New insights into online consumption communities and netnography

This study provides new insights to online consumption communities by questioning the currently dominant view of communities being structured by subcultural capital and meanings pertinent to a specific field of consumption, such as one brand or consumption interest. This study argues for more sensitivity in recognizing increasing delocalization, which manifests itself in significant overlap between communities and consequently freer movement of participants between them. This study draws from a longitudinal and introspective netnographic research project in what was originally an electronic music community to discuss the consequences of this development. The study finds that delocalization manifests itself through situated individualism and delocalized performances within online consumption communities, and offers implications for future netnographic inquiry.     

Managing customer experiences in online product communities

Many companies have established online product communities or forums as a vehicle to extend product support services to their customers. Customers' interactions in such online forums with peer customers and vendor representatives resolve their product-related queries as well as inform on their product purchase decisions. Despite the significance of such interactions, there has been limited theoretical attention so far on how companies can manage customer experiences in online product communities. Drawing on theories and concepts from diverse areas including computer-mediated communication, consumer psychology, and online communities, this study proposes a four dimensional construct - Online Community Experience (OCE) - to capture customer experiences in such online product communities, and examines its impact on customer attitudes regarding the product, the company, and the quality of service. Data collected from customers in online product forums offered by four companies is used to test the study hypotheses. Implications for research on online consumer behavior and marketing are discussed.     

Influence of virtual communities in purchasing decisions: The participants' perspective

This study intended to fill some gaps in knowledge about virtual communities and their influence on consumers' purchasing decisions. A Brazilian Orkut community, whose central theme is preparing for wedding ceremonies, was investigated to reveal relationships among members and group influences on purchasing decisions. Twenty-one interviews were conducted by telephone. Results unveil a basic code of conduct, suggesting that the community can also act as a normative reference group, with strong identification among participants. Although the central interest – the wedding ceremony and party – could be considered as episodic, many members actively stay in the community after being married, just to help others. Group leaders seemed to be active participants, those with more experience with products related to the group's interests, or those perceived as having refined tastes. There was evidence that purchasing intentions and behavior can be altered as a result of interactions among members.     

Transforming visitors into members in online brand communities: Evidence from China

Using observational learning theory, this study investigates how simply viewing posts can affect visitors' intentions to join an online brand community. The study finds that the viewing of posts leads to informational value and perceived social value, which in turn increases visitors' intentions to participate in the community. For visitors with brand ownership, both informational value and perceived social value play full mediating roles; for visitors without brand ownership, both values play partial mediating roles. In addition, for visitors with brand ownership, informational value is just as important as perceived social value in shaping their participation intentions; for those without brand ownership, perceived social value is more important than informational value. The findings enrich the brand community literature and provide implications for brand community development.     

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.     

Environmental dialogue in online communities: negotiating ecological citizenship among global travellers

The aim of this paper is to investigate how web‐based online communities bring about new forms of environmental dialogue. We suggest that these online sites play an important role in setting the stage for new forms of cultural production, dissemination of environmental knowledge and environmental dialogue, through which particular forms of ecological citizenship and consumer culture are being created and sustained. Based on an empirical study of an online community of ‘global travelers’ carried out using netnographic methods, the study shows how environmental knowledge is being disseminated, negotiated and made sense of in the online environments of the global marketplace. Our findings illustrate, in particular, how online communities may work out an agenda for sustainable consumption practices and lifestyles, and create new forms of consumer citizenship. Regarding the environmental policy implications of our study, we argue that there is a need to facilitate the creation of online environments where consumers can participate in the construction of active consumer citizenship.     

Emic and etic interpretations of engagement with a consumer-to-consumer online auction site

This paper provides emic and etic interpretations of engagement with a consumer-to-consumer (C2C) online auction site, based on in-depth interviews with buyers. The study exposes three misconceptions about online C2C auctions; that the interaction between parties occurs exclusively online, that the relation between buyers and sellers is purely transactional in nature, and that the interaction between buyers and sellers does not lead to ongoing business relationships. The paper reveals the utilitarian, hedonic and social benefits that are the bases of engagement with the auction site. Social benefits materialize for auction buyers during offline exchanges. The paper also reveals marketer incentives and structural disincentives for consumers' ongoing use of the auction site.     

Influences of perceived product innovation upon usage behavior for MMORPG: Product capability,technology capability,and user centered design

Recent advances in online game technology have set the pace for tremendous growth in the development of new entertainment applications. The authors study relationships among product capability, technology capability, perceived product innovation, user-centered design, attitude, and intention to play online games. They find that product capability, technology capability, and user-centered design influence perceived product innovation. Gamers want to interact with functional products designed with a deep understanding of customer needs. Moreover, user-centered design influences perceived product innovation, attitude toward playing, and behavioral intention to play. The study includes the user-centered design variable to reflect a unique characteristic of online games.     

