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The purpose of this study is to examine how customers’ perceptions of brands’ social media interactivity impact customer engagement behaviors (CEBs) (e.g. customer purchases, referrals, influence and knowledge) while accounting for the moderating role of brand type and social media platform.

Two separate online surveys (Study 1 (N1) = 341, Study 2 (N2) = 183) were conducted to measure the constructs of interest. Regression analyzes tests research hypotheses; PROCESS Model 1 was used to test the moderating roles of brand type and platform. Further, the pick-a-point approach (i.e. spotlight analysis) was used to probe the interaction terms.

The results indicate that when customers perceive a brand to be highly interactive on social media (vs inactive), they are more willing to buy brand offerings, refer the brand in exchange for monetary incentives, inform their family and friends about the brand on social media and provide feedback and suggestions for improving the brand. Furthermore, the positive impact of perceived social media interactivity on customer purchases, referrals, influence and knowledge varies across brand and social media platform types.

Online surveys using convenience samples were conducted to assess the constructs of interest. Archival data may provide an avenue for further insight. Future research may be able to track actual online customer behavior using such data. Further, researchers are encouraged to corroborate the results found here over time as the winds of social media shift to new platforms.

The results suggest that interacting on social media encourages customers to contribute to brand value directly (through purchasing) and/or indirectly (through referring, influencing and suggesting). While all brands may leverage social media activity for success, the positive impact of perceived social media interactivity on CEBs is particularly impactful for non-global 500 brands. The results also indicate that customers are more willing to add value to the brand through purchases and suggestions when they perceive the brand to be highly interactive on both social media networking sites and the brand’s website. However, they are more willing to promote this brand and influence their social networks about it only when they perceive the brand to be highly (vs less) interactive on its own website.

This study examines the novel issue of the impact of perceived social media interactivity on different CEBs while accounting for the moderating role of the brand and platform used by customers. The results provide value in better understanding the levers through which social media affects performance.

Drawing on social exchange theory, this study clarifies the roles of authenticity, interactivity and involvement in predicting customer engagement (CE) and, ultimately, customer loyalty towards an online peer-to-peer accommodation platform. In addition, the study explores the effect of interactivity in increasing authenticity.

Data were collected through an online questionnaire of a sample of Italian tourists who had previously booked a service on Airbnb. The analyses were conducted by adopting partial least squares structural equation modelling.

The model has high power in predicting customer loyalty to an online peer-to-peer accommodation platform. Specifically, involvement is the primary predictor of CE and customer loyalty. Authenticity and interactivity also have a significant and positive effect both on CE and customer loyalty. In addition, CE partially mediates the relationship between authenticity, interactivity and involvement and customer loyalty. Finally, interactivity has a significant positive effect on authenticity.

The results encourage hospitality service providers to invest in the creation (and co-creation) of authentic experiences to increase CE and customer loyalty. Hospitality managers can also enhance CE by increasing involvement and interaction with customers through various touchpoints (online and offline) in different moments of the customer journey.

This study proposes an original model to predict customer loyalty to peer-to-peer hospitality platforms. The findings shed new light on the drivers of CE and provide empirical support for the mediating effect of CE. The study also contributes to the literature on authenticity by demonstrating the positive effect of interactivity on authenticity.

This study aims to investigate the effect of perceived brand interactivity on customer purchases along with the mediating effect of perceived brand fairness. To increase the explanatory power of the model, this study also examines the moderating role of brand involvement.

An online survey was conducted to measure the constructs of interest. The direct, indirect (mediation) and conditional (moderation) effects were evaluated using linear regression, PROCESS Model 4 and PROCESS Model 59, respectively. Further, the Johnson Neyman (also called floodlight analysis) technique was used to probe the interaction terms.

The study results indicate that perceived brand interactivity directly and indirectly (via perceived brand fairness) impact customer purchases. The results also reveal that the positive impact of perceived brand interactivity on perceived brand fairness is greater when brand involvement is lower. In the same vein, the positive impact of perceived brand fairness on customer purchases is greater when brand involvement is lower. However, brand involvement does not moderate the impact of perceived brand involvement on customer purchases.

