The Impact of Category Captainship on the Breadth and Appeal of a Retailer's Assortment

Category captainship is a collaborative channel arrangement wherein a retailer cedes control of category management decisions, such as developing a marketing strategy to grow the category and assortment selection, to one of the category's leading manufacturers. This paper studies the consequences of captainship practices on the breadth and appeal of a retailer's assortment. We consider a model where multiple manufacturers sell a product to consumers through a common retailer. In the benchmark, the retailer decides on effort to drive traffic into the category and assortment. Under captainship, the retailer delegates both of these decisions to a captain in return for target sales. The capability of the captain to stimulate demand is unknown to the retailer. We find that the breadth and/or appeal of the assortment at the retailer can increase or decrease under captainship relative to the benchmark. We identify three factors that play a role on the impact of captainship on the breadth and appeal of retailer's assortment: (i) the retailer's beliefs about the captain's capability, (ii) the captain's true capability, and (iii) product set heterogeneity. We find that the benefit to the captain sometimes comes at the expense of the non-captain manufacturers, but we also identify conditions where captainship can be beneficial for not only the retailer and the captain but also the non-captain manufacturers.     

Consistency and Recovery in Retail Supply Chains

Practitioners and researchers describe inventory service level with metrics that communicate the likelihood of demand fulfillment without considering the ongoing capabilities of the supplier, for example, in‐stock and fill rate. We develop a method for measuring inventory service level that incorporates such supplier capabilities, namely consistency (the ability of a supplier to fulfill orders repeatedly) and recovery (the ability of a supplier to fulfill orders after a lapse in service). Using data from two retail supply chains, we illustrate our approach. To demonstrate the impact of consistency and recovery on supply chain performance, we model a retailer purchasing from competing suppliers with different levels of consistency and recovery. The model incorporates the retailer's uncertainty about demand and the retailer's uncertainty about its suppliers' service levels. We characterize how the retailer's orders and profitability change with a supplier's delivery performance through numerical experiments calibrated with field data. We find notable differences in market share across suppliers with similar traditional inventory service level metrics but differences in consistency and recovery. Further, we observe that a retailer can increase its profitability by determining orders via consistency and recovery in lieu of common metrics like in‐stock. Given the influence of consistency and recovery on supply chain outcomes, we discuss implications for practice and future research.     

Window displays and consumer shopping decisions

Window displays are an ubiquitous and prominent but under-researched element of retail strategy. This paper explores how the store and product category information communicated by a store's windows are related to consumers’ shopping decisions, such as store entry and product purchase, and how these relationships vary for consumer segments that differ in terms of their knowledge of the retailer's product(s). Results of a study conducted in the context of clothing retailers demonstrate that the store entry decision is related both directly as well as indirectly (through acquisition of inferred, store-related information) to the acquisition of observed, store-related information from window displays. However, it is product category-related information (e.g. fashion and product-self fit) rather than store-related information (e.g. merchandise and store image) that is more strongly associated with the product purchase decision. Moreover, consumers with medium levels of clothing knowledge are more influenced by windows in their shopping decisions than those with low or high levels.     

Return policy,No joke: An investigation into the impact of a retailer's return policy on consumers' decision making

This study investigates the important role of a retailer's return policy in consumers' decision making. Utilizing signaling theory and the Cue Diagnosticity framework, this study posits that return policy, as a cue from a retailer, interacts with other cues (product, price, and product quality) to reduce perceived purchase risk and increases store image and patronage intention. Employing factorial experiment design, the authors conduct two studies and find support for several hypotheses. Results show that consumers value return policies depending upon the situation. A lenient return policy drives down purchase risk and leads consumers to have positive store images and higher patronage intentions. Both theoretical and managerial implications of the findings are provided.     

Acquiring customers through online marketplaces? The effect of marketplace sales on sales in a retailer's own channels

Online retailers are increasingly using third-party online marketplaces (e.g., Amazon, Taobao) as an alternative sales channel to their website. While cross-channel sales elasticities have been established for many sales channel combinations (e.g., adding bricks to clicks), we lack an understanding of whether the use of third-party marketplaces grows or cannibalizes a retailer's sales. Practitioners argue that firms can build their e-commerce business through acquiring customers by selling on the marketplace. Indeed, a marketplace could complement a retailer's offering (e.g., acquiring new customer segments), although inventory effects might mitigate this complementarity. Alternatively, cannibalization might occur from losing customers from one's website to the online marketplace. The present research investigates which of the two opposing forces prevails using a time series of category sales data from one of the largest global marketplace sellers. The authors use vector autoregressive modeling to show that marketplace sales increase sales on a retailer's website (0.014% for every 1% in marketplace sales). This effect is strongest for categories with large choice and low product prices. Acquiring customers through the marketplace might be cheaper than through other sources (estimated at 24% of initial sales). However, online retailers should be aware that this strategy strengthens the marketplace and may have potential negative long-term consequences (e.g., through marketplace control of the customer relationship).     

