公共环境政策如何影响消费者行为——来自中国限制塑料袋使用政策的自然实验证据

以减少塑料袋垃圾为目标,我国于2008年6月执行了强制全国所有商品零售商对塑料购物袋收费的政策。本研究以该政策的执行为契机,运用自然实验研究方法,在政策执行前后分别开展大规模调查,以收集个人消费者塑料袋消费行为信息,从而获得独特数据,对这项涉及面极广的公共环境政策对消费者行为的影响进行定量分析。结果表明,塑料袋消费量的减幅在完全执行政策的超市达到近80%,而在未完全执行政策的农贸市场也接近60%,并且政策执行使与塑料袋消费相关的塑料袋使用效率、替代品使用行为等也发生了显著变化。此外,政策执行力度、消费者对政策的态度以及消费者的社会经济特征也显著影响塑料袋消费,而且该政策的影响在不同消费者群体、不同地区及不同类型购物场所存在显著差异。     

“Tax” and “Fee” Frames in Green Advertisements: The Influence of Self-Transcendence in Reusable Bag Usage

Increasing the use of reusable shopping bags is one of many actions that consumers can take to reduce waste and conserve energy. However, this goal is somewhat daunting because it requires a significant behavior change on the part of consumers. Taking their self-transcendence into consideration, the current study used an experimental method to examine which type of message frame best influenced shoppers to use reusable bags: a fee (gain) or a tax (loss). Findings show that high self-transcendent participants were more environmentally conscious and that, overall, a penalty framed as a tax was more effective. Implications are discussed.     

How special rewards in loyalty programs enrich consumer–brand relationships: The role of self-expansion

Although brands offer different kinds of rewards through their loyalty programs, little is known about how they can impact consumer–brand relationships and brand attitude. How do loyalty program rewards influence the consumer–brand relationship? And which kinds of rewards establish or maintain closer relationships between consumers and brands than others? To answer these questions, the present research makes use of self-expansion theory (Aron & Aron, 1986) and two experiments that manipulate the extraordinary character of rewards offered to consumers. Our findings show that special rewards produce higher self-expansion than mundane rewards. Moreover, the positive effect of the rewards’ extraordinary character on brand evaluation, recommendation, and identification is sequentially and fully mediated by self-brand inclusion and self-expansion. Finally, we show that consumer satisfaction moderates the impact of special and mundane rewards on self-brand inclusion.     

Make me special: Gender differences in consumers’ responses to loyalty programs

Current literature on loyalty programs emphasizes the importance of psychological rewards and special treatment. However, it is not clear if male and female customers respond to these incentives in a similar way. We explore the differential effect for female versus male consumers of two psychological rewards that are provided through a loyalty program (a) high status (e.g., Gold membership), and (b) personalization, at different levels of visibility to other consumers. Across three experiments and a field study, we find a coherent pattern of gender differences in the way customers respond to different types of psychological rewards in the context of loyalty programs. The results show that men respond more positively than women to loyalty programs that emphasize status, but only when their higher status is highly visible to others. In contrast, women respond more positively than men to loyalty programs that emphasize personalization, but only for personalization in private settings. We discuss managerial implications for the design of loyalty programs.     

Consumers’ Behaviors and Attitudes toward Doggy Bags: Identifying Barriers and Benefits to Promoting Behavior Change

ABSTRACT

This study identifies barriers and benefits of consumers’ current doggy bag behaviors and provides the information required to run an effective community-based social marketing campaign encouraging consumers to take their uneaten restaurant and café food home. This is done by applying a two-stage methodology, including quantitatively analyzing existing survey data and qualitatively investigating focus group discussion. Multiple barriers to widespread doggy bag participation were common and varied for different individuals and included both convenience and social stigma-related factors. The rational appeal of “saving money” was found to be the most effective motivator for encouraging doggy bag usage, especially for women, young people, students/unemployed, and low-income earners. Social marketing strategies and behavior change tools can be developed to remove the barriers and enhance the benefits of using doggy bags, such as developing positive social norms around using doggy bags and highlighting the financial incentive of using them. This research contributes to a limited but growing literature on out-of-home food waste and provides practicable insights for both public policy and for the food service sector for future initiatives aiming to reduce food waste.     