This study examines the effect of perceived brand interactivity on customer purchases (as a customer engagement behavior) while accounting for the mediating role of perceived brand fairness and the moderating role of brand involvement. The results provide noteworthy theoretical and managerial implications.

Retaining customers is very important for the survival of e-commerce sellers. The purpose of this paper is to investigate the roles of computer-mediated communication (CMC) tools, interactivity, trust and perceived effectiveness of e-commerce institutional mechanisms (PEEIM) in influencing customer’s repurchase intention in the Chinese online e-commerce marketplace.

The research model is empirically tested using survey data analyzed with partial least squares structural equation modeling.

This study confirms the positive relation between customer satisfaction and trust in the seller, which further contributes to repurchase intention. Results also support the positive influences of effective use of an instant messenger and feedback system on customer perceived interactivity, which helps enhance trust in the seller. PEEIM demonstrates interesting results regarding its moderating effects.

In the future, researchers can extend the study to other e-commerce platforms and take trust transfer effects and product categories into consideration.

This study highlights the importance to manage trust, PEEIM, interactivity and CMC tools in e-commerce platforms, assisting practitioners to develop appropriate business strategies and processes to retain customers.

This study extends previous investigations by integrating trust and PEEIM with interactivity and testing the model in the context of the Chinese online marketplace.

The online shopping behavior is the outcome of the variety of attribution from product/ service offering to internet experience. The present study attempts to develop a complete product/service offering by exploring and examining the different combinations of online shopping attributes to provide the customized experience. Therefore, this study aims to fill the gap of customer desired experience and present scenario in online shopping behavior.

The exploration of attributes pertaining to online shopping behavior was done by seeking theoretical support from different technology adoption theories/models and the Delphi technique, exercised with active participants of online and offline shopping. The theoretical and experience shared attributes were devised and social desirability scale (SDS) was used for eliminating the social desirability bias. Further, the questionnaire was administered online and offline during mall intercept. The Conjoint analysis was used to investigate the relative importance and utilities of the attributes and its levels individually and compositely at different levels.

In the context, brand loyalty, online reputation management and Web interactivity were found most relavant followed by e-WOM, perceived risk and price. The specific levels of attributes such as taking consumer advice, search engine optimization (SEO), perception-based interactivity, consumer message boards, product risk and discount pricing were the crucial in motivating the customers for online shopping. This research affords the avenue for the marketers to motivate and delight consumers to retribalize by the way of “e-tribalizing.”

The current study was conducted in confined geographical locations and limited in sample size; thus, the issue of generalization may prevail, but forthcoming researchers may exercise the techniques with better probabilistic sampling technique. The mass customization of the website features by comparing attribute orientation of customers around websites was recommended with the third-party certification to reduce the consumers’ perceived risk during online shopping. Finally, the different levels, such as Facebook fan page in ORM and Everyday Low Price (EDLP) in pricing may be considered for the future research work.

The research studies on online shopping behavior with Web interactivity, e-WOM, perceived risk, brand loyalty, ORM and price using a decompositional technique are scant. This study persuades the customers to go for online shopping by putting them in the almost real-time purchasing scenario. The study confirmed the need of people to retribalize through e-tribalization by the way of customization for the masses in the context of online shopping.

This study aims to examine the trustworthiness of internet-based quality signals (specifically webpages and before-sale services) from the perspective of interactivity by evaluating the associations between on-line signals of product quality and the off-line perceived quality of actual products.

Empirical data are collected from 261 Chinese female university students. Partial least squares structural equation modelling is used to test the conceptual model.

Both webpages and before-sale services are positively associated with off-line perceived quality, but only the quality of before-sale service has a direct association with customer satisfaction. Webpages and before-sale services are both trustworthy signals for indicating the quality of physical products; however, these signals provide different levels of trustworthiness.

The interactivity perspective supplements information-economics theory in examining the trustworthiness of internet-based signals. A signal is a trustworthy indicator only if customers perceive a close relationship between the quality of the signal and the actual product quality.

