The interaction of retail density and music tempo: Effects on shopper responses

Research examining the effects of store environment on shoppers has found that a number of atmospheric cues have significant effects on shoppers' cognitive, affective, and behavioral responses. To date, retail atmospheric cues have been studied in isolation, instead of simultaneously, like they occur in the retail setting. This study examines the interactive effects of two atmospheric cues—retail density and music tempo—and their impact on shopper responses within a real shopping environment. Based on the schema incongruity model, it is found that shopper hedonic and utilitarian evaluations of the shopping experience are highest under conditions of slow music/high density and fast music/low density. Significant main effects of music tempo are found for behavioral responses such as approach/avoidance tendency and extent of browsing behavior. The results underscore the need to examine interactive effects of atmospheric cues to better understand the impact of the store environment on shoppers. © 2005 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

Customers�� zone of tolerance for retail stores

The present study describes the zone of tolerance for customers’ service expectations and determines their satisfaction level for retail stores. It attempts to diagnose the service quality level of customers’ in retail store setting. A conceptual model RETZOT is presented in this study, and the results demonstrate that evaluation of services can be scaled according to different types of expectations—‘desired’ and ‘adequate’—and that customers use these two types of expectations as a comparison standard in evaluating retail store services. The findings reveal that customers have a narrow zone of tolerance with regards to the services provided by retail stores.     

Managing customer loyalty through the mediating role of satisfaction in the DIY retail loyalty program

The focus of this study is the determinants of customer loyalty among members of retail loyalty programs. With data collected from a DIY loyalty program in a Central European country (a preliminary sample of 116 club members and a representative sample of 416 members), the study empirically tests the nature of the effect of the quality of personal interactions and perceptions of the quality of the loyalty program on customer loyalty through the mediating variable of customer satisfaction. Although the findings suggest that the quality of personal interactions bears no direct influence on members’ loyalty, it has a stronger influence on members’ satisfaction than the perceived quality of the loyalty program does. Influence on members’ loyalty is stronger from the mediating variable of customer satisfaction than from perceived quality of the loyalty program. This finding confirms the role of customer satisfaction as an important determinant of customer loyalty in the DIY setting. Offering a diagnostic tool in terms of selected direct and indirect determinants influencing customers’ loyalty, the paper also contributes to comprehension of loyalty programs’ effectiveness and members’ responses to the quality of loyalty programs, which contribution provides important implications for management and development of retail loyalty programs.     

The Relationships Among Manager-, Employee-, and Customer-Company Identification: Implications For Retail Store Financial Performance

Based on the premise of an interpersonal “chain of influence” with respect to organizational identification, we posit a relationship between company managers, employees, and customers with respect to organizational identification with the retailer. Specifically, we hypothesize that the level of a store manager's identification with the retailer is positively related to the level of their store employees’ identification with the retailer, which in turn is positively related to the level of customers’ identification with the retailer, which results in increased levels of store financial performance. We investigate these relationships using data from 306 retail stores within a single retail chain.     

Pricing dynamics in US fresh produce channels: new empirical evidence

Despite many valuable contributions, prior research has not completely explained retail pricing behavior. This study employs scanner data for 36 fresh produce items analyzing the relationship between costs of goods sold and retail prices to provide further insight into retail pricing behavior. Implications include: (1) where ‘natural’ variation in produce prices do not already exist from the supplier, retailers appear to introduce the variation themselves, independent from shipping point price; and (2) to the extent that supplier-retailer contracts for fresh produce develop, the resulting stabilizing influence on costs may have the preserve effect of increasing retail price variability to consumers.     

A Strategic Perspective on Delivery Systems in UK Retail Banking

The pre-eminence of the bank branch as an effective delivery system arose from the difficulties associated with marketing financial services. The branch provides a highly efficient mechanism for administering, collecting and delivering cash as well as a wide range of lending and ancillary services. Historically, branch networks arose to attract cheap retail deposits through the convenience of the branch location itself, and through branch-based payment systems. Indeed, the relationship between the customer and the branch underpins the whole banking process. However, the branch's exclusive function is tenable only so long as the assumptions and conditions that determined its historical position hold good. These assumptions are that the market will continue to respond to it, that it will remain the basis for patterns of competitive behaviour, and that more effective and economic delivery systems will not emerge. This article presents the view that these assumptions are in fact being undermined, particularly by innovations in technology, which will necessitate a complete rethink of future strategy in retail branch banking.     

