Search results

Gaining and sustaining a strategic competitive advantage in retailing requires knowledge of the attributes consumers value and use to discriminate between stores and why those attributes are important. Although many store image studies define discriminant attributes, few have attempted to explain either how these attributes lead to the satisfaction of personal shopping motives or how knowledge of these can be used to focus and reinforce a strategic position. The purpose of this article is to propose and examine a method to help retailers understand grocery consumers' store choice processes as a function of the linkages between store attributes, shopping motives and risk dimensions which can help them develop a more coherent and clearer positioning strategy.

Means‐end chain analysis is used to explore how grocery customers build a mental link between store attributes, the consequences of not having those attributes, and the motives for seeking them.

The findings suggest that shoppers' motives are linked to only four main risk dimensions, namely time, financial, psychosocial and physical, and we present evidence for reassessing store positioning strategies, giving more emphasis to the risks involved.

The article suggests that the prime heuristics that consumers use to compare grocery stores are the four main risk dimensions. While consumers may think heuristically (i.e. deal in general perceptions of stores rather than comparing stores in every detail), retailers act in detail, and knowledge of how store attributes are related to these risk dimensions is therefore useful to retail marketers in developing and positioning stores. The findings also confirm the usefulness of means‐end chain analysis as a methodology for assessing retail store motivations, because it allows researchers to define all the store attributes which are important to respondents, gain responses in the respondent's language, and examine the underlying motives to which tangible and intangible attributes are related. Furthermore, the constructs/elements elicited can be used to feed into Kelly's repertory grid analysis, which is useful in positioning studies for determining a company's competitive position on one of the four main positioning dimensions.

The work extends the theory of means‐end chains by highlighting the relationship between the terminal values it produces and risk dimensions. The research is relevant to retail marketers in terms of store development and personnel training, and to consumer researchers interested in risk measurement.

Argues that online privacy rights of consumers are not absolute rights but joint ownership privileges they share with online marketers. Consumers can voluntarily transfer these privileges to online marketers under certain mutually agreeable conditions. Accordingly, online marketers can facilitate, motivate and compensate such transfers by designing various innovative personalization strategies that, rather than jeopardize the privacy privileges of consumers, would benefit them. Technology and society can progress only through such partnerships. Cites two consistently successful net companies, Dell and eBay, as examples of such partnered personalizations.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the use of e‐security seals on web sites and their relative impact on e‐commerce firm reputation in influencing customers' perceptions of trust in a service provider.

Two interrelated empirical studies are conducted to evaluate the use and impacts of e‐security seals in e‐commerce. An exploratory study methodology investigates the use of e‐security seals and a questionnaire survey is used to gauge consumer knowledge of seals.

Using survey data from 211 web users, the results show that 106 respondents are cognitive and affective of e‐security seals. The results also provide further clarification of the relationship between e‐security seals and sales effectiveness. The findings point towards a positive belief by consumers in e‐security seals.

Third‐party e‐security seals organisations should undertake more promotional activities and advertising to educate comsumers about the use and benefits of e‐security seals.

An important issue in e‐commerce is how trust is developed between consumers and e‐vendors. This paper investigates the use of e‐security seals and their influence on consumer confidence in the online environment.

The formulated proposals for this legal principle in the trade battern of the European Community have again appeared in the EEC draft Directive. It has been many years in coming, indicating the extreme difficulties encountered in bringing some sort of harmony in the different laws of Member‐states including those of the United Kingdom, relating to the subject. Over the years there were periods of what appeared to be complete inactivity, when no progress was being made, when consultations were at a stand‐still, but the situation was closely monitored by manufacturers of goods, including food and drink, in the UK and the BFJ published fairly detailed reviews of proposals being considered — in 1979 and 1981; and even as recently as the last few months — in “Consumerism in the Community”, the subject was briefly discussed.

