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The insurance market has high churn rates because customers’ purchase decision-making process and claims management rely heavily on intermediaries. The purpose of this paper is to investigate the role played by insurers and intermediaries in customer satisfaction, as well as in the preferences of customers regarding the purchase decision-making process.

The first step was to select the most important attributes for Portuguese insurance customers. Three focus groups were conducted (using B2C and B2B markets), and data from Portuguese car insurance customers were gathered through an ad hoc questionnaire. Structural equation models and the multidimensional scaling unfolding model were applied.

Intermediaries play a key role in the retail insurance distribution channels by influencing customer satisfaction, claims management and the purchasing process (premium acceptance).

Because of the influence that intermediaries have on customer satisfaction, insurers should improve their partnerships (back office support) with intermediaries.

The study contributes to the retail distribution literature of the insurance sector by providing empirical evidence of the impact of intermediaries on customers’ satisfaction.

The purpose of this paper is to understand loyalty in the multichannel retail context. The paper analyses the interplay between offline and online loyalty and the direct and indirect effects on loyalty of brand trust and brand attachment, in a cross-cultural study.

Online survey answered by 761 multichannel apparel shoppers in two countries (UK and Spain). Structural equation model multigroup analysis is performed to test the hypothesized relations and the role of culture as a moderating variable.

Online loyalty is largely driven by offline loyalty, which is also positively affected by brand trust and brand attachment. These relationships hold across the two different cultures.

The findings confirm the validity of applying the theory of cognitive dissonance to explain multichannel shopping behaviours. The authors did not find culture that affects the relationships in the model; however, the validity of these findings should be tested considering other cultural variables different from nationality.

Multichannel retailers should focus on building trust and attachment towards the brand if they want to get online and offline loyalty. The efforts to build stronger bonds between the customer and the retail brand translate into higher loyalty, particularly towards the offline channels.

This paper extends the literature on the interactions between online and offline behaviour by focussing on the power of the brand to build strong customer bonds. The model considers the role of brand attachment together with brand trust in offline and online loyalty simultaneously.

Emerging markets are showing rapid growth and retaining high potential for the adoption of e-commerce and online shopping. Among the many high potential markets in Asia–Pacific, Vietnam has had a rapid economic development with an average GDP growth rate of 6.19 percent for the last two decades. To tap the growing online market of Vietnam, the purpose of this paper is to draw on adoption theory and the technology acceptance model to investigate the interrelationships among consumer perceptions of web design, reliability, privacy and customer service and their effects on purchase intention.

Survey data were collected from 221 consumers in Vietnam. Structural equation modeling was used to analyze the data.

Empirical findings show that consumer perception of web design is positively related to perceptions of reliability, privacy, customer service and purchase intention. Consumer perception of reliability is positively related to perception of customer service but not to purchase intention. Consumer perception of privacy is also positively related to perception of customer service but not to purchase intention. Finally, consumer perception of customer service is positively related to purchase intention.

This study provides empirical evidence to understand the consumer perceptions of online shopping in the specific context of Vietnam. Findings of this study will benefit future researchers who will study consumer behavior in the e-commerce B2C industry, particularly those who are interested in the expanding e-commerce market in Vietnam. Furthermore, this study provides empirical evidence to assist business managers of domestic and foreign firms to further understand Vietnamese consumers. Knowledge of consumer behavior from the specific culture of a developing country may assist business managers advance their decision-making quality in developing markets.

The purpose of this paper is to compare and contrast the online and in-store shopping behavior towards luxury goods.

Two studies are presented. Study one is qualitative in nature. It uses a mixed method approach and explores why luxury consumers decide to purchase luxury products online or in-store. The second study is a quantitative one. It tests the hypotheses drawn from the first study and validates the qualitative results.

Online and in-store luxury shoppers are influenced by different motivational factors. Online luxury shoppers are price-conscious, prefer the online product availability and have a higher level of trust towards online customer reviews. In-store shoppers who are more averse to online risks find it very important to see the product personally before the purchase and value shopping experience and interactions. In addition, differences exist between the online shopping behaviors of regular and luxury shoppers.

It contributes to luxury consumption research and expands shopping motivation literature by investigating luxury buyer behavior in the online context.