Effect of social support on customer satisfaction and citizenship behavior in online brand communities: The moderating role of support source

Customers often join online brand communities to seek support from others when they encounter product problems. Some customers who receive good social support exhibit customer citizenship behavior. This study develops a theoretical model to investigate how social support influences customer citizenship behavior through customer satisfaction with firms in online brand communities. Moreover, the moderating role of support source (i.e., firms vs. other customers) is measured. The research model is tested by using the Partial Least Squares technique. The results show that informational and emotional support significantly affects the customer citizenship behavior of providing feedback to the firm, recommendations, and helping other customers through customer satisfaction in online brand communities. Moreover, informational and emotional support from firms and other customers exert different effects on customer satisfaction.     

Opportunities for active stock-out management in online stores: The impact of the stock-out policy on online stock-out reactions

This paper investigates the impact of an online retailer's stock-out policy on consumers’ category purchase and choice decisions. We investigate three different policies: (1) stock-outs are immediately visible and there are no replacement suggestions, (2) stock-outs are only visible after purchase attempts and (3) stock-outs are immediately visible but a replacement item is suggested. Results from an online grocery shopping experiment reveal that the adopted stock-out policy has a significant impact on both decisions. Making stock-outs not immediately visible creates confusion and intensifies the consumer's loss experience, thereby reducing the tendency to buy in the category. Suggesting a replacement item, in contrast, facilitates the substitution decision and slightly reduces the purchase cancellation rate. It also substantially increases the suggested item's choice probability. Yet, this effect disappears when higher-priced - suspicious - items are suggested. Overall, these results indicate that online grocery retailers have an interest in pursuing open and convenience-oriented stock-out policies.     

Comparing the impacts of Internet technology and national culture on online usage and purchase from a four-country perspective

The Internet has successfully generated an ever-expanding cohort of users for all its major concomitant activities, including information gathering, communications and transactions. So far no attempt has been made to validate whether such a success is so deep as to transcend national cultures. Nor any work has been conducted to compare the internationalisation¹ performances between online usage activities. The current study addresses these two research gaps from the perspective of four countries, i.e. Britain, Germany, Japan and Taiwan. Results show that although the technological forces have been quite successful in internationalising overall online usage activities, they succumb to the cultural forces as far as only the transactions activity, or more colloquially online purchase, is concerned. This indicates the relative difficulty in internationalising online purchase vis-à-vis other online usage activities. Further research on locating a series of step functions or kick-off time points regarding the development of online purchase is suggested.     

The effect of web interface features on consumer online purchase intentions

Corporations spend millions of dollars a year creating and maintaining corporate websites, yet many of these sites fail to reach the organization's goals [Freemantle D. The psychology of crm. Int J Cust Relatsh Manag 2002; http://www.superboss.co.uk/articles2main.htm]. Recent research suggests that these failures reflect poor website design, yet this research lacks the specificity necessary to provide practical recommendations for improving site performance [Rosen EE, Purinton E. Website design: viewing the web as a cognitive landscape. J Bus Res 2004; 57:787-94]. This study fills that gap by providing specific recommendations regarding website design elements that generate positive managerial outcomes. First, the study tests a wide range of design elements to determine those that provide human elements and computer elements. Next, these elements are linked through intermediaries using the uses and gratifications theory, technology acceptance model, and the concept of flow to explain purchase intentions and intentions to revisit the site.     

Safety and minority ethnic communities A preliminary study on the home safety information needs of the Asian,Chinese and Vietnamese communities living in the UK in the 1990s.

Abstract

This article is about the safety information needs of the Asian, Chinese and Vietnamese communities living in the UK. The author describes the process by which the report Safety and minority ethnic communities was researched and written and details the recommendations arising from that research.

The report itself covered a two-year research project conducted between 1990 and 1992. The work was funded by the Department of Trade and Industry and the Department of Health and carried out by the author.     