The Effect of Stylistic Product Information on Consumers’ Aesthetic Responses

This paper investigates the effect of stylistic information about a product, defined as verbal product information aimed at helping consumers to interpret a product's visual design, on consumers’ aesthetic responses. The results of three experimental studies show that for consumers with higher centrality of visual product aesthetics (CVPA), stylistic information positively influences aesthetic responses through perceived meaningfulness of product design (i.e., the extent to which an individual is able to make sense of a product's visual appearance and understands what it represents). Further, these effects translate into consumers’ purchase intentions. For consumers with lower CVPA, stylistic information neither affects aesthetic responses nor perceived meaningfulness of product design. These findings contribute to existing research on consumers’ aesthetic processing by highlighting the importance for consumers to grasp a product's design meaning in order to maximally appreciate its visual appeal.     

Analyzing the effects of private-label supplier disclosure on retailer image

Private-label retailers' disclosures of dual manufacturing agreements—that is, agreements with manufacturers that produce both their own national brands and private labels—can affect the images associated with the retailers. In this study, an experiment reveals moderating effects on retailer images, according to the images of both the national brand manufacturers and the retailers; and also depending on the brand equity of the private label. A low-image retailer's disclosure that a national brand manufacturer supplies its private label causes consumers to perceive that the retailer has a higher image. However, the positive effects of private label supplier disclosure on the retailer's image are weaker when the private label enjoys high equity.     

Hubristic pride & prejudice: The effects of hubristic pride on negative word-of-mouth

Prior research has demonstrated how negative emotions influence negative word-of-mouth (NWOM). However, what if there exist certain positive emotions that influence consumers to spread NWOM? This research develops and tests a novel prediction that shows how a discrete positive emotion – hubristic pride – can increase intention to engage in NWOM following a service failure. Results from six experiments support this prediction. Further, this research shows that psychological entitlement drives the effect of hubristic pride. Moreover, this effect is attenuated when consumers are nudged to focus on helping others. This research builds on current theory involving emotion and NWOM, presents a number of areas for future research, and discusses managerial implications stemming from the findings.     

Interplays between manufacturer advertising and retailer store brand introduction: Agency vs. wholesale contracts

In retail supply chains, manufacturers' advertising for national brands and retailers' store brand introduction may relate to each other, and two types of contracts, i.e., agency contract and wholesale contract, are widely used. This paper uses game-theoretic models to investigate the strategic interaction between a manufacturer's advertising strategy and a retailer's store brand introduction strategy. We derive the equilibrium outcomes, including wholesale price, retail price, market demand, retailer's and manufacturer's profits under different contract forms. We find that when the product cost is small relative to the perceived value of the store brand, the introduction of a store brand will benefit the retailer. The retailer is more likely to introduce store brands under the wholesale contract than under the agency contract. In addition, compared with the wholesale contract, the agency contract may increase both the manufacturer's and the retailer's profits and lead to Pareto improvement for them.     

Examining consumers' continuous usage of multichannel retailers' mobile applications

This paper examines the variables influencing a consumer's satisfaction and continuous use of a multichannel retailer's mobile application. Drawing upon the Expectation Confirmation Model for Information Technologies, post-adoption literature, and consumer behavior literature, we assess pertinent factors on the continuous usage of multichannel retailers' mobile apps. Through a sample of 1009 consumers who retained a retailer's mobile app for more than 6 months and conducting Structural Equation Modelling, the findings illustrate that utilitarian variables (perceived usefulness, ease of use, and personalization), hedonic variables (perceived enjoyment), and a brand-related variable (consumer loyalty intention toward the retailer's brand), play a significant role in influencing continuous usage of multichannel retailers' mobile apps. In contrast to e-commerce research, the study outlines that escapism plays a negative role in both consumer satisfaction and intention to continue to use a multichannel retailer's mobile app. Previous research points to the fact that consumers' retention of retailers' apps is low. This paper contributes to the emerging literature on consumers' continuous use of retailers' mobile apps through enhancing our understanding of technology and non-technology-related variables.     