Luxury retailers should pay attention to the newly emerging segment of online luxury consumers. Lack of trust prevents more luxury consumers from shopping on the internet and the trustworthiness of the sellers can help attract potential shoppers. Luxury retailers can cater to the needs of different types of luxury buyers.

This paper is the first exploratory, comparative study on luxury consumption in the online and physical store environments. It investigates the motivational factors that drive the shopping behavior of internet and in-store luxury shoppers.

While e-commerce has been widely cited as the new marketing frontier, thus necessitating the need to deliver seamless shopping experiences across various online channels to achieve success, very few firms have the well withal to clearly tie customer experience investments to marketing outcomes. Theoretically speaking, the understanding of the drivers and outcomes of online shopping experience especially group behavior is imprecise. Therefore, this paper aims to investigate the drivers and outcomes of online shopping experience (OSE).

A combination of netnography and conversation analysis was used on a pool of qualitative data generated from the Facebook page of a leading online retailer that has online presence in 11 African countries.

Two broad categories of OSE under seven drivers and five distinct behavioral outcomes of OSE emerged from the study. The two categories of OSE drivers, though unique, widely fit into the existing frameworks of OSE. The study also indicates that shoppers seize other shoppers’ reviews as a suitable platform to engage in a wide range of behaviors.

The main theoretical implications include the following: complaint handling is not only a behavioral construct but also a stimulator/driver of online shopping experience; consumer behavior is stimulated more by cognitive drivers; trust is an outcome of OSE which leads to not only electronic word of mouth but also external response to service failure; and shoppers perceive external response to service failure as the last resort and this last resort can be activated by regrets and poor internal response to service failure. The major limitation of this study is that the proposed conceptual model was not empirically tested. Future research is required to validate the model.

The managerial implications of the findings are that in addition to providing superior shopping experience through enhancing the drivers of OSE identified in this study, online retailers must work assiduously to reduce incidents leading to service failures and promptly undertake service recovery actions whenever service failure occurs. Online retailers especially those operating in emerging markets will therefore benefit from their service recovery investments if they proactively install processes that enable them to promptly and satisfactorily recover failed services.

This paper contributes to service science research by proposing a unique belief-attitude-intention model of the drivers and outcomes of OSE on a relatively underexplored field. The proposed conceptual model advances the stimulus-organism-response framework, theory of planned behavior, satisfaction theories and shopping behavior literature in several directions.

The purpose of this paper is to describe the state of the retail sector in Sub-Saharan Africa, to point out the lack of information on some critical issues and to raise some questions about relevant topics for researchers and practitioners in the retail area for the African market.

This paper is comprised of a comprehensive review of the literature and integrates the fragmented body of knowledge on the area of retail internationalisation and food marketing. The gaps in the literature identified here may help to understand the sector better and develop academic research agendas on both the growth of the modern food retail sector and the agribusiness sector in Africa.

Four major topics were identified in the urban agri-food retail business in the African continent: large global retailers in Africa’s food sector; the internationalisation of African food retailers; the procurement practices of international retailers; and, the food-buying behaviour of Africa’s middle class.

This research paper relied heavily on grey literature such as newspapers and unpublished masters’ dissertations and PhD theses. With this material as a context, this paper provides guidance as to how scholars can advance the study of retail internationalisation in Africa, not only through further empirical and conceptual research but also by developing usable prescriptions for agribusiness value-chain actors on the continent.

The purpose of this paper is to evaluate the recent evolution of store flyers to illustrate how a tool of traditional marketing can be applied to generate insight on customer “couch-to-cart” behaviour thus supporting an innovating shopper marketing approach. The authors support this position by elaborating on three themes: first, the recent evolution of flyers, driven by incorporation of customer insight derived from loyalty data and by new features enabled by flyer digitalization; second, the evolution of the flyer planning and management process, related to opportunities and challenges in the retailer organisational structure; and third, the rise of online flyer aggregators.

The authors used field interviews. The authors included the perspectives of different subjects involved in planning and delivering flyer-based promotions. Secondary data were also collected regarding flyer activities of a sample of 67 retail groups across 15 countries and four industries.

