Use of persuasive techniques on Internet shopping sites

Huge strides in technological development combined with marketing strategies have led to dramatic changes in the way information is transmitted and communicated to the consumers, and subsequently used by the consumers. Information has become a dominant factor in determining why, where, what, and how consumers shop, process information, and make decisions. While marketing information has always been an important factor in consumer decision‐making, its provision on demand and added convenience via the Internet has created a need to research the nature and amount of information that these technologies provide. Advertisements use different forms of persuasion to gain consumer attention, meet their economic and emotional shopping needs, to create a positive image of the product, brand, and the shopping medium, and influence consumers to purchase the product. Persuasion may be classified as functional congruity and self‐congruity routes to persuasion (Johar & Sirgy, 1991). Fifty websites were studied for utilitarian and value‐expressive forms of persuasion by product differentiation. The websites were classified as those selling tangible products only and those selling intangible products only, and those selling both tangible and intangible products. The paper will present results of the study along with a discussion and conclusion with implications on consumer well‐being.     

Learning effect in multinational diffusion of consumer durables: An exploratory investigation

Literature reflects that a product/technological innovation introduced later in a country results in faster diffusion as the consumers in the lag market have an opportunity to learn about the new product from the consumers in the lead market. A systematic understanding of the learning that takes place between consumers in two countries—a pair of lead and lag countries—can provide insights for a firm’s international market entry decisions. To provide a richer understanding of the underlying structure and patterns that govern this process, propositions linking factors (country characteristics, product/innovation characteristics, and time lag) to the learning process are drawn. Subsequently, these propositions are tested through an empirical investigation of the diffusion patterns of four consumer innovations in multiple European countries. The findings help provide some preliminary guidelines for manufacturers regarding selection of foreign markets and the timing and order-of-entry decisions. He received his Ph.D. from the University of Houston in 1995. His research interests include global competition and marketing strategy, brand equity and brand extensions, customer satisfaction and brand loyalty, and issues pertaining to product development and introduction. He has been recognized with numerous teaching and research excellence awards and has published numerous articles in many scholarly journals in marketing and forecasting. He has coauthored the textbookMarketing Research and is currently working on a book titledInternational Marketing Research, which is based on his marketing research experience across the globe. He is on the editorial review board of many journals and has lectured on marketing-related topics in various universities worldwide. His research interests include developing forecasting models, international marketing strategy and research issues, models for sales promotions, and new methodologies for product positioning and market segmentation. His research interests focus on marketing strategy and international marketing. He has published articles and presented at conferences on research in his area of interest.     

Data collection for a doctoral study among natives living abroad: revisiting the challenges and strategies undertaken

Quality & Quantity - This paper is based on the first author’s PhD research data collection experiences conducted with his country people who work and live as migrant workers in the...