Using the Internet to Facilitate Outshopping by Rural Residents: Survey and Implications

ABSTRACT

Outshopping is the behavior of consumers who make retail purchases outside of the community in which they live. Outshopping is most prevalent in rural communities and represents a serious threat to rural retailers. This paper investigates the impact of the Internet on outshopping by rural residents and examines behavior, attitudes, and future intentions. The study results indicate that rural consumers are using the Internet to facilitate outshopping and intend to significantly increase this behavior. These future intentions appear to be driven by high levels of satisfaction with the online buying experience. Implications for rural retailers are discussed.     

Building Consumer Relationships Electronically

Abstract

This article addresses a set of interrelated issues in electronic Consumer Relationship Management (eCRM). The focus is specifically on an e-tailing context which consists of (a) consumers purchasing search goods of medium price, that (b) are delivered physically. The discussion deals with: (1) the relational needs of online consumers; (2) whose relational commitment emerges from a staged process; (3) involving an accumulated series of satisfying transactions; (4) that may entail different transaction types; and (5) with satisfaction on any given occasion being based on achievement relative to their expectations. These five components form a framework for building the eCRM business. The archetype for this e-tailing format is Amazon.com which, therefore, is used as a running example.     

The Internet as a Shopping/Purchasing Tool: An Empirical Investigation

ABSTRACT

Despite prolific growth in the number of Internet web sites, significant increases in the advertising and other promotional expenditures for Internet advertising, and the fact that millions of consumers are shopping for and spending billions of dollars purchasing products via the Internet, marketers have a limited understanding of Internet-related consumer behaviors. This study presents the results of an empirical study designed to investigate the degree to which one segment of that market–college/university students–has access to the Internet, shops for and purchases products via the Internet, and perceives the Internet as an alternative to more traditional shopping methods. More general uses of the Internet by this market segment are also explored, as are the impacts of consumer knowledge and experience with the Internet on on-line shopping and purchasing.     

Website evaluation criteria among US college student consumers with different shopping orientations and Internet channel usage

The purpose of this study was to compare the website evaluation criteria among college student consumers in the US with different shopping orientations and Internet channel usage (i.e. online information searchers, online purchasers). The sample for this research was 414 college students, non‐married and aged 18–22 who have experience in visiting websites selling apparel products. Five apparel website evaluation criteria were identified by factor analysis (i.e. product information, customer service, privacy/security, navigation, auditory experience/comparison shopping). Based on shopping orientation factors, cluster analysis revealed three shopping orientation clusters (i.e. Hesitant In‐home Shoppers, Practical Clothing Shoppers, Involved Clothing Shoppers). Factorial manova showed that website evaluation criteria were significantly different among college student consumers with different shopping orientations and between online information searchers and online purchasers. Implications and limitations of the study are discussed.     

When Do Online Consumers Shop in an Offline Store: The Moderating Effects of Product Characteristics

This study serves as an initial attempt to demonstrate empirically how online consumers react to the offline channel extensions (i.e., opening physical stores) of e-tailers. Specifically, we examine how the attributes of offline channels influence consumer intentions to switch to offline channels and how they also lead to incremental demands on online channels. We investigate how these effects vary across highly complex utilitarian and hedonic products. The results of the study indicate that although store openings encourage online consumers to shop there when purchasing highly complex utilitarian products, the addition of offline stores results counterintuitively in incremental patronage of the online channels when consumers shop for highly complex hedonic products. This study validates the guiding role of product characteristics in designing offline channels for e-tailers and suggests that incorporating product type and complexity into the design is likely to contribute to the development of stores tailored to specific consumer segments.     

Potential of the Internet as a Retailing Channel in South Africa

Abstract

This study examines the factors affecting retailers perceptions of the Internet as a potential retail channel. It examines the environmental factors as well as the organizational factors impacting on the potential of Internet retailing. Results are reported from 102 South African retailing chain organizations across all categories. The authors discuss the results and provide some guiding points for retailers who intend to use the Internet as a retailing channel in the future.     

Drivers of E-store Patronage Intentions: Choice Overload,Internet Shopping Anxiety,and Impulse Purchase Tendency

The dotcom era has infused a rapid increase in the usage of e-commerce in India, making online shopping the new way of retailing. This study investigates online consumers’ e-store patronage intentions, specifically modeling the ties from broad dispositional traits including choice overload, Internet shopping anxiety, and impulse purchase tendency among online shoppers. Based on the responses of 243 online shoppers, the findings suggest that consumers’ e-store patronage has a positive relationship with choice overload such that availability of larger assortments online results in a higher possibility of consumers’ patronage toward such e-tailers. Choice overload in the online context was also found to positively influence consumers’ impulse purchase tendency and showed a positive effect on Internet shopping anxiety. Furthermore, results indicate that the impulse purchase tendency of online shoppers had a significant positive effect on e-store patronage intentions, while Internet shopping anxiety was found to negatively affect the patronage intentions of shoppers.     