Determining Relationship Quality in the Development of Business-to-Business Financial Services

ABSTRACT

The quality of relationships built with customers during the New Service Development (NSD) process is a current concern of researchers in relationship marketing (and NSD) and is particularly important in a highly competitive environment characterised by rapidly changing customer needs like the one of financial services. The primary relationship analyzed in relationship marketing is the one between seller and buyer, but the focal type of relationship for new product and service development is the one termed “the knowledge relationship” (Gummesson 2002), a relationship used to create knowledge. This paper reports the results of in depth qualitative research on the factors that impact on the quality of such relationships developed between new service developers and their customers during the NSD process of business-to-business financial services. Results show that the most important factors that affect relationship quality are: communication quality of the relationship; the development of strong relationship bonds; the quality of relationship partners; a strong customer orientation in NSD based on a proactive approach of relationship partners during the NSD process, and proficiency in knowledge brokering.     

Customer satisfaction study via a latent segment model

The aim of this study is to apply a new conceptual model, and a new technique as an approach to the modelling of customers’ satisfaction, and to develop an overall satisfaction index (OSI). This study evaluates customers’ satisfaction of a certain public organization service, and argues that in order to estimate the global customers’ satisfaction measure we must appeal to methodologies recognizing that satisfaction must be understood as a latent variable, quantified through multiple indicators. Thus, it is natural that we consider the latent segment models (LSM) approach to proceed to the evaluation of customer's service satisfaction. As a result of these models estimation, we selected a three latent segment model, that is to say, the latent variable customer satisfaction has three classes: segment 1, with 50.4 percent of the customers, that represents “The Very Satisfied”, for those to whom everything is very well in the organization service; a segment 2, with 33.4 percent of the customers, representative of the “The Well Satisfied”, not totally satisfied with the quality of the organization, and a segment 3, with 16.2 percent of the customers, “Satisfaction Demanders”, thinking that organizational quality can be improved. Finally, we developed an overall satisfaction index which is important to show how the company as a whole is performing.     

Banks,grocers and the changing retailing of financial services in Britain

The entry of the three largest grocery retailers into retail financial services marks an escalation of competition in financial services retailing in Britain. This paper explores the increasingly porous boundaries between banking and retailing, focusing on changes in the economics of information gathering, shifts in the production, marketing and consumption of retail financial services, and a series of changes in the competitive and regulatory environment of grocery retailing. The paper argues that grocery retailers’ moves into financial services raise important issues concerning both the management of strategic alliances and their impact on social inclusion and exclusion. The paper elaborates on this argument by examining four potentially problematic issues arising from the alliances between banks and retailers: the shifting geographies of financial services provision, the development and maintenance of brand leadership, the production and use of management knowledge and consumers’ access to financial services.     

International evidence on the relative importance of the determinants of earnings forecast accuracy

We analyze earnings forecasting errors made by financial analysts for 18 developed countries over the 1990–2006 period. We use the Heston–Rouwenhorst approach to unravel country-, industry-, and firm-specific effects as a source of variation in financial analysts’ earnings forecast errors. We first estimate each effect with a dummy variable regression, and then decompose the variance of forecast errors into different effects. We provide evidence that the differences between countries, industrial sectors, and analyst-following offer a weak explanation for differences in forecast errors. Country effects however largely dominate industry and analyst-following effects. By contrast, the type of earnings (profits or losses)—and variations in earnings (increases or decreases) play a significant role in the forecast accuracy of financial analysts.     

Shaping Retail Brand Personality Perceptions by Bodily Experiences

Customer experiences play an important role in retail brand management. This research investigates how bodily experiences in retail environments influence customers’ perceptions of retail brand personalities. Based on research on human personality perception, we propose that bodily experiences transfer metaphoric meaning to customers’ brand perceptions. In a field experiment and a lab experiment we manipulated participants’ bodily experiences (feeling of hardness and temperature) and consistently found a metaphor-specific transfer of experiences to retail brand personality perceptions (on the dimensions “ruggedness” and “warmth”). A third study reveals the mechanism behind the effect and demonstrates concept activation elicited by bodily experiences in customers’ minds.     

Customers' Responses to Retail Brand Extensions

This paper considers the relationship between a core brand built around retail operations and an extension built around financial services operations. The fundamental question that underlies the paper asks whether a successful/unsuccessful implementation of financial services brand extension impacts positively/negatively on the core retail brand. Findings from over 1000 responses indicate that the retailer brand extensions under investigation do have a significant impact on the core brand. Further analysis, using customers who have experienced the brand extension versus those that have not, reveals that this impact can be negative as well as positive. That is, where a customer perceives the brand extension to be implemented poorly the relationship between the customer and the original brand is compromised.     