Do reward programs build loyalty for services?: The moderating effect of satisfaction on type and timing of rewards

While reward programs have been widely used as a means to engender customer loyalty, it is not clear if the ends are justified. Some researchers argue that we do not fully understand the mechanism underlying reward programs and how it affects consumer acceptability of such programs. In this study, we examine two variables; timing (immediate vs. delayed) and type (direct vs. indirect) of rewards in two service conditions (satisfied vs. dissatisfied). We conduct the experiment in two service settings and the results indicate that when consumers are satisfied, they prefer delayed, direct rewards (of higher values) to immediate, direct rewards. However, when consumers are dissatisfied, they prefer immediate, direct rewards to delayed, direct rewards (of higher values). Interestingly, the preference for direct over indirect rewards is apparent only if the rewards are delayed (for the satisfactory service experience) or immediate (for the dissatisfactory service experience).     

Plastic bag politics: modifying consumer behaviour for sustainable development

The adverse environmental impacts of plastic bags, including production energy costs, limited lifespan, increasing landfill content and inability to biodegrade, provide symbolic and practical evidence of a ‘throwaway’ consumer culture which acts as a significant barrier to sustainable consumption in particular and sustainable development in general. Decoupling consumer behaviour from plastic bag use is therefore an important challenge in the pursuit of sustainable consumption as a precursor to achieving sustainable development. This article provides a critical evaluation of that challenge, set within the theoretical framework of sustainable development. It examines the adverse environmental impacts of plastic bag use and evaluates initiatives by governments and businesses internationally to change consumer behaviour regarding the use of plastic bags in line with sustainable development principles. The politics of this agenda are analysed using a combination of consumer policy and public policy perspectives. Finally, the article draws conclusions regarding the earlier analysis.     

Buying free rewards: the impact of a points-plus-cash promotion on purchase and reward redemption

While many studies have investigated consumer purchase behavior in reward programs, a better understanding of customer redemption behavior is lacking, particularly when promotions affect a core aspect of reward programs—free rewards. In this paper, we examine the impact of a promotion on purchase and reward redemption in a reward program in which consumers can partially cover the cost of a free reward with their money. The literature on reward programs suggests a positive reinforcement caused by reward redemption, whereas the literature on promotion provides different views regarding the existence of a postpromotion dip. Using data from a major retailer’s reward program, we verify that such a promotion attracted customers with less transaction activity and shorter tenure. Interestingly, consumers using the promotion increased their preference for hedonic rewards compared to their previously observed behavior. This change in preference persisted after the promotion ended. Overall, the promotion significantly increased the number of redemptions but generated a negative impact on subsequent consumer behavior by decreasing purchase incidence and quantity. Our findings point to a need to understand the trade-off between spending money on buying an otherwise free reward and future regular purchases.

     

Consumer benefits of policies and regulations in the tent and sleeping bag industry

The need for information on tents and sleeping bags, to enable consumers to make informed purchase decisions, is becoming more urgent as the popularity of outdoor activities increases. From an approach made to a number of companies with international sales of these items, it became obvious that there is a lack of regulation and that information on important attributes of tents (such as water repellency, wind resistance, breathability, ultraviolet resistance and durability) is sadly lacking. For sleeping bags, more of the critical details tend to be available, but the most important one of all, the temperature rating, is not provided in a standard form. The information obtained enabled the authors to speculate on the requirements for an ‘ideal’ tent and sleeping bag.     

