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Explains that UK consumers currently spend over £9 billion on do‐it‐yourself (DIY) home improvement products. States that in the 1980s this was the UK’s fastest growing major retail sector, and the booming UK housing market, especially the number of house moves, was widely thought to be the main stimulus for this growth. Reveals that the annual number of house moves has fallen by 50 per cent since 1988 but the DIY market has still grown, which suggests that the link between DIY and the housing market has either changed or is not as strong as previously believed. Reassesses the major factors which affected the DIY market in the 1980s through data analysis and multiple regression techniques. Suggests from the results that the effect of house moves on the DIY market is less than conventional wisdom would indicate. Notes that the most significant factors have been identified and are being used in a five‐year forecast which shows growth in line with increases in the general economy in a new, mature DIY market. Concludes that the results highlight the care needed when basing forecasts on a single factor which may no longer be valid.

Celebrity endorsement is common in the marketing communications context, especially in the Asian market. Thanks to the popularity of online DIY celebrities, many marketing communications practitioners have started to involve such celebrities in brand and product endorsement strategies. However, few existing studies have compared the endorsement persuasiveness of online DIY celebrity endorsers with traditional celebrity endorsers, particularly in the Asian market. Therefore, the purpose of this paper is to fill the literature gap by examining how consumers perceive and evaluate online DIY and traditional celebrity endorsers.

In-depth personal interviews were conducted with 15 interviewees with a median age of 23. They were asked to report their overall evaluations and attitudes toward online DIY celebrity endorsers and traditional celebrity endorsers, and their respective endorsement strategies.

Although the popularity of online DIY celebrities is growing in China, they received a lower level of appreciation from interviewees than traditional celebrities. The persuasiveness of online DIY celebrity endorsers was not as effective as that of traditional celebrity endorsers. Interviewees even held an overall negative attitude toward online DIY celebrities and their endorsements. Interviewees perceived traditional celebrity endorsers more positively, and their endorsements to be more effective, than online DIY celebrity endorsers.

The small sample size may constrain any generalization to be drawn from the findings. Future studies are suggested using survey and experiment methodology to further test and compare the persuasiveness of online DIY and traditional celebrity endorsement.

We suggest communications practitioners continue to use traditional celebrities to improve overall brand image and enhance the target audience’s purchase intention as the exploratory study reveals that audiences have an overall positive experience with traditional celebrities, instead of online DIY celebrities. If online DIY celebrities are preferred in communications strategies, we suggest practitioners carefully select qualified online DIY celebrity endorsers based on image congruence between such online DIY celebrities and the product category in that audiences in the exploratory study are quite cautious when exposed to product endorsement messages from online DIY celebrities. Besides this, audiences have more confidence in product endorsement if there is a fit between online DIY celebrities’ expertise and the endorsed product type.

This is the first qualitative study on consumers’ perception of product endorsement at the level of online DIY and traditional celebrity endorsers.

Do out of town superstores adversely affect traditional shopping centres by siphoning off the higher purchasing power of car‐owning households? The arguments for and against persist, but it appears that retail warehouses, selling bulky, durable goods in out of town locations are generally looked on favourably by planning authorities. As the trend to larger stores seems to have developed an unstoppable momentum, a recent project was set up to find out how accessible edge, or out of town, warehouses are, who uses them, and how they affect conventional shopping centres, particularly those with shops selling comparable merchandise. The following paper presents part of this research. It was carried out by Transport and Environment Studies (TEST), for London Transport in their dual role as public transport operators and as land owners with sites of interest to DIY superstore developers. The paper was presented at PTRC's 12th annual summer meeting in July this year, at the University of Sussex.

This study aims to reveal consumer perceptions towards organic food, particularly emphasizing the confusion and vagueness in the public eye.

In total, 21 well-educated and relatively high-income consumers were selected as cases of the study. The knowledge about the organic food concept and organic food preferences were analyzed through the grounded theory analysis. In this analysis, ten categories which are shopping from the close circle, the product information attitude, do it yourself (DIY), true and false facts and dilemmas, information sources, the most preferred organic products, perception of organic food indicator, market place trends, organic food orientation reasons, and attitude toward the organic products/producers were detected as the main issues.