Critical aspects of flyers as retail marketing tools emerged. The authors found that there are changes taking place in flyer-based promotion caused by “fertilisation” by loyalty data and digital that have not been captured by research so far. Retailers are experimenting with flyer aggregators. These infomediaries generate new insight on various aspects of the shopping cycle. Retailers can use these metrics to improve flyer strategy and negotiation with suppliers. The authors shed light on obstacles that prevent exploitation of shopper marketing benefits and value. Among the managerial challenges the authors found retailer organisation and management and functional integration.

The paper points to four areas for future research: promotion innovation, electronic intermediaries, marketing organisation and competition. Research questions are suggested.

This study contributes to retail management by identifying best practices that support promotional campaign development in a shopper marketing perspective. The authors provide suggestions around the incorporation of loyalty data in the flyer planning process and the creation of inter-functional teams.

Academic research has long addressed flyer-based promotion, but has not linked it to innovation or shopper marketing. Little or no attention has been paid to the flyer management process and its organisational dimensions, nor to digital flyers.

The purpose of this paper is to identify the web experience elements that aid the interaction between the consumer and fashion garments online. Two elements have been identified, product viewing and fashion information online, and analysis of the effects of these elements and the influence they have on consumers’ behaviour and decision‐making process are explored.

Qualitative data collection was employed utilising both photo‐elicitation and projective techniques during in‐depth interviews. Analysis of the elements is necessary to confirm how the cues are likely to affect the consumers’ interaction and influence the consumers’ shopping experience. Focus is placed on hedonic and utilitarian effects and purchase intentions towards fashion apparel investigating young consumers in reference to online retailing.

It is evident from the interviews that the two elements create very different experiences for the consumer with regards to viewing fashion online, the first area identified functional product viewing, allows the consumer to personalise how they view and interact with the garment stimulating more utilitarian effects, whilst the second area, aesthetic fashion information is driven by the retailer providing advice and information about the garments stimulating hedonic effects. Online fashion retailers must sufficiently intertwine hedonic entertainment with practical utilitarianism to provide a satisfying online shopping experience.

This research provides an examination into the complex area of interaction with garments online and its link to fashion‐related consumer behaviour. This study makes an important contribution to the literature to date, and raises additional questions for future research.

The purpose of this paper is to analyse the interaction between fashion brands and consumers on social network sites. More precisely, the goal is to assess the relationship that is established between the low-cost fashion company Primark and followers of the brand on the Facebook social network in Spain, and to evaluate the brand’s use of consumer passion through this social network.

The fieldwork for this research was conducted over September-October 2015, which coincided with the final stages in the sales and the start of the autumn-winter 2015 season. The methodology was based on a daily study of all Primark publications and user interactions with the brand on Facebook.

The results of this study show that there is some engagement between Facebook users and Primark. However, the company does not respond to this user interaction, thereby missing opportunities in the field of consumer passion.

Until now, research into the interaction of fashion brands with users of the social networks has focused mainly on the luxury sector. This study makes an important contribution to research into the interaction between a low-cost fashion brand and users of social network sites. Primark was chosen as the focus of this case study because the brand has become a model since it broke into the mature Spanish fashion market.

This research examines how hedonic shopping experiences for online music impact emotion regulation processes and how feelings regarding previous online music purchases influence repeat purchase behaviour. The paper aims to introduce a model that explains and examines the meditating role of consumers' attitudes, emotion regulation and subjective norms in the shopping experience for online music.

Structural equation analysis based on AMOS 17.0 techniques, using the maximum likelihood estimation method, was used to assess the measurement and structural model. Confirmatory factor analysis was conducted to determine construct and discriminant validity before testing hypotheses of the structural model.

Results indicate that shopping for music online involves an emotional and hedonic component. Specifically, consumer attitudes, emotion regulation as well as subjective norms influence repeat purchase intentions.

Emotion regulation in traditional retailing environments has been heavily studied, however, limited research exists to examine emotion regulation in the online retailing environment. With the proliferation of online retailing, this study makes important contributions to understanding online shopping behaviour for hedonic products.

Based on the findings of this research, online music retailers should consider developing applicable customer‐valued alternatives to positively influence the overall online shopping experience.

This paper models consumer emotion regulation beyond the traditional retailing environment and examines it in a virtual retailing environment. Results prove to be important as emotion regulation impacts consumer behaviour beyond previously known traditional settings.