technologies have dramatically lowered the cost of transferring goods between consumers, leading to relative ease of reselling activity amongst individual consumers. Little is known about the impact of this phenomenon on retailer's sales promotion strategy. In this research we investigate the reselling activity in online auctions for products that active deal seekers can obtain at deeply discounted prices from retailers. We further investigate the role of deal-forums in the resale process. Data is collected from an online deal-forum (http://www.fatwallet.com/) and eBay to test various reselling-related hypotheses. The results show that there is a significant abnormal increase in the number of newly posted auctions of a product after the deal information of this product is posted on deal-forum website. We also find that there is a significant price incentive for individuals to resell. The implications for sales promotion research and practice are discussed.     

Consequences of consumer regret with online shopping

Negative online reviews can significantly hurt future sales. After impulsive decisions, consumers may feel regret and write negative online reviews. Two studies are conducted to understand the origin and consequences of negative reviews according to the review content and the responsibility for the mistake in the decision. The first study analyses the influence on the review creation of regret with the process and the outcome through structural equation modelling. For the second study, a 2 × 2 experimental design was conducted. This study analyses how different content in the review (regret with the process vs. regret with the outcome) and guilt of the error (the consumer vs. the seller) affects the perceived persuasiveness, usefulness and credibility of the information, and the intention to follow the advice. The results show that for generating negative reviews, it is the regret with the process coupled with the presence of regret with the outcome which ultimately leads to the intention to write negative reviews. However, the results of the second study show that reviews that criticize the outcome are more damaging than those that criticize the process. Furthermore, reviews that show regret in which the buyer is responsible affect readers more through the greater persuasion they generate.     

体验型产品在线评论与消费意愿及销量的关系——以价格为调节变量

随着网络在线交易的迅猛发展,在线评论等网络口碑传播的重要性日益凸显。以体验型产品为研究对象,以信号理论和"刺激-反应"理论为指导,建立"在线评论-消费意愿-在线销量"模型分析三个要素之间的关系机理,并采用中介效应检验和调节效应检验进行验证,结果显示:在线评论作为一种信息刺激,其数量对体验型产品在线销量具有显著的正向影响,但在线评论质量效价评分对体验型产品在线销量的影响不显著,这与产品的类型有关;在线评论一是直接对在线销量产生影响,一是通过中介变量(即作为消费意愿替代变量的收藏量)传递影响,对在线销量产生作用;商品价格在在线评论和在线销量的直接和间接关系中都起到了正向调节作用,这与体验型产品交易过程中价格质量信号功能强于促销功能有关。实践中,企业可通过一些激励设计提高消费者在线评论参与度;进行更加科学化的网页设计,完善收藏功能,以方便消费者进行筛选和比较;注意防止盲目降价行为给消费者带来的负面影响,发挥好价格的信号作用。     

How Online Product Reviews Affect Retail Sales: A Meta-analysis

A growing body of research has emerged on online product reviews and their ability to elicit performance outcomes desired by retailers; yet, a common understanding of the performance implications of online product reviews has eluded us. Scholars continue to navigate an array of studies assessing different design elements of online product reviews, and various research settings and data sources. We undertake a meta-analysis of 26 empirical studies yielding 443 sales elasticities to examine how these variables relate to retail sales. Building on well-established meta-analytical methods, we address the following questions: How does review valence influence the elasticity of retailer sales? What about review volume? For which product types and usage situations do online product reviews have a greater impact on retailer sales elasticity? Which types of online reviewers and websites exert the greatest influence on retailer sales elasticity? Our study answers these important questions and provides a much needed quantitative synthesis of this burgeoning stream of research.     

时间间隔何时能够提高在线评论的有用性感知——基于归因理论的视角

文章从归因理论的视角出发,探索了购买与评论间的时间间隔与产品类型（物质性产品Vs体验性产品）如何相互作用以影响评论的有用性感知。通过将产品分为物质性产品和体验性产品,文章运用实验检验了时间间隔对不同产品类型的评论影响作用产生的不同作用。结果表明,对于体验型产品来说,时间间隔近（Vs远）可以提高评论的有用性感知;而对于物质型产品来说,时间间隔近（Vs远）可以降低评论的有用性感知。除此之外,实验结果也证实归因倾向中介于时间间隔与评论有用性感知。但是时间间隔对评论有用性的影响还会受到评论效价的调节,时间间隔只会改变正面评论的有用性感知,但是并不能显著影响负面评论。研究结论有助于深入理解阅读者对在线评论的有用性判断的反应,并为在线零售商提供了一个更好利用和维护在线产品评论提高新的视角。     

