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Consumers display complex shopping behaviors in the multichannel environment, which includes traditional retail stores and the internet. The purpose of this paper is to examine the effects of the customer-sales associate relationship, customers’ receptiveness to online store shopping, and their interaction effects on the customer’s attitude toward multichannel shopping behavior when the firm decides to establish an online store as the online channel. The authors also examine how customers’ multichannel shopping behavior affects their future spending intentions.

Survey data were collected by soliciting 231 customers who purchased cosmetics in department stores within the past three months. Subjects were asked to give their overall evaluation of their offline and online shopping experiences in the last three months.

Results show that the customer-sales associate relationship significantly reduces customers’ attitude toward searching offline but purchasing online. Receptiveness to online store shopping has significant effects on customers’ attitude toward multichannel shopping behaviors regardless of whether they search or purchase via the online channel. The customer-sales associate relationship also moderates the relationship between customers’ receptiveness to online store shopping and multichannel shopping behaviors. Finally, unlike other types of online and offline multichannel shoppers who display higher future spending intentions when the physical store decides to open an online store, those who prefer physical stores for both information searching and product purchasing display lower spending intentions.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this paper is the first to use customer-sales associate relationships to investigate consumers’ attitude toward multichannel shopping behavior. The findings provide meaningful implications for service providers that use sales associates to increase consumers’ value via face-to-face service, but find it challenging to go online.

The purpose of this paper is to develop and test a comprehensive model of customer trust in a retail service setting. Three levels of the customer‐to‐store relationship are simultaneously taken into account: customer to sales associates, customer to store branded products, and customer to the store itself.

Using partial least square (PLS) on a sample of 393 customers of an Italian supermarket retailer, a model linking customer trust (in the store, in store branded products and in sales associates) to overall perceived value and store loyalty intentions and behaviors is tested. Subsequently an expanded model to determine the influence of managerially controlled antecedent variables (salespeople's trustworthiness, store environment, store assortment, and communications) is estimated on the various trust levels.

Trust in the salesperson and trust in store branded products have positive effects on overall store trust. Store trust, in turn, increases perceived value and loyalty intentions. Looking at the drivers of the three levels of customer trust, salesperson trustworthiness positively affects only trust in the salesperson. Store environment has a positive impact only on overall trust in the store. Store communication fosters all three levels of customer trust, while store assortment increases both overall trust and trust in store branded products.

Findings of the study suggest an alternative perspective to the dominant strategies in grocery retailing services. To foster store patronage, retailers have typically invested in price cuts, promotions and loyalty schemes. Store managers may rather use sales associates, the store environment, store assortment, store branded products, and communication to foster customer trust and increase customer loyalty. Managing store brands with the goal to build trust, as opposed to increase immediate profit margins, may call for a completely different approach to private labels. Similarly, the potential relevance of interpersonal trust may suggest retailers to devote more resources to selection, recruitment and training of sales associates, and may stimulate changes in evaluation criteria, incentive schemes and reward systems.

The study aims at filling two important gaps in the literature: the scarcity of comprehensive store patronage models and the lack of exploration of the operational means of improving customer trust in retail services.

Factors such as globalization and market size have made India a major consideration for multinational firms and their salespeople. Despite the appeal of the market, the majority of theories and empirical studies of sales have been based on Western thought and within a Western context. This study seeks to address the issue of what interpersonal traits impel outcomes and behaviors of Indian salespeople.

A model was tested using survey data collected from salespeople and their respective sales managers within a print media company located in India. A structural equation model was used to test the hypotheses.

The results suggest an interesting interplay between interpersonal traits and pro‐social sales behaviors. Empathy proneness was positively related to helping behaviors targeted at other salespeople, while guilt proneness was positively associated with behaviors targeted at customers.

The research suggests that a salesperson's capacity for empathy does not always translate into customer‐based behaviors. Hence sales training and other interventions targeted towards building empathy may actually impact on behaviors between salespeople versus the interface between the salesperson and the customer. Theoretical and managerial applications are also discussed.

The paper combines a data collection of salesperson‐sales manager dyadic responses and examines whether the theoretical undergirding of the Western‐based pro‐social literature is appropriate to apply in Eastern cultures such as India.

The intricacies of electronic commerce via the Internet and World Wide Web have provided marketers with a host of interesting challenges. From using the Internet and World Wide Web sites as communication and promotional tools to performing distribution functions, marketers are finding an entirely new world of consumer purchasing behavior. Issues such as store layout, traffic patterns, and salesperson interactions within a retail store are vastly different in E‐Business marketing. As in a direct‐marketing exchange, trust becomes a central issue in the negotiation process. Winning the customers' trust, and keeping their trust, is essential to E‐Business.

The purpose of this paper is to analyze perceptions of service cannibalization from sales agents when faced with increased online sales, and their consequences on the employee. The authors assess the effect of service cannibalization perceptions on insecurity, satisfaction, alienation, sales agents’ effort. The study also examines relationships between effects on sales agents’ service sabotage during service delivery.

Data were collected from 497 travel agency sales agents, and structural equation modeling was used to examine hypothesized relationships.

The results suggest that sales agents’ perceptions of service cannibalization influence employees, and have repercussions regarding service sabotage.

Mediators were not tested, and the model does not capture the phenomenon’s complexity. This study reinforces the importance of capturing sales agents’ perceptions from travel agency managers in reducing negative consequences on employees, which is particularly important given multichannel marketing when online marketing channels coexist with traditional sales forces.