Comparing the generalizability of online and mail surveys in cross-national service quality research

To compare the generalizability of online and mail surveys in a cross-national service quality study, the authors use G-theory and find a comparable level of generalizability, though online surveys benefited from considerably lower costs. This article contributes to the current comparison of the response quality between online and mail surveys. Furthermore, the authors illustrate how G-theory can be used to compare online and mail surveys and take data collection costs into account. Important implications include the process and results of comparing two survey modes and the effects for service research. Martin Wetzels now also works at Maastricht University     

Joint pricing and design of urban highways with spatial and user group heterogeneity

This paper addresses the joint optimization of capacity investments and toll charges imposed on multi-group users in monopolistic private highways within general road networks. A game-theoretic formulation is provided that leads to a nonconvex bilevel program. The proposed modeling framework handles several complex issues raised in realistic applications, such as regulations on the levels of tolls and service, and the discrete nature of highway capacity, using a genetic optimization technique. Real-application results show the importance of considering the spatial heterogeneity of prices, and the tradeoff between investments and pricing strategies in regulated private highways.     

The effects of 3rd party consensus information on service expectations and online trust

The marketing literature has recently explored a number of ways in which trust can be communicated by Internet retailers, including 3rd party consensus ratings. This paper explores the impact of consensus sequences over time and across high and low ranges, rather than the mere valence of ratings as presented in past research. Second, effects are compared across products with variant levels of risk. Two experiments investigate service quality inferences, expected satisfaction, and trust beliefs for online retailers as outcomes of 3rd party consensus information (i.e., agreement among a firm's past customers). Results indicate that online trust beliefs vary positively with consensus ratings and trust is higher when ratings trends increase rather than decrease. Service quality inferences and expected satisfaction are shown to mediate these relationships. More interestingly, results of study two suggest sequence direction becomes insignificant when ratings do not approach certain range limits (e.g., high, moderate, low cut-offs). Comparisons across products varying in risk show that consensus ratings are more important when consumers evaluate high risk products. Implications for both researchers and practitioners are offered.     

Website design quality and usage behavior: Unified Theory of Acceptance and Use of Technology

Firms gain many benefits from well-designed websites. But which elements of website design quality really matter, and how do these elements influence usage behavior? With the Unified Theory of Acceptance and Use of Technology (UTAUT) as the theoretical foundation, this paper proposes that website design quality is a multi-dimensional construct with a higher-order structure that, when successfully incorporated into the UTAUT model, outperforms existing models. Results are based on a survey of 216 users of internet banking. Findings indicate that the technical, general content and appearance dimensions of a website are most important for users. These dimensions are significantly related to usage behavior directly and indirectly. A halo effect may influence overall evaluation of a website because the dimensions of website design quality are interrelated. The implication is that improvements to the appearance of a website should enhance the overall evaluation of the site, leading to greater usage intentions.     

The influence of culture,emotions, intangibility,and atmospheric cues on online behavior

This paper examines how emotions and website atmospheric cues influence service tangibility and consumer attitudes. The proposed model was compared across three cultures: North America (Canada and U.S.), China, and the Middle East. The findings support the overall model and demonstrate several non-invariant paths across the groups. Particularly, the results suggest how the influences of two emotional dimensions (pleasure and dominance) on consumer perceptions of site atmospherics vary across cultures. Moreover, the effects of service tangibility dimensions (physical tangibility, specificity, and mental tangibility) on consumers' attitudes toward the website and service vary significantly across the three cultures. Mental tangibility has the greatest influence on North American customers' attitudes, while physical tangibility and specificity have the greatest impact on Chinese and Middle Eastern customers' attitudes, respectively.     

Keeping the faith! Drivers of participation in spiritually-based communities

Spiritually based communities (SBCs) provide a range of economic and social benefits to society. Declining memberships prompt a need for greater understanding and insight into the factors that drive participation in these communities. This study provides a conceptual model depicting religiosity as the core driver of donation of time, money and attendances at religious services. The model further indicates that the impact of belief in a ‘higher being’ on participation in SBCs is moderated by age, income, time available for socialization, desire to make a social contribution, and need for social interaction. A preliminary investigation in Australia provides strong support for the model, serving as a starting point for a number of future studies on the behaviors of SBC members.     

The influence of college students' shopping orientations and gender differences on online information searches and purchase behaviours

Using the data collected from a survey of 1277 US college students, this study investigated college students' shopping orientations, and examined the relationships between their shopping orientations and searches for information about and purchases of apparel products online and the differences between male and female students in their shopping orientations, online information searches and purchase experiences. Seven shopping orientation constructs were identified: shopping enjoyment, brand/fashion consciousness, price consciousness, shopping confidence, convenience/time consciousness, in‐home shopping tendency and brand/store loyalty. Results showed that participants' shopping orientations were significantly related to their searches for information about and purchases of apparel items online. In addition, male and female participants showed significant differences in their shopping orientations, online information searches and purchase experiences. This study provided suggestions for apparel e‐tailors to develop effective marketing strategies to reach their target market, for consumer educators and for educators in the retail merchandizing area to prepare their students for future careers.