基于门限分位数回归的网上商品销量影响因素探析

网上商品销售与线下商品销售存在较大不同,为探索其消费模式,需要研究各影响因素对网上商品销量的作用机制。文章基于心理抗拒、贝勃定律、卢因人类行为理论等,对网络消费行为进行系统分析;综合运用分位数回归和门限回归方法,建立了门限分位数回归模型,揭示商品价格、商家信誉评分、商家信誉等级、保障标记数量、商品收藏人气、口碑数量和口碑分数等对销量的非线性异质影响。以受众广泛的iPad air2网上销售为研究对象,实证结果表明：提高商家的信誉等级、增加口碑数量能使高销量商家的销量更高,而保障标记数量的增加对热销有阻碍作用;在非热门商品转向热销品的过程中,增加收藏人气、增加口碑数量和一定价格范围内的提价对低销量商家的销量有促进作用。     

Substitution or Promotion? The Impact of Price Discounts on Cross-Channel Sales of Digital Movies

Technology is transforming the marketing function in many ways, and this transformation is particularly apparent for information goods such as movies where digital technologies provide marketers with new distribution channels, which in turn create new opportunities for cross-channel effects. However, these digital channels also provide researchers with new opportunities to measure micro-level customer behavior to understand the impact of cross-channel effects in real-world settings.In this paper, we study cross-channel effects between movies sold in digital purchase (commonly known as Electronic Sell Through or EST) and digital rental (commonly known as Video-On-Demand or VOD) markets. We do this using a unique sales dataset from a major digital movie retailer provided by a major movie studio. Our analysis takes advantage of a 14-week field experiment that allows us to measure the impact of price discounts on own- and cross-channel sales. We use this experiment to estimate own and cross price elasticities, whether price discounts cannibalize future sales, and most importantly whether price discounts in one channel affect sales for the same product in a presumably competing channel.Our analysis indicates that digital movie consumers are highly sensitive to price promotions. However, we also find that, contrary to expectations, price promotions in a digital sales channel for a movie do not seem to cannibalize digital rentals. Indeed, our results suggest that, if anything, price promotions for digital movie sales can increase digital rentals. We explore a variety of explanations for this counterintuitive result, including the possibility that the ease of information transmission online through third-party websites, blogs, and online discussion areas may create information spillovers such that price discounts in one channel may increase product awareness in other competing sales channels. From a managerial perspective, our results suggest that cross-channel cannibalization can be reduced or even reversed in the presence of information spillovers, and that there are many new opportunities for marketers to directly measure these cross-channel effects using experimental data from online platforms.     

Why consumers exaggerate in online reviews? Moral disengagement and dark personality traits

Diffusion of digital media has led to extensive reliance on online reviews for purchase decisions. However, consumers may routinely exaggerate about their own consumption experiences. Using moral disengagement theory and the dark personality trait , the present study seeks to enhance the understanding of consumers' intentions to exaggerate about their consumption experience in online reviews. In order to demonstrate convergence of finding and replicability of the proposed relationships, four studies were conducted to examine consumers’ intention to exaggerate about their positive and negative experiences in online reviews for search and experience products respectively. Findings showed significant positive relationships between dark personality traits and intention to exaggerate in online reviews. Furthermore, moral disengagement significantly mediated intention to exaggerate for narcissists and psychopaths. The results reinforce the usefulness of the study for managers as these studies augment the understanding of consumer lying behavior in the context of online reviews and offer insights into mechanisms that might prevent the amplification of such reviews.     

The influence of multi-channel pricing strategy on price fairness and customer confusion

ABSTRACT

Multi-channel retailers face the challenge of coordinating marketing variables across their channels. In this respect, one of the main issues arising is whether to differentiate or integrate prices. Our study examines the impact of three multi-channel price differentiation instruments on perceived price fairness, customer confusion, and their consequences. In a scenario-based online experiment, we use a 2 x 2 × 2 between-subjects design and manipulate product price differentiation, online promotion and online shipping fees. The results indicate that price differentiation has an impact on fairness evaluations and customer confusion. Product price differentiation and online promotion are perceived as more unfair and lead to more confusion than price parity. Price fairness perceptions of shipping fees depend on product price differentiation. Customers perceive shipping fees as fairer than no shipping fees when prices are cheaper online but perceive shipping fees as less fair when prices are integrated. These results suggest that customers expect a consistent consideration of channel cost advantages and disadvantages and that shipping fees might serve as a cue for customers to consider the retailer’s channel costs. We further show that price fairness and customer confusion mediate effects of pricing instruments (in particular online promotion) on attitudinal and behavioral consequences.     