The role of impulsive behaviour and meta-perception in referral reward programs

This study investigates the differences in referral likelihood and referral times of customers with different impulsive purchase propensity in the context of referral reward programs. One field experiment and two lab experiments demonstrated that when consumers have higher impulsive purchase propensity, consumers provided with referrer-benefit (only referrer awarded) rewards will have a higher referral likelihood than those provided with referee-benefit (referee can get the partial or full reward). This effect is mediated by meta-perceptions that people with a higher propensity for impulsive consumption are less likely to form the negative meta-perception. In addition, this study revealed that referral contexts (private and public communication environments) might have a moderating effect on consumers’ subsequent referrals (i.e., referral times). The negative effects of meta-perceptions stemming from the referrer-benefit rewards can be mitigated in private contexts.     

Managing loyalty program communications in the digital era: Does culture matter?

This research addresses an important, yet under-researched, issue concerning the real-time management of loyalty programs (LPs) in the digital era: how to leverage culture-specific communications to motivate LP members to pursue and redeem program rewards. Two experimental studies in different LP contexts provide corroborating evidence that to-date (to-go) progress feedback is more effective in motivating consumers from individualist (collectivist) cultures to pursue LP rewards. Moreover, process evidence suggests that these culture-specific progress framing effects are driven by individual differences in regulatory focus and realized through perceived reward attainability. Overall, this paper contributes to the LP and goal pursuit literatures by verifying that communication framing is an effective means to strengthen reward pursuit motivation.     

Understanding the antecedents of consumers' attitudes towards doggy bags in restaurants: Concern about food waste,culture, norms and emotions

Based on a qualitative study with 20 respondents in France and 20 respondents from the Czech Republic, this study aims to better understand how consumers’ concern about food waste, culture, social norms and emotions contribute to consumers’ attitudes and behaviors related to doggy bags. Results highlight a double paradox between conflicting norms and emotions: personal norms encourage not to waste while salient social norms encourage leaving leftovers; asking for a doggy bag generates immediate shame while leaving leftovers produces anticipated regret and guilt. Finally, the study sheds light on obstacles to overcome for the adoption of this social innovation.     

Tactics to Enhance the Effectiveness of Delayed Incentive Offerings in a Competitive Environment

Abstract

Managers often try to gain repeat purchases by using delayed incentives such as bounce-back coupons or continuity programs that require consumers to make multiple or long-run purchases to receive the incentive's reward. Yet, given a choice, consumers presumably would rather receive their rewards sooner, than later. We used choice scenarios in a study to identify tactics that likely result in consumers' preferences for incentive offers delayed in time over competitors' offers whose rewards are realized immediately. The results suggest that offering a delayed incentive that has a higher face value than competitors' immediate incentives may result in consumers choosing the delayed reward. Additionally, framing the incentives as gains appears to be more effective at acquiring consumers' choice than framing them as reduced losses. Finally, some limited findings indicate that targeting delayed incentive programs toward consumer segments high in future time orientation may be effective at gaining choice of delayed incentive offers.     

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.     

Cross-reward effects in a coalition loyalty program: The impact of a point currency devaluation

While single-brand reward programs encourage customers to remain loyal to that one brand, coalition programs encourage customers to be “promiscuous” by offering points redeemable across partner stores. Despite the benefits of this “open relationship” with customers, store managers face uncertainty as to how rewards offered by partners influence transactions at their own stores. We use a model of multi-store purchase incidence and spend to show how the value of points shared among partner stores can explain patterns in customer-level purchases across them. We also allow reward spillovers to be moderated by three measures of store affinity that characterize a coalition’s portfolio: the relative popularity, geographic distance, and overlap in product categories between each pair of stores.For the coalition studied, popularity affinity was the main determinant of the valence of cross-reward effects, both before and after the devaluation. In contrast, category and geographic affinity had a smaller and more heterogenous impact. Through the use of an event where the loyalty program uniformly devalued the entire coalition’s value of reward points, we show that cross-reward effects changed (lessened), leading to larger financial losses for the most popular stores. While we do not observe changes to the composition of the coalition’s portfolio, our results also suggest that the value of a shared reward currency may be driven by the inclusion of smaller partners.     