The first paper ever published on microprocessors described the device as the “re‐configurable” circuit. This conveys the simplest, but most important feature of the microprocessor, namely that by changing the software a device can be tailored to fit a wide range of applications — from a simple light switch control to the central processing unit of a computer. This versatility of microelectronic devices, combined with their falling price, decreasing size and exponentially increasing power makes inevitable their widespread application. Indeed, it can be predicted with reasonable confidence that by the end of the century the pervasiveness of the “silicon chip” will be the defining characteristic of an advanced society.

In this article which is based on a marketing analysis of Michael Porter′s definition of competitive strategies, the confusion present in marketing and strategic management texts as to the definitions of the three strategies of low cost, differentiation and focus is noted. The idea that using price to differentiate means a firm is using a low cost strategy is dismissed and the value of a definition of focus strategy as merely some degree of extreme differentiation is questioned. New definitions of the three strategies are proposed which are based upon the idea that firms react to, and take actions which influence, the structure of the market in which they operate. They influence market structure through determining the market′s proximity level ‐the minimum level of marketplace performance which a firm must reach in order to compete across the broad marketplace. If a firm has the ability to reach this level and go further to excel in the provision of one or more benefits, it can implement a differentiation strategy. Alternatively, it can attempt to lift the market′s proximity level or partake in imitative activity, which reduces the potential bases for differentiation in the market, a low cost strategy (only sensible for the firm with the lowest costs of production). If a firm lacks the ability to reach the proximity level, it must seek segments which do not require reaching proximity in order to serve them, a focus strategy.

Entrepreneurs appear to become better managers of their businesses once those businesses go public: this means more attention to systematic planning, more reliance on other senior managers and directors, less secretiveness and longer time horizons. Isolates characteristics of growing firms compared to “stalled” firms and suggests ways for private companies to gain benefits like those public flotation would provide. Suggestions are designed to stimulate the positive influences of going public without disposal of privately held shares.

Christmas and New Year sales, according to latest reports, exceeded most retailers' expectations. A long Christmas break and mild weather encouraged people to go out; but essentially most people had more money in their pockets last year because of lower mortgage and interest rates, falling inflation, and the abolition of hire purchase controls. But the crucial question is — will it last? Our contributor, Leonard Ross, thinks that prospects for retail business in 1983 and beyond look distinctly brighter than for several years.

This paper aims to contribute to the understanding of corporate sustainability reporting strategies and communication tools that are increasingly being adopted to foster green market outlets, with focus on the building materials supply chain.

The suitability, feasibility, appropriateness, effectiveness, completeness and redundancy of some of the most common sustainability reporting tools such as Sustainability Reporting (SR), Sustainable Development Indicators (SDI) and Green labels based on Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) were investigated.

Focusing on the present Italian situation and with emphasis on ornamental stones, ceramic tiles, cement and concrete producers, the interest and the response in the building materials supply chain are highlighted, pointing out strengths, weaknesses and future perspectives.

Green communication tools discussed in the paper can also be used to protect local markets against the unfair competition by those producers that can supply low price building products, but with much higher environmental externalities.

The paper can be considered as a contribution to support the European Commission's and Member States' policymakers which are pushing for instruments that will improve the sustainability of the building products supply chain. The findings can encourage those producers who are more aware of the environmental consequences of extractive and manufacturing activities and that are actively engaged in Sustainable Development.

The big changes over recent years and their rapid development in Food Retailing have resulted in different shopping practices, for the institution, the hotel, restaurant and the home. Different cuisines have developed, foods purchased, both in cooking practices and eating habits, especially in the home. Gone are the old fashioned home economics, taking with them out of the diet much that was enjoyed and from which the families benefitted in health and stomach satisfaction. In very recent times, the changes have become bigger, developments more rapid, and the progress continues. Bigger and bigger stores, highly departmentalised, mechanical aids of every description, all under one roof, “complex” is an appropriate term for it; large open spaces for the housewife with a car. The development is in fact aimed at the bulk buyer — rapid turnover — the small household needs, not entirely neglected, but not specially catered for. Daily cash takings are collosal. This is what the small owner‐occupied general store, with its many domestic advantages, has come to fall in the late twentieth century.