The authors chose the cases from well-educated people who have a relatively high income, and it is seen that the knowledge levels of consumers are low regarding organic foods. This low-level knowledge becomes apparent in confused and erroneous answers and actions. The confusion over the organic food concept and the institutional image appear as two main findings of the study. The authors named this false fact as organic confusion and dilemmas in this analysis. According to the study’s results, there is a considerable amount of confusion over healthy and natural food contexts.

This study aims to bring a comprehensive delineation to the general perception of the organic food concept in society. And it reveals a detailed feedback for the institutions and companies on how to solve organic food problems such as confusion, institutional image problem, and false facts. Although organic product knowledge is shown as a critical factor in many studies in the literature, the number of studies that examine this situation in depth is insufficient.

Despite the recent growth of the do-it-yourself market, very little is known as to how or why individuals actually choose to engage in prosumption behavior. The purpose of this study is to specifically examine the decision process of actors when determining the level of resource commitment and integration necessary to prosume or consume a service, thus offering insights to both managers and academics alike.

A multi-method study using both qualitative and quantitative research examines the decision of actors to consume or prosume a service. A conceptual model is presented and tested.

The results identify the primary drivers individuals considered when evaluating the resource commitment necessary for a make or buy decision. This research offers empirical support for the application of transaction cost analysis as an appropriate theoretical explanation of how actors decide to prosume or consume a service. The authors further suggest, based on these findings, that transaction cost analysis is a viable middle-range theory to explain the commitment and sharing of resources between actors engaged in co-production within the perspective of a service-dominant logic.

Future research is needed to identify opportunities for hybrid models that consider the appropriateness of these findings within larger service networks, as well as potential moderating or mediating influences of the direct effects identified and investigated.

This study offers an initial attempt to provide a theoretical explanation for the resource integration decisions (e.g. make or buy) faced by individuals in a growing segment of the economy. The findings enable better informed strategies to be identified by both service providers and retailers.

This paper aims to improve the service discipline’s understanding of the unique challenges and opportunities that services marketers encounter in Central, Eastern and Southeastern Europe (CESEE) and Post-Soviet states. This paper also serves as an introduction to the special section about services marketing perspectives in this region.

Considering the Post-Soviet reality, the paper is a viewpoint regarding the specific development potential of services marketing in the CESEE region. In addition, the three papers included in the special section use a variety of research methods, participants and service settings.

First, this paper outlines the positive and negative consequences of the radical changes in the services markets over the past 30 years. Next, all three papers included in the special section explore the distinctive customer perspective of services marketing. Finally, this paper discusses the specific relationship building environment of the Post-Soviet reality and how its unique do-it-yourself background contributes to the existing discussion on consumers’ involvement in the co-creation of value.

The findings from this special section have valuable implications for future research on services marketing in the CESEE markets, although these may not always be generalizable beyond the unique context of the research detailed in each of these papers.

This research, along with the three papers, presents some useful directions for services marketing managers cooperating with the CESEE markets, such as understanding and managing the expectations of their customers or employees.

This paper is one of the first attempts to understand the uniqueness of the under-researched area of services marketing in the CESEE and Post-Soviet States, both from a theoretical and empirical point of view. This also provides previously under-represented authors from the region the opportunity to present their perspective to an international service community.

Over the last 40 years Do‐It‐Yourself (DIY) consumers have evolved from relative obscurity to a major multibillion dollar per year market. Research findings based on 403 DIY cases were used to develop insights for the formulation of retailer strategy. Types of projects undertaken and annual activity rates formed the basis of the investigation. Nine project categories were identified: carpentry, vehicle, painting, electrical, lawn and garden, plumbing, sewing, wall and floor covering, and masonry. Annual activity rates of the sample DIYers were used to identify three major groups: light doers, average doers, and heavy doers. The type of retail outlet preferred (e.g., department store, hardware store) depended primarily upon the project category the DIYer was considering. However, the mix of a retailer's product, price, promotion, and place elements desired by DIYers was related to activity levels. This led the authors to suggest that retail strategies might appropriately be developed along these two lines. First, consider which project categories retailer wishes to enter. Second, adjust the merchandising offering to best serve DIYers according to their activity levels.