Order management for profit on the Internet

To succeed, Internet retailers must make a profit on the goods and services they sell. But e-tailers are still searching for strategies that work. To test current practices, we became “phantom shoppers” and bought a randomly chosen set of CDs from a variety of Internet retailers. Our findings suggest that order management and logistics skills are pivotal for selling profitably on the Internet. In this article, we show how Internet retailers can deploy resources creatively to attract the right shoppers, convert these shoppers into buyers, and improve the chances of repeat purchase while maintaining profit margins.     

Exploring customer sentiment regarding online retail services: A topic-based approach

User-generated content is a valuable source for understanding online shoppers' emotions. Using text-mining techniques, this study identifies seven topics regarding online retail services in online posts: product, retailer promotion, delivery, payment, communication, return/refund, and price. The topics are associated with the sentiment polarity of online shoppers' posts. This study further explores whether the emotional responses from domestic and cross-border online shoppers differ with regard to these topics. The results show that differences exist in these two groups' sentiments concerning product and payment. Furthermore, there are differences in the two groups’ respective negative emotions (i.e., anger, sadness, and fear) concerning delivery, communication, and return/refund. The findings of this study provide online retailers with important managerial implications.     

The Hierarchy of Internet Communication Effects: A New Paradigm for Understanding Internet Promotion

ABSTRACT

The applicability of the traditional marketing models to online marketplaces has been of great interest since the advent of the Internet. This study examines the applicability of the Hierarchy of Communication Effects model to the online auction environment through the use of proprietary archival data. The results provide support for a new model, which we call the Hierarchy of Internet Communications Effects, which is applicable to online environments. The Hierarchy of Internet Communications Effects is analogous to other hierarchical effects models from consumer behavior literature known as the learning hierarchies. We provide suggestions to promote products or services at different stages in the Hierarchy of Internet Communications Effects; several implications and limitations are discussed, and future research is suggested.     

Performance Implications of Online Entry Timing by Store-Based Retailers: A Longitudinal Investigation

This paper utilizes Time Series Cross-Sectional (TSCS) Regression techniques to investigate long-term performance effects of the timing of online sales adoption by incumbent bricks-and-mortar retailers. Its findings support the resource-based theory of competitive advantage by showing that firm-specific resource endowments (bricks-and-mortar experience, catalog experience and firm size) determine the success of the order of online entry strategy. The study contributes to the development of strategic theory in the areas of multi-channel retailing and electronic commerce and assists managers in formulating more informed strategic objectives for achieving multi-channel competitive advantage.     

A study of cross‐border outshopping determinants: mediating effect of outshopping enjoyment

Outshopping has been studied in the marketing literature for years, and research has identified some compelling reasons for people to shop out of their home country. Outshoppers literally go extra miles to outshop for better quality and assortment of merchandise, higher quality of personal service, more pleasant shopping atmospherics, and more competitive prices. In this study, we propose that outshopping enjoyment is not only directly related to outshopping, as are the earlier outshopping determinants, but mediate the relationships between those cognitive determinants and outshopping behaviour. In addition, we explore how patriotism and terror would affect people's outshopping frequency. Managerial and research implications are also discussed.     

One Vs. Many: who wins? An empirical investigation of online product display

ABSTRACT

This study questions the unharmonious ways of product displays in online grocery retailing and aims to find if visual complexity of the product display has any impact on behavioral outcomes of online grocery shoppers. Our main finding was that visually complex images, i.e. images with a high number of elements have a negative effect on affective and cognitive states resulting in decreased behavioral intentions. However, when the number of elements in the product display was decreased, i.e. the visual complexity of the product display was reduced, shoppers’ cognitive and affective responses and intentions were similar to when they were exposed to noncomplex images. We also found that arousal and pleasure (parallel mediators) absorption, telepresence, utilitarian and hedonic values and perceived ease of use (serial mediators) mediate the effect that the product display has on behavioral intentions.     

Consumer vulnerability and the transformative potential of Internet shopping: An exploratory case study

Abstract

Ten million individuals in the UK who suffer from long-term illness, impairments, or disability can be considered as vulnerable consumers (Office for Disability Issues, 2010 Office for Disability Issues (2010). General Demographics. http://www.officefordisability.gov.uk/disability-statistics-and-research/disability-facts-and-figures.php#gd (http://www.officefordisability.gov.uk/disability-statistics-and-research/disability-facts-and-figures.php#gd) (Accessed: 1 February 2011).  [Google Scholar]). Despite this, there are few studies on the use of the Internet for grocery shopping by the disabled and none which offers an understanding of the multiple facets of consumer vulnerability. The purpose of this study is to contextualise the use of the Internet for grocery shopping using an exploratory case to provide fresh insights into the ‘actual’ vulnerability of ‘Danni’ – a disabled housewife and mother. The consumer-focussed methods used here were combined multiple complementary approaches. The findings illustrate that whilst the use of the Internet reduces the impracticalities of shopping in-store, the normalcy afforded to Danni through shopping in-store (including her sense of self) was not met by the technological offerings. The paradoxes associated with using online provision and the strategies adopted to manage these by Danni demonstrate engagement/disengagement and assimilation/isolation. Policy implications and insights for retailers are provided.     