Digital coupon promotion and platform selection in the presence of delivery effort

In recent years, physical retailers have started selling products to consumers through either third-party or self-operated online platforms. Doing so, they face demand which depends on digital coupon promotions, delivery effort by the platform (i.e., deliver products from retailers to consumers), and channel preference. In this paper, we develop a game-theoretic model to examine the interactions between the physical retailer's distribution channel choices and coupon promotions. In normal operation, retailers prefer to pay lower fees to the third-party platform, but we find, counterintuitively, that when carrying on a digital coupon promotion, the retailer can be better off paying a higher participation fee to the third-party platform. We also identify the conditions under which the retailer prefers the third-party platform over the self-operated platform with and without coupon promotions. Furthermore, we show that digital coupon promotions and delivery effort boost the retailer's profits by price discriminating among consumers with differing purchase utilities.     

“Sorry,the product you ordered is out of stock”: Effects of substitution policy in online grocery retailing

Postpurchase out-of-stock (PP-OOS) often happens in an online grocery context, where products appear to be available at the time a consumer places an order, but become OOS when the order is to be dispatched. This paper investigates two substitution policies that can mitigate negative responses: substitutions can match (i) on the dominant attribute and (ii) with a product from the consumers’ past purchase portfolio. According to data collected through two computer-simulated purchase experiments, involving more than 3,000 households and five product categories, matching the substitution on the dominant attribute increases acceptance, but this dominant attribute varies across category differentiation level (flavor for horizontal differentiated categories like cereals or crips vs. brand for vertical differentiated categories like margarine or ketchup). Category differentiation also informs acceptance of national brand or private-label flavor substitutes, such that, same-flavor private label is prefered more in horizontal differentiated categories. Matching on the basis of previous purchases has positive effects for both category differentiation levels, and when combining both policies, the previous purchase matching effect grows stronger for same flavor, rather than same brand, matching. These detailed insights establish several key managerial implications for substitution policies in online grocery contexts.     

Seller honesty and product line pricing

We study upselling in markets where the seller observes consumer need but the consumer herself may not (e.g., medical care, durable repairs, financial and legal services). The seller may recommend excessive product features to uninformed consumers. In a monopoly with two types of consumer (one with a basic need and the other an advanced need) and two types of service (a basic service which fulfills only the basic need and an advanced service which fulfills both needs), we investigate the firm’s honesty and product-line pricing. We reach several results. First, the firm is honest if the basic service is superior (in that it generates higher per-capita social surplus than the advanced service under the efficient allocation) or if the consumers with the basic need are sufficiently many. Second, when there exist informed consumers who neglect seller recommendation, the presence of informed consumers may cause consumer welfare to decrease, and a larger informed population may cause firm profits and social welfare to increase or decrease. Lastly, when the informed consumers boycott a dishonest firm and withhold purchase, firm profits may increase because the threat of boycotting makes the firm more credible and allows a higher price of the advanced service.     

A study on promotion with strategic two-stage customized bundling

In order to enhance both purchase willingness and consumer satisfaction, firms may sell products in a customized bundling way, with which consumers are allowed to select their preferred products to form a bundle. However, such a way needs to be carried out with an efficient strategic tool. This study contributes to the literature by proposing a two-stage customized bundling strategy with the aims of maximizing the firm's profit and satisfying the consumers' demands. The proposed strategy may assist managers in enhancing consumer satisfaction and loyalty under consideration of consumer heterogeneity. Consumers can select one main product with the greatest utility from the main product category at the first stage, and then, at the second, consider the associations between the chosen main and possible add-on products in the add-on product category, and finally select an add-on product to form a customized bundle with the greatest overall utility. Pricing strategies are investigated and compared for the customized and other traditional bundling strategies. The results show that when consumers are highly sensitive in their preferences, the use of a customized bundling strategy would be more profitable. However, in an extreme case when the consumer's perceived value of the add-on product and product association are both high, the traditional individual sales strategy would earn more profits than the customized bundling strategy.     

Role of Retailer Positioning and Product Category on the Relationship Between Store Brand Consumption and Store Loyalty

Recent empirical evidence regarding the relationship between store brand purchase and store loyalty suggests a nonmonotonic relationship (inverted U): positive up to a certain store brand consumption level, after which it becomes negative. To investigate this idea further, this research analyzes the role of (1) the retailer's competitive positioning, and specifically its price positioning, and (2) the product category. On the one hand, the more price oriented the retailer's positioning, the more favorable is the relationship between store brand consumption and store loyalty. The threshold level of store brand purchasing at which the relationship becomes negative occurs later, and this negative relationship is less prominent. On the other hand, the relationship between store brand consumption and store loyalty appears to differ across product categories as a consequence of several factors, including perceived risk. The relationship therefore appears more favorable for risky categories. An empirical study of ten retailers that adopt different price positions corroborates these propositions.     

