Customer loyalty in e-commerce: an exploration of its antecedents and consequences

This paper investigates the antecedents and consequences of customer loyalty in an online business-to-consumer (B2C) context. We identify eight factors (the 8Cs—customization, contact interactivity, care, community, convenience, cultivation, choice, and character) that potentially impact e-loyalty and develop scales to measure these factors. Data collected from 1,211 online customers demonstrate that all these factors, except convenience, impact e-loyalty. The data also reveal that e-loyalty has an impact on two customer-related outcomes: word-of- mouth promotion and willingness to pay more.     

What retailers need to understand about website inaccessibility and disabled consumers: Challenges and opportunities

This research uniquely contributes to the marketing policy literature by illuminating the widespread yet seldom studied problem of online inaccessibility of retail websites affecting approximately 30 million disabled Americans. When a website is not designed to be navigated easily or is not compatible with assistive technology such as a screen-reader, these potential customers are not able to independently search for information and conduct transactions. Blind and low vision participants in an empirical study provide their opinions regarding accessibility policy issues and reveal that their frustrations with inaccessible retail websites may result, not only in avoidance of the retailer in its different sales channels but also in antifirm behaviors driven by negative attitudes toward perceived retailer accessibility/disability policy that spur feelings of online marketplace discrimination. Using two different evaluation tools, the top 100 retailers in the United States were evaluated on the accessibility of their websites over the past 4 years (2015–2018). Results show that most websites contain many design errors making navigation very difficult or even impossible for vision impaired consumers. The argument is made that online retailers who proactively address these inaccessibility issues on their websites may significantly increase their customer base and profitability.     

Building loyalty in e-commerce: Impact of business and customer characteristics

Abstract

Understanding, building, and predicting customer loyalty in e-commerce are critical activities for long-run profitability. Successfully carrying out these activities is challenging due to the complex mix of both business organization and customer factors that may influence and drive e-loyalty. We demonstrate that business factors, such as credibility, e-satisfaction and site knowledge, and customer factors, such as inertia, innovativeness, and aggressiveness, influence e-loyalty. Our analyses show that business credibility is affected by the reputation of the e-business and its congruence with the customers’ self-image; e-satisfaction by the customers’ value perception, care, and choice; and site knowledge by customer experience, involvement, and expertise. Business factors account for about 75% of the explained variation in e-loyalty and customer factors for the rest. Understanding the controllable business and uncontrollable customer factors that drive customer loyalty should enable e-commerce retailers to continually assess these factors and make appropriate changes in marketing strategy.     

Marketing channel management and the sales manager

For years, the channel manager remained an organizational position found mainly in textbooks and the literature and seldom on company organization charts. Recently, however, persuasive evidence has revealed that marketing channel management comes chiefly under the purview of the sales manager. Accepting this new reality, sales management training will need to be dramatically expanded to include these new channel management responsibilities. But, are all levels of sales managers involved or equally involved in channel management? If not, channel manager training must be tailored for specific levels of sales management in order to achieve desired channel effectiveness and efficiency. To date, no published research has explored whether channel management involvement varies at different levels in the sales manager hierarchy. In this age of channel dynamism, successful companies must determine the specific involvement of each sales management level in channel management so that appropriate training and support can be provided to optimize performance in this critical area of market competition. To address the foregoing issues, data were drawn from a random national sample of sales managers. Results indicate that sales managers at all hierarchical levels participate in administering various aspects of marketing channel management. The degree of involvement, however, varies significantly by sales manager level. Sales management implications are discussed, and areas for future research are suggested.     

Adjustment with a human face: Still relevant or overtaken by events?

This paper describes the extent to which the policy recommendations of “Adjustment with a Human Face” have been accepted. The concept has been accepted in principle, but large gaps remain in actual implementation. Some policy recommendations, such as the need for compensatory programs, have been more fully accepted and implemented than others, such as the need to stimulate productivity by poor households and to involve different social groups in policy making. The paper concludes that adjustment policies should be part of a long-term development strategy which emphasizes structural changes for countries to grow out of structural poverty. As such, the policy recommendations of “Adjustment with a Human Face” still remain valid, albeit with changes in emphasis on their various components.     

Empowering salespeople: Personal,managerial, and organizational perspectives

The traditional seven steps of personal selling have remained virtually unchanged since the early 1900s. Meanwhile, the actual roles and duties of salespeople have pushed far into customer relationship management (CRM). Psychologically and professionally, salespeople need greater empowerment for their expanding CRM responsibilities. However, empowerment is a complex process requiring several individual, managerial, and organizational changes for successful implementation. As part of the empowerment process for its salespeople, companies need to provide supporting structures, processes, and incentives for customer‐oriented behavior. At the same time, the Internet and other telecommunications advances in the macroenvironment are accelerating empowerment changes in personal selling—mainly on the customer side of the exchange. To effectively and efficiently carry out their growing yet still poorly defined CRM roles, salespeople need to be comprehensively empowered, trained, motivated, and rewarded. Companies that most effectively empower their salespeople should reap substantial rewards in profitability and loyalty from both their salespeople and customers. © 2006 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

The sales manager: Tomorrow's super marketer

The old stereotype of a sales manager is dying; today, the position requires a wide variety of skills. But are managers really chosen according to these new criteria?     

A model of new technology and jobs

A simple closed system, one product mathematical model of an economy is described; its aim is to help discussions of the effects of technological change on employment and related issues like income distribution. The main conclusion of the mathematical exercise based on the model is that an introduction of new technologies, in order to have positive effects on employment, should take place in a situation of supply-demand equilibrium, or even in a situation of some excess demand. The policy implication of this is that governments must take some action since if they are unwise enough to follow laissez-faire policies the prospects of a divided society with considerable levels of unemployment is likely.