关于加快杭州市现代服务业发展的思考

针对杭州市服务业发展中存在的金融业、批发和零售业增加值增幅回落、服务需求减弱、利用外资回落等主要问题,提出加大＂休闲产业＂的培育力度、培育提升一些特色潜力服务行业、优化服务业政策发展环境、加快传统服务业转型升级、加快推进社区服务业发展、注重培育新业态、积极打造全国文化创意产业中心、实施服务外包、建设中国电子商务之都等加快发展杭州现代服务业建议。     

It's Closing Time: Territorial Behaviors from Customers in Response to Front Line Employees

Retailers can benefit from an increased understanding of how human territoriality affects their relationships with customers. In the context of closing time, we show that issuance of boundary markers, or closing time cues, before the closing time boundary can result in perceptions of territory intrusion and territorial responses from customers. In study 1, we identify six types of cues used by employees to signal to customers the closing time boundary is approaching: productive, personal, audio–visual, withdrawal, hostility, and blocking cues. Three additional studies show these cues affect customers’ perceptions of intrusion pressure and their subsequent territorial responses, including: retaliation, abandonment and accession (studies 2–4) and negative word of mouth and temporary abandonment (study 4). Additionally, identification with the store can heighten or dampen the effects of customers’ perceptions of encroachment on their territorial responses (studies 3 and 4), depending on the retail context.     

Retail environment and manufacturer competitive intensity

We study how the intensity of competition and the degree to which manufacturers enjoy market power depends on the retail environment in a given market. Past research has discussed the growing importance of retailers and the power they enjoy over manufacturers. Yet, the empirical literature to date has not determined which retail characteristics have the largest impact on competitive behavior.Our starting point is the estimation of a structural demand-and-supply model, where both consumers’ decisions and the strategic interactions between manufacturers and retailers are explicitly modeled. We identify the type of competitive behavior of manufacturers by measuring the deviation from a Bertrand-Nash equilibrium. This measure of competitive conduct is expressed as a function of key retail characteristics such as size of the retailer, its assortment depth, and category expertise.We illustrate the proposed approach using data for the ground coffee category in Germany. Our findings indicate that retail characteristics have indeed a significant effect on competitive intensity among upstream firms and on their ability to exercise market power. Hence, a manufacturer considering entry into a new market should not only take into account its competitors but also the specifics of the retail environment in this market.     

Has financial attitude impacted the trading activity of retail investors during the COVID-19 pandemic?

Financial attitude influences the financial behavior of retail investors. Although the extant research has acknowledged and examined this relationship, the measures of financial attitude and behavior still vary widely and are generally posed as a series of questions rather than statements. In addition to this, there is insufficient knowledge regarding retail investors' behavior in the face of a health crisis, such as the current COVID-19 pandemic. This study addresses these gaps in the prior literature by examining the relative influence of six dimensions of financial attitude, namely, financial anxiety, optimism, financial security, deliberative thinking, interest in financial issues, and needs for precautionary savings, on the trading activity of retail investors during the pandemic. Data were collected from 404 respondents and analyzed using the artificial neural network (ANN) method. The results revealed that all six dimensions had a positive influence on trading activity, with interest in financial issues exerting the strongest influence, followed by deliberative thinking. The study thus contributes important inferences for researchers and managers.     

The Application of a Relationship Marketing Perspective in Retail Banking

This article considers the development of relationship marketing in retail financial services. It begins by examining the relationship marketing literature and considering its application to the retail banking industry. Following a discussion of the research methodology, four in-depth retail bank case studies are presented. These cases form the basis of a qualitative analysis of the state of relationship marketing in retail banking. Many banks have already reached a higher level of relationship marketing than businesses in other sectors. Yet generic relationship marketing models such as the one applied in this research do not necessarily reflect these differences. A modified version of a relationship marketing model, which caters for the particular characteristics of retail banks and which may be applicable to other services businesses, is therefore proposed.     

Photo-elicitation: Using photographs to read retail interiors through consumers' eyes

Researchers studying experiences in retail environments have typically focused their attention towards positivistically examining the influence of individual atmospheric variables upon customer behavior. In this respect photographs are common environmental simulation techniques. This approach concerns not only researchers active in consumer culture, but also interior architects and retail designers, working in a disciplinary tradition that maintains that interiors function as “Gestalt” environments, interacting with their users. In this paper, the authors aim to develop understanding of retail environments as sites of complex sensory experiences and the application of photo-elicitation as an interpretive research methodology concerning experiences in retail environments. The paper discusses the results of two exploratory studies within selected retail environments, and demonstrates the value of photo-elicitation in gaining insight into experiences in retail interiors. Photo-elicitation thus contributes new knowledge of the retail environment, and adds value to positivistic research approaches that have predominated in this field.     

Multi-channel service retailing: The effects of channel performance satisfaction on behavioral intentions

The number of channels that retailers can use interchangeably to provide customer service has increased. We report on a study of clients of a large retail bank that investigates the channel performance satisfaction-behavioral intentions relationship when the traditional service channel (i.e., branch office) is extended with technology-mediated channels (i.e., internet banking and telephone banking). For routine services, our findings suggest that behavioral intentions are most strongly influenced by satisfaction with office-related performance factors. For nonroutine services, satisfaction with service employee performance is the most significant driver of intentions. Our analysis also reveals interaction effects between traditional and technology-mediated channel performance satisfaction levels. These effects vary across service types, indicating contingencies in channel substitution and complementarity.