Online and offline retailing: What we know and directions for future research

The fast-paced growth of e-commerce is rapidly changing consumers’ shopping habits and shaping the future of the retail industry. While online retailing has allowed companies to overcome geographic barriers to selling and helped them achieve operational efficiencies, offline retailers have struggled to compete with online retailers, and many retailers have chosen to operate both online and offline. This paper presents a review of the literature on the interaction between e-commerce and offline retailing, highlighting empirical findings and generalizable insights, and discussing their managerial implications. Our review includes studies published in more than 50 different academic journals spanning various disciplines from the inception of the internet to present. We organize our paper around three main research questions. First, what is the relationship between online and offline retail channels including competition and complementarity between online and offline sellers as well as online and offline channels of an omnichannel retailer? Under this question we also try to understand the impact of e-commerce on market structure and what factors impact the intensity of competition /complementarity. Second, what is the impact of e-commerce on consumer behavior? We specifically investigate how e-commerce has impacted consumer search, its implications for price dispersion, and user generated content. Third, how has e-commerce impacted retailers’ key managerial decisions? The key research questions under this heading include: (i) What is the impact of big data on retailing? (ii) What is the impact of digitization on retailer outcomes? (iii) What is the impact of e-commerce on sales concentration? (iv) What is the impact of e-commerce and platforms on pricing? And (v) How should retailers manage product returns across online and offline channels? Under each section, we also develop detailed recommendations for future research which we hope will inspire continued interest in this domain.     

Omnichannel retailing operations with coupon promotions

This paper explores an omnichannel retail system under which the retailer offers coupons via online channels for market share and profit. It investigates the action mechanism of coupon promotion on omnichannel price and operational decisions by employing a theoretical model. Three coupon distribution modes are investigated; a scenario in which the omnichannel retailer does not offer coupons, offers coupons with a common face value, or offers coupons with a different face value. The results show that the distribution of coupons does not always lead to increased market share. Rather, market volume may be reduced if the competition between different channels is intense. When conducting a coupon promotion, the retailer always charges a higher price, but if the negative effects of coupon promotion for the competitive channel are relatively large, the retailer will reduce their price. Larger cross-selling revenue comes from ‘Buy Online, Pick Up in Store’ channel, indicating a stronger willingness to offer coupons and higher profits for the retailer. If the retailer takes the channel characteristics and consumers' channel preferences into consideration and offers different coupon face values across channels, they will derive higher profits.     

Positive emotion bias: Role of emotional content from online customer reviews in purchase decisions

Abundant research has investigated the impact of review valence on purchase decisions, but has reported mixed findings. To reconcile these mixed findings, this study unearths the understanding of review valence from the perspective of the emotional content in online customer reviews. To explore the effect of emotional content on purchase decisions and the moderating role of emotional content on non-emotional content and purchase decisions based on a heuristic-systematic model, a laboratory experiment with 106 subjects was used to empirically test the research hypotheses. The results show that pleasant online customer reviews lead to a higher purchase likelihood compared to unpleasant ones. Perceived credibility and perceived diagnosticity have significant influence on purchase decisions, but only in the context of unpleasant online customer reviews. The findings demonstrate positive emotion bias for online customer reviews, and carry important practical implications for both sellers and customers.     

Brand Loyalty and Price Promotion Strategies: An Empirical Analysis

Though brand loyalty has been studied extensively in the marketing literature, the relationship between brand loyalty and retail pricing strategies is not well understood. Designing promotion strategies involves two key decisions: the percentage reduction in price from the existing price point (depth), and the frequency with which a product is promoted. These decisions, in turn, are critically dependent upon how many consumers can be convinced to switch to a brand by temporarily reducing its price, and how many are instead brand loyal. Theoretical models of how the strength of brand loyalty influence optimal promotion strategies have been developed, but there are no rigorous tests of their hypotheses that take into account wholesale price variation. We test how brand loyalty impacts promotion strategies for two frequently purchased consumer packaged good categories. Our results confirm that retailers promote strong brands shallower and more frequently compared to brands with weak loyalty. Our results highlight the importance of carefully modeling wholesale prices when testing behavioral models on retail pricing.     