This study offers insights to firms regarding perceived cannibalization and its consequences on sales agents’ motivation. Organizations should find ways to minimize insecurity, dissatisfaction, and alienation.

This study examines psychological influences of the addition of an internet channel on sales agents’ job-related outcomes, and its relationship with sales agents’ service sabotage during service delivery.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the effects of different reward programs on in‐role and extra‐role behaviour; and to investigate whether specific reward programs can be designed to enhance both in‐role and extra‐role behaviour simultaneously.

Semi‐structured in‐depth interviews were conducted on a total of 11 employees from four different fashion retail outlets. Informants consisted of employees from different positions within these organizations (i.e. store manager, assistant store manager and sales associates) to provide researchers with possibly differing viewpoints. Interviews were content analysed and classified, according to emerging themes.

Certain reward programs, namely individual and group financial incentives motivated sales associates to engage in both in‐role and extra‐role behaviour simultaneously. Further, compared to formal recognition programs, informal reward programs (individual financial incentives, individual social recognition and group social recognition) appeared to be more effective in motivating sales associates to enhance their in‐role and extra‐role performance.

This paper contributes to a better understanding of the effects of different reward programs and their administration on in‐role and extra‐role performance of retail sales associates.

Many tourism related businesses give little consideration to influencing people to make repeat visits. Wineries are no exception. Management often spends too little time and effort trying to satisfy the visitor and encourage them to return. However, repeat visitors are valuable because they typically spend more than first‐time tourists and pass along information to others. This paper examines the importance of bringing consumers back to a winery, and the information and spending implications of doing so.

The purpose of this study is to examine consumer perceptions of their shopping experience in a retail environment.

Based on the literature, a model of relationship strength is developed and empirically tested with a sample of consumers in a chain departmental store setting in Victoria, Australia. The model investigates the effect of service quality, trust, and commitment on relationship strength. The model then seeks to explore the impact of relationship strength on attitudinal outcomes such as relationship quality and behavioral outcomes such as customer loyalty. Interrelationships among these variables are also considered. The data are analysed using LISREL VIII as the proposed research model consists of a simultaneous system of equations having latent constructs and multiple indicators.

Overall, the findings were consistent with hypotheses from the marketing/management literature. Empirical support is provided for the relationship between service quality and trust.

Although this study found significant relationships between the constructs in the research model, it should be taken into account that the levels of variance explained are relatively modest given the large sample size. In addition, the relationship strength model was tested using a cross sectional design making casual assessments difficult.

The research findings could be generalized to services that share some common characteristics with regard to the nature of customer relationships in the retail industry, for example, banking, accounting, and insurance services.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the level of understanding of Islamic banking concepts and the factors that influence Islamic banking adoption in Malaysia, based on Rogers’ (1983; 2003) Diffusion of Innovation. Specifically, the impact of perceived attributes and other variables (understanding, consumer innovativeness and bank personnel’s professionalism) on Islamic banking adoption is examined.

A quantitative approach using a sample of 200 working MBA students in a leading public university in Malaysia was used. The instrument used was a self-administered questionnaire survey.

The level of understanding of various Islamic banking concepts is below average. A logistic regression reveals that the understanding of Islamic banking concepts and perceived advantage significantly influences the adoption of Islamic banking services.

The small sample size of 200 individuals may render the findings ungeneralizable. Future studies may use a larger sample from across Malaysia and incorporate other independent variables, such as religiosity and Islamic financial literacy.

The Malaysian government can provide tax incentives and conduct educational roadshows on Islamic banking. Educating prospective consumers on the advantages of Islamic banking as opposed to conventional banking would provide more objective benefits that would boost the adoption of Islamic banking.

The results of this paper will be useful for Islamic financial institutions to increase their marketing and promotional efforts to keep pace with stiff competition within the industry.

Many have applied the concept of congruence or fit in the context of person‐organization, person‐environment and person‐person relationships and interactions. However, despite the significance of customer‐employee interactions and relations in a services context, no research has investigated the effects of congruence between a customer's self‐concept and employee‐image on important relational outcomes such as relationship satisfaction, loyalty to employees and satisfaction towards service provider. The paper aims to fill this gap in the literature and to investigate the effects of self‐employee congruence on customer satisfaction via the mediating effects of personal interaction, relationship satisfaction and loyalty to employees. The paper also seeks to investigate the links among personal interaction, relationship satisfaction and loyalty towards employees.

The paper uses a causal modelling approach and proposes a conceptual model after an extensive review of the literature related to consumer behaviour, organizational behaviour, relationship marketing and services marketing. The paper is based on a sample of 203 customers of bank users in Nigeria who completed a self‐administered questionnaire. The paper uses confirmatory factor analysis and SEM to analyse and confirm the conceptual model proposed in this research.

The paper demonstrates that self‐employee congruence is an important antecedent of personal interaction, relationship satisfaction and loyalty to employees each of which is in turn positively linked to customer satisfaction towards the service provider.

The paper discusses implications for service marketers and for retail banking sector and highlights the significance of self‐employee congruence for service design and delivery, advertising strategies and suggests future research directions.

The paper is first of its kind to discuss the effects of perceived similarities between customers and employees on some important relational constructs such as personal interaction, relationship satisfaction, loyalty towards employees and towards customer satisfaction.