On-line sellers should improve the reciprocity and controllability of communications from a buyer’s perspective and should pay more attention to the strategic role of on-line communication for improving customer service.

Researchers have evaluated the trustworthiness of on-line quality signals from an information-economics perspective. This study extends these previous studies by addressing the perspective of interactivity. Two types of product-quality signals, including webpages and before-sale services, are assessed in terms of their trustworthiness by examining how these signals relate to off-line perceived quality and customer satisfaction.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the relationship between customer interactivity and the value it realizes for employees and customers, that is, employee creativity and customer-perceived economic value, and to test the mediation role of knowledge exchange quality in this relationship.

A cross-sectional empirical study using pairing data collected from the employees and customers of a high-contact service industry is designed to test the research model. Customers and employees in 75 hotels in China are surveyed. Equation model analysis is performed with SPSS and Amos.

Customer interactivity has a positive effect on the employee creativity and customer-perceived economic value, and the quality of knowledge exchange mediates the two processes.

The findings provide suggestions for managers to take action to promote interactions between customers and employees and to encourage them to actively participate in the value creation process. Additionally, enterprises can establish a knowledge integration mechanism to improve the quality of knowledge exchange.

This study explores the value of interaction from the perspective of both sides of the interaction, enriching and expanding the theory of interaction. Few studies simultaneously consider the value of both parties in the interaction process. From a two-way perspective, this study extends the past unilateral angle to a multilateral perspective and clearly explains the mechanism behind continuous interaction. This study finds the key mediator variable – knowledge exchange quality – in how customer–employee interactions achieve value. It theoretically enriches the research on the interaction-value mechanism from the perspective of knowledge management.

This study aims at identifying and examining the mediating role of customer engagement behavior and social interactivity onbrand loyalty.

A correlational study design was adopted in this study to collect data (online survey) from 400 online participants active on Facebook pages.

Empirical results reveal that there is a significant and positive impact of social interactivity on consumer engagement behavior and brand loyalty.

The findings would help decision makers to make useful decisions in their everyday work practices, which would ultimately increase the market competition of brands.

Decision makers should focus on the entertainment and interactivity levels in advertisement designs that would allow customers to perceive the novelty of advertising.

The results are critical in developing consumers' attitude and perception toward a brand by providing them insights regarding the characteristics of brands.

The participation and social interactivity of consumers on the Facebook page drive consumer engagement behavior and brand loyalty.

Online technologies have, in recent times, revolutionized the process of relationship building between firms and their customers. Nonetheless, there is a limited focus and theorization when it comes to explaining the link between online relationship marketing (ORM) activities and their impact on firm relationship marketing (RM) objectives. Thus, the purpose of this paper is to examine the signaling role of ORM activities in generating online trust and customer loyalty, through the lens of the signaling theory.

Data for the study were gathered through a survey of 429 Ghanaian retail bank customers. Results were analyzed using structural equation modeling techniques.

The paper highlights the signaling role of engagement and interactivity online in influencing banks’ RM outcomes per the signaling theory. It concludes that bank’s online relationship activities, over and above the online tools utilized, need to communicate appropriate and useful signals in order to positively influence online trust and loyalty among customers.

The study, in its uniqueness, utilizes the signaling theory to explain the role and impact of online RM activities in the banking industry.

Image interactivity allows the customer to create and manipulate visual images of a product on a Web site. We measured the effect of exposure to an image interactivity function from an apparel retailer’s Web site on approach responses towards the retailer. The image interactivity function from the Web site allowed participants to mix and match apparel product images to help determine how well they coordinated. Dependent variables used to tap approach responses were attitude towards the online store, willingness to purchase from the online store, willingness to return to the online store, probability of spending more time than planned shopping on the site, and likelihood of patronizing the online retailer’s bricks‐and‐mortar store. We employed a repeated‐measures experimental design with 103 subjects. Paired t‐tests provided empirical support for the effect of image interactivity on enhancing approach responses towards the retailer. However, differences in approach responses existed between males and females. Marketing implications were provided.