Shopping values of clothing retailers perceived by consumers of different social classes

With the advent of diverse forms of retailing, competition among retailers is becoming more intense. Due to this phenomenon, retailers now require marketing strategies that can differentiate themselves from other retailers. However, there is a lack of research on what kind of shopping values consumers perceive from the retailers they visit. This paper analyzes dimensions of shopping values consumers perceive and variations in perceived shopping values according to the types of clothing retailers, be it a department store, discount store, or internet shopping mall. More specifically, the paper analyzes the moderating effect of consumers’ different social class in perceiving the shopping values of each retailer. The results show that shopping value consists of five major constructs: experiential, diversional, reliable, efficient, and self-expressive shopping values. We also found that consumers perceive more experiential, diversional, and reliable shopping values in department stores and internet shopping malls than in discount stores, and self-expressive shopping value is highly perceived in department stores. However, consumers’ social class can moderate the perception of shopping values for department stores and internet shopping malls, but not for discount stores. Discount store shopping is likely to provide consistent shopping values to consumers of all classes. Based on these findings, managerial implications are then presented.     

A construction of consumer cognitive structures and their implications in furniture shopping decisions: a means-end chain approach

The main purpose of this study is to construct a hierarchical value map (HVM) based on an investigation of how consumers in Taiwan link attributes of furniture and home accessories stores with particular consequences, and how these consequences satisfy their personal values. Further, this study compares differences in consumer HVMs in terms of gender, as well as across different chain stores. This study used the means-end chain approach and laddering technique to interview 40 consumers of furniture and home accessories stores in Taiwan. We obtained six ladders regarding furniture and home accessories store consumption. From these ladders, this study found three critical store attributes (function, facility convenience, and price), four consequences that consumers care most about (shopping ease, comfort and pleasure, practicality, and integrated design), and three dominant values that consumers wish to achieve (warm family, pleasurable life, and security). The findings of this study can be used as a basis for market segmentation and the development of retail service marketing strategies.     

Retailer Categorization: How Store-Format Price Image Influences Expected Prices and Consumer Choices

Prior research indicates that consumers may base their retail decisions (e.g., store choice, purchase quantity) on price image, which has been defined as consumer perceptions “of the aggregate price level of a retailer” (Hamilton and Chernev 2013, p. 2). The present research shows that consumers associate different price images not only with specific retailers, but more broadly with various store formats — such as grocery stores, convenience stores, and specialty stores. Six studies provide evidence that store-format price image exerts influence on consumer price expectations and store choice decisions, and that these retailer categorization effects are distinct from the effects of retailer price image.     

The effect of loyalty program expiration policy on consumer behavior

Although loyalty programs can help divert costs to the future by using delayed rewards, unredeemed program currency can become significant liability for the firm. To alleviate this concern, many programs have introduced a point expiration date or have shortened their expiration time horizon. This issue of point expiration has received scant attention in the literature. Contrary to an intuitive negative effect one would expect from a more stringent expiration policy, our real-life data and lab experiment demonstrated that a finite expiration policy can affect purchases positively but only for consumers who have the flexibility to adapt their behavior to such a policy. We identified usage level and engagement in multi-store shopping as two sources contributing to flexibility. Overall, our findings point to a need to understand one’s customer base to design the optimal point expiration policy and program communication.     

Do Consumption Goals Matter? The Effects of Online Loyalty Programs in the Satisfaction‐Loyalty Relation

This study investigates the effects of online loyalty programs in the customer satisfaction‐loyalty relationship. It is proposed that loyalty programs may induce loyalty toward programs (program loyalty), which may then influence loyalty toward stores (store loyalty). According to the results of a two‐wave survey, consumption goals matter in the effects of program loyalty on online store loyalty. For consumers with hedonic goals, hedonic program loyalty (e.g., free gifts) has a significant effect on online loyalty. For consumers with utilitarian goals, however, utilitarian program loyalty (e.g., coupons) has a significant influence on online loyalty. Theoretical and managerial implications are also discussed.