Four decades of negative word-of-mouth and negative electronic word-of-mouth: A morphological analysis

Customers voice their negative brand experiences to their family and friends in the form of negative word-of-mouth (NWOM). Web 2.0 enables the sharing of NWOM in electronic format on various social media sites, online customer review forums, and blogs, which is known as negative electronic word-of-mouth (NeWOM). Researchers need to study the spread of NWOM/NeWOM to prevent adverse consequences for companies and suggest an optimal response for its redressal. Existing literature review studies have focused on word-of-mouth (WOM) and electronic WOM (eWOM) and have considered both positive and negative WOM and eWOM concurrently. Past literature reviews have captured the breadth of the WOM domain, ignoring the depth. This research article contains a review of 282 journal papers capturing the depth of the extant literature by focusing solely on ‘negative’ WOM and eWOM (NWOM and NeWOM), and presents a broad view of the NWOM and NeWOM domains using morphological analysis (MA). This will help to conceptualize and categorize the existing state-of-the-art literature into broad dimensions and identify future research opportunities. The MA framework helps to bifurcate this literature into the following four dimensions: (i) nomenclature of NWOM and NeWOM, (ii) antecedents of NWOM/NeWOM, (iii) impacts of NWOM/NeWOM, and (iv) prevention and recovery response to NeWOM. Further dissection of these four dimensions leads to 15 sub-dimensions and 217 variants. Combinations of the 217 variants enable the identification of 550 novel future research opportunities in the area of NWOM and NeWOM.     

Online Damage Control: The Effects of Proactive Versus Reactive Webcare Interventions in Consumer-generated and Brand-generated Platforms

Web 2.0 has empowered consumers to voice complaints with reduced costs (physical and psychological), and to share these with a multitude of other consumers on the Internet. As a public phenomenon, online complaints have a negative impact on consumers' evaluations of brands that are under attack in online complaints. By means of an experiment, we study the most effective means for companies to counter complaints as expressed in negative electronic word of mouth (NWOM). The results show that negative brand evaluations engendered by NWOM can be attenuated by webcare interventions dependent on type of strategy (proactive vs. reactive) and platform used (consumer-generated vs. brand-generated blog). This effect appeared to be mediated by conversational human voice. The findings are discussed in the light of practical implications for online complaint management.     

Ethnocentric tendencies of Indian consumers: impact on preference for domestic versus foreign products

India is witnessing a plethora of foreign and domestic products competing against each other in its retail market. In order to understand how ethnocentrism among Indian consumers leads to attitudes toward foreign/domestic products, this study aims to understand the antecedents (socio-psychological and demographic) of consumer ethnocentric tendencies (CET) among Indian consumers, the impact of ethnocentrism on attitude toward domestic versus foreign product and service, and the impact of a moderator (perceived economic threat) on the relationship between ethnocentrism and attitudes. Using a sample of 800 Indian consumers, the relationships among variables were analyzed by means of structural equation modeling (SEM) using one product (soap) and one service (mobile phone service) category. The findings suggest that Indian consumers who are ethnocentric prefer domestic product/service to foreign product/service. Ethnocentrism of Indian consumers is influenced by education, income, cultural openness, and collectivism. The relationship between ethnocentrism and attitudes was moderated by perceived economic threat. Implications are provided for both Indian and foreign marketers to successfully promote their products to Indian consumers.     

Quantity Surcharges on Groceries

A quantity surcharge exists when the unit cost of a given brand is higher for a large package than for a small one. This paper examines some product and household characteristics that influence observed quantity surcharging practices. Results indicate that the propensity to buy a large package of a product is positively influenced by the extent of a household's usage of that product, procurement cost, and carrying capacity and is negatively influenced by the propensity to price search. A retailer's decision to levy a quantity surcharge is, in turn, influenced by demand for the product, the propensity to buy large packages, and to some extent the product's carrying cost.     

Brand hate and non-repurchase intention: A service context perspective in a cross-channel setting

The purpose of this study is to investigate the brand hate phenomenon for service products in a cross-channel setting (offline/online environment). To reach this objective, structural equation modeling was employed on a sample of 265 consumers. Findings reveal that brand hate positively influences offline negative word-of-mouth (NWOM), online complaining, and non-repurchase intention. Furthermore, while offline NWOM has a positive effect on non-repurchase intention, online complaining has a negative one. Finally, a mediated path was identified, which starts from brand hate and ends with non-repurchase intention through online complaining and offline NWOM. The study provides implications for firms’ marketers and practitioners.