Creating customer repurchase intention in Internet retailing: The effects of multiple service events and product type

Internet retailing literature shows that customers׳ experience with a retailer׳s website and order fulfillment separately influence repurchase intention. This study examines these two experiences׳ interactive effects on repurchase intention. Our research model includes a product type as a moderator, because the type of product can likewise affect a customer׳s experience with the retailer׳s website and order fulfillment. Results of multiple-group structural equation modeling (SEM) from customer reviews of 306 Internet retailers demonstrate that the interactive effects of a web site experience and order fulfillment are significant. In the interactive mechanism, order fulfillment experience is proven to serve as a proximal cause of repurchase intention. The moderating role of product type is significant as well. This finding suggests that practitioners should have unmatched measures for retailing different types of goods.     

Food shopping behaviour in Scotland: the influence of relative rurality

Despite a number of studies investigating consumer food purchase behaviour, few studies actually address the nature of the rural consumer. This may have implications for the generalization of much research on food purchase behaviour, as official estimates of the UK rural population vary between 8.5% and 24%. This paper compares and contrasts the food shopping behaviour of customers in rural and urban areas in Scotland. Particular focus is given on respondent characteristics, attitudes towards rural and urban locations, distance travelled for food shopping purposes and store patronage. Results from the research emphasize the notion that rural and urban retailing should be conceptualized as a continuum rather than being regarded as dichotomous, and a conceptual framework is proposed.     

A Model of Factors Affecting the Growth of Retailing on the Internet

We propose a model that links factors affecting the growth of retailing on the Internet (the Net). Specifically, we examine the roles of the following factors: product-related (risk, efforts, and information intensity); medium-related (interactivity, variety of channels, logical capability, and underlying communication model); consumer-related (preference for home-based shopping, technical orientation, and access to the Net); firm-related (information intensity and expertise in direct marketing), and environment-related (critical mass of consumers and retailers online). We examine how at each stage of the consumption process, Net-based retailing affects value delivery to consumers. Managerial implications of the model are discussed.     

Measuring ease of use of mobile applications in e-commerce retailing from the perspective of consumer online shopping behaviour patterns

Scientifically judging and comparing different mobile e-commerce retailing applications (apps) are essential to increase online shopping efficiency and enhance design for system improvement. In this research, the use of mobile apps in e-commerce retailing is viewed as an information operation process, and distance of information-state transition (DIT) theory is introduced to measure the “convenience” of mobile apps to obtain service information. Thus, a novel DIT-based evaluation method for the ease of use of mobile apps in e-commerce retailing from the perspective of consumer online shopping behaviour patterns is proposed. Three representative Chinese enterprises, namely, Tianmao Mall, Jingdong Mall and Suning Easy-to-buy, are chosen as study objects. Moreover, the corresponding ease-of-use indicators of three mobile apps under typical online shopping behaviour patterns are evaluated quantitatively. Results show that this research has important implications not only for online consumers but also for designers of online shopping systems.     

Explicating the privacy paradox: A qualitative inquiry of online shopping consumers

Online consumers often voice discontent and concern over their privacy and yet fail to take adequate precautions. Nor do they abstain from disclosing information. This study aims to explore this phenomenon which is known as the privacy paradox. Based on semi-structured interviews with online shopping consumers and thematic analysis of data, this paper illuminates the privacy paradox using three themes: psychological distance of privacy, perceived social contracts of privacy, and learned helplessness and privacy empowerment. Our findings contribute to the privacy paradox discourse and provide several implications for consumers, online retailers, and policymakers.     

Demand and Revenue Management of Deteriorating Inventory on the Internet: An Empirical Study of Flash Sales Markets

In this study, we investigate demand and revenue management of deteriorating inventory in flash sales markets (FSM). Retailers operating FSM source excess inventories of products from secondary markets in fixed lot sizes and offer them as part of deals that get no replenishments and expire after running for predetermined periods (e.g., 24 hr) or when they sell out, whichever occurs first. We develop a demand forecasting model that incorporates the effects of sentiments conveyed by consumers in discussion forum posts associated with different deals on the deals’ empirical demand rates. We then conduct a survival analysis to find that the empirical demand rates projected from our forecasting model are significant predictors of the deals’ actual time to stockout, even after controlling for their initial inventory provisions and markdowns. We also find that the predicted effects of these demand rates on stockout times are stronger at low markdowns. Our investigation offers insights into different strategies that sellers operating FSM can pursue to improve their inventory performance. These strategies involve decisions that sellers must make both a priori, before deals start, and a posteriori, according to real‐time detection of departures from projected demand rates as deals run their course.