Why is Price Dispersion Higher Online than Offline? The Impact of Retailer Type and Shopping Risk on Price Dispersion

When physically similar products, of similar quality, are offered by retailers both online and offline, we often observe that the dispersion in prices of these products online is greater than the price dispersion offline. This observation runs counter to early theories that suggested price dispersion online would be smaller than that offline due to the ease of search and information availability online. This paper investigates and provides an explanation for this puzzling phenomenon by examining the impact of two important drivers of price dispersion: retailer type and consumers’ shopping risk. Retailer type refers to whether a retailer is a pure offline, pure online, or dual channel retailer. Shopping risk is defined as the product of consumers’ perceived risk of shopping and the transaction uncertainty related to shopping at different types of retailers.A game-theoretic approach is adopted to model consumers’ price search and product purchase, as well as price competition within and across retailer types in online and offline markets. Equilibrium pricing strategies are derived for different retailer types competing for different consumer segments with different levels of perceived shopping risk. The impact of retailer type and shopping risk on online versus offline price dispersion are quantified, and conditions when price dispersion is greater online than offline are identified.Results indicate that price dispersion is greater online when the number of pure online retailers is sufficiently large and is increasing in the number of pure online retailers. In addition, a reduction in online shopping risk may actually increase online price dispersion. Results further suggest that even without any online sales, dual channel retailers should maintain their online presence for the purpose of information dissemination, which justifies the importance for pure offline retailer to incorporate webrooming strategies, where consumers can search for prices online but purchase offline.     

数字偏好、尾数定价与线上非对称价格黏性

文章基于京东、苏宁、国美、天猫四家电商经营的六大类家电的价格数据，分析了数字偏好、尾数定价对中国线上市场价格黏性的非对称性的影响效应。研究发现，中国线上市场确实存在明显的数字偏好现象，具体有数字“0”“8”“9”，其中数字“9”为最受欢迎的尾数。基于Logit模型进一步发现：数字“0”“8”“9”对于产品价格变化存在非对称的影响作用；随着数字“0”“8”“9”结尾的位数越多，其阻碍价格变化的能力越强，非对称的影响作用也越加明显；若产品价格提高，以偏好数字结尾会显著降低价格变化的可能性；节日效应会显著削弱由偏好尾数给价格变化带来的负向阻碍作用，甚至成为加快价格上涨的一个重要因素。     

Profit for friends,fairness for strangers: Social distance reverses the endowment effect in proxy decision making

Buyers often price a product lower than sellers do, a pricing discrepancy known as the endowment effect. We investigated the way buyers and sellers change their pricing decisions as a function of social distance when making decisions on behalf of another person. In Study 1, the pricing discrepancy persisted when making a decision for a close social contact whereas the pattern was reversed when making a decision for a distant social contact. Study 2 replicated this reversed pattern using a social proximity manipulation, and this effect was mediated by participants’ prioritizing of fairness over immediate profit of the transaction. The current work suggests that people allocate different value to objects depending on the subjective closeness towards another for whom they make the pricing decision.     

Addressing negative product attribute reviews: The case of advertising product attributes and corporate social responsibility information

Negative product reviews are bad for businesses. They can adversely affect product sales, brand evaluations, and brand loyalty. To attend to negative reviews, one approach is through advertising products or company virtues. The current study examines the efficacy of different advertising approaches (core product attribute advertising vs. non-core product attribute advertising vs. corporate social responsibility [CSR] advertising) in helping dilute the negative effect of dissimilar negative product attribute reviews (negative core product attribute reviews vs. negative non-core product attribute reviews). Through four experiments, we found that when the non-core attribute of a product had negative reviews, a core attribute advertising approach weakened the effect of negative reviews. However, CSR advertising was less effective. Furthermore, when the core attributes of a product had negative reviews, a non-core attribute advertising effort did not weaken, but actually augmented the impact of negative reviews. In addition, when the core attributes of a product received negative reviews, CSR advertising decreased the influence of negative reviews. Our findings provide theoretical and managerial implications for managing negative online reviews of product attributes.     

Effects of sales promotion type and promotion depth on consumer perceptions: the moderating role of retailer reputation

This study uses a between-subjects experimental design to test the effect of two sales promotion formats (coupon versus markdown) with either high and low face values on consumer attitudes toward the deal, perceived product quality, and purchase intentions. The reputation of the retailer offering the deal is predicted to moderate the relationship between the promotional offer and consumer responses. Consumers perceive product quality to be higher when offered a high value coupon vs. markdown but there is no significant difference in perceived quality across promotion types when the promotion face value is low. When a deep price discount is offered by a retailer with a negative reputation, however, consumers have more favorable attitudes toward the deal and higher purchase intentions when provided with a markdown vs. coupon. Conversely, a high value coupon elicits more favorable evaluations than a markdown when the retailer has a positive reputation. When the value of the promotion is low and the retailer has a positive reputation, consumers have more positive deal attitudes and purchase intentions when offered a markdown vs. coupon. There is no significant difference in the effects of promotion type when the retailer has a negative reputation. The findings therefore establish retailer reputation as an important moderator of sales promotions effectiveness. This research is limited by the use of a single product category and a student sample. Process measures are also needed to validate the proposed theoretical conceptualization. The results provide managers insight into the type and value of the sales promotion to offer based on consumer perceptions of the retailer's reputation in the market.