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Defecting wine club members: an exploratory study

Sandra K. Newton (School of Business and Economics, Sonoma State University, Rohnert Park, California, USA)
Linda I. Nowak (College of Business Administration, California State University, Stanislaus, Turlock, California, USA)
Mayuresh Kelkar (Bertolon School of Business, Salem State University, Salem, Massachusetts, USA)

International Journal of Wine Business Research

ISSN: 1751-1062

Publication date: 20 August 2018

Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this study is to investigate the range of explanations for why wine club members defect and move on.

Design/methodology/approach

This quantitative research study uses data from US wine consumers, gathered through an online survey of 399 former wine club members who had quit their membership in the recent past. Consistent with literature on customer churn rates in subscription markets, data are analyzed using descriptive statistics, factor analysis, hierarchical multiple regression and analysis of variance.

Findings

The results reported by respondents indicate that higher levels of perceived product quality, fair value in pricing, variety seeking and commitment to customer service at the beginning and at the end of a wine club membership lead to higher levels of customer satisfaction and a desire to recommend the club to others even after quitting. Though variety seeking is more commonplace among experienced wine drinkers, the good news for wineries is that consumers are more likely to recommend a wine club to others if at least a year has passed after they decided to quit.

Practical implications

The results provide implications for wine club managers seeking to improve wine club retention with suggested means for mitigating the rate of customer attrition.

Originality/value

This paper presents original research addressing a variety of reasons why wine club members quit. The extant research has found that factors such as product quality, fair pricing, service commitments and variety-seeking behavior affect members’ satisfaction with their wine club, as well as their desire to recommend it to others. The authors have attempted to combine all these factors into a single study to gain insight into wine club members’ switching behavior, and to find out what the wineries can do to improve customer loyalty.

Keywords

Citation

Newton, S.K., Nowak, L.I. and Kelkar, M. (2018), "Defecting wine club members: an exploratory study", International Journal of Wine Business Research, Vol. 30 No. 3, pp. 309-330. https://doi.org/10.1108/IJWBR-06-2017-0038

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Publisher

:

Emerald Publishing Limited

Copyright © 2018, Emerald Publishing Limited

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