Search results

The purpose of this paper is to compare and contrast two types of shopping aids, that is, research‐supporting and solution‐oriented shopping aids, and examine their effectiveness, considering both consumer and situational factors.

Expanded selection and additional detailed information are chosen to illustrate research‐supporting shopping aids, and personalized product recommendations and product ratings are used as examples of solution‐oriented shopping aids. This conceptual paper proposes that usage of shopping aids has an effect on the purchase likelihood and decision satisfaction and focuses on studying the moderating role of consumer product knowledge and time pressure. The thesis is that congruence between the type of a shopping aid and consumer characteristics, such as product knowledge, or situational characteristics, such as time pressure, should enhance the effectiveness of shopping aids.

The research propositions in this paper delineate how the use of retail shopping aids should affect the consumer's purchase likelihood, decision satisfaction, decision confidence, and evaluation costs, under the moderating influence of product knowledge and time pressure. Overall, knowledgeable consumers and less time‐pressed consumers should benefit from research‐supporting shopping aids (i.e. expanded selection and additional product information), whereas novice consumers and time‐pressed consumers should benefit from solution‐oriented shopping aids (i.e. personalized product recommendation and product ratings).

Retail shopping aids are designed to offer sales assistance for consumers to handle the obstacles to purchase completion. However, past efforts to install retail shopping aids have seen mixed results. This conceptual paper advocates that consideration of consumer characteristics and situational factors is necessary to understand the effects of shopping aid usage. This paper thus contributes to the understanding of solutions to purchase decision deferral and the determinants of decision satisfaction, and has practical implications for retailers regarding providing retail shopping aids to facilitate purchase completion and shopping experiences.

India has undergone dramatic change in its retail markets since economic liberalization in 1992. The authors aim to use the framework of consumer decision making styles to investigate longitudinally how these styles have changed from 1994 to 2009. They also conducted a cross-sectional analysis of the 2009 data to determine whether decision making styles are shaped by psychological variables: perceived time pressure, shopping opinion leadership, shopping self-confidence, consumer susceptibility to interpersonal influence, and materialism.

The eight different consumer decision making styles were measured with instrument by Sproles and Kendall. The psychological variables were measured with established instruments with adequate reliabilities. The survey was administered to young adults. The Indian samples from 1994 and 2009 were matched allowing for comparisons.

The longitudinal analysis showed that four of the eight decision making styles changed statistically between 1994 and 2009; there were increases for brand consciousness, novelty-fashion consciousness, and impulsive-careless shopping while perfectionist-quality consciousness decreased. The cross sectional analysis of the psychological variables showed that perceived time pressure had minimal impact while shopping opinion leadership and shopping self confidence had a major impact. Materialism and consumer susceptibility to interpersonal influence had a moderate impact.

The authors used an urban sample; a rural sample would also be useful. Future research could examine other emerging markets such as Brazil and Vietnam to identify the impact of the psychological variables on decision making styles in those countries.

The study shows that decision making styles do change as an emerging economy becomes more developed. The study also shows that psychological variables can explain some of the differences in decision making styles among consumers. Retailers and marketers can use this information to be more strategic in the way they develop their planning.

Changes in decision making styles show that consumers are now more brand and fashion conscious while being more impulsive and careless in their shopping. These changes may signal that Indians are becoming more materialistic and more focused on brands and fashion which can lead to excessive buying and debt.

The paper offers a longitudinal view of changes in decision making and a cross sectional analysis of how psychological variables affect decision making styles. This study focuses on issues not presently discussed in the literature.

The purpose of this paper is to validate the consumer styles inventory (CSI) scale for understanding the decision-making styles of shopping app users. The validated scales are used to examine the relationship between consumers’ decision-making styles and factors affecting the use of mobile shopping apps.

A total of 428 valid responses are collected from the users of the five most popular shopping apps. The mobile shopping apps are selected based on a popularity study. Data are collected from mobile app shoppers through an online survey.

Findings reveal a new set of factors that can be used for understanding use of mobile shopping apps. Decision-making styles influence the adoption of mobile apps for shopping. Factors responsible for the adoption of mobile shopping apps such as usefulness and risk perceptions differ across consumers with different decision-making styles.

The findings would facilitate online retailers in building focused marketing strategies for segmenting and targeting the consumers having different decision-making styles.

The current research is the first of its kind to examine the applicability of the CSI scale in the context of mobile app shoppers in an emerging economy. The findings enrich the existing literature by providing empirical support to the relationship between decision-making styles and factors affecting adoption of shopping using mobile apps.

The purpose of this paper is to identify patterns for the intra-market expansion of international branded retailers on a continent-sized emerging market using the network approach.

A multiple-case study design of four foreign branded retailers that have expanded onto regional markets in Brazil is used.

The intra-market expansion process shares similarities with the cross-market expansion process; is influenced by the relationships of foreign branded retailers with local competitors and shopping mall firms; and market selection, mode of operation and store location decisions are interrelated and conjointly taken, instead of forming a three-stage process. Additionally, the importance of relationships with host market shopping malls firms is highlighted.

This paper advances a conceptual model of the intra-market expansion process, which comprises a system of interrelated decisions – (regional) market selection, mode of operation and store location – influenced by several network effects.

Managers of foreign branded retail suffer from liability of foreignness when undertaking intra-market expansion. Although Brazil is a large market, the retail community is highly connected because of managers’ personal relationships. Brazilian shopping malls dominate suitable store locations, and represent a valuable source of knowledge and resources for the foreign branded retailer.

This paper addresses two under-researched aspects of international retail: branded retailers – manufacturers that develop brands and operate stores – and intra-market expansion (i.e. to geographic regions of a given foreign country). It also discusses the challenges of intra-market expansion in continent-sized emerging markets, with considerable regional diversity (culture, infrastructure and institutions).

The aim of this study is to determine the factors affecting the consumer preferences and behaviour in the children's clothing market in Turkey, a country where the majority of the population is under 18 years old.

Whilst the study investigated the purchasing preferences and behaviour of parents, such as shopping frequency and period, type of retailer and the effect of reference groups in the children's clothing market, it also explored some children's purchasing characteristics, like shopping decision age.

This study offers some academic results on consumer behaviour and preferences in the children's clothing market: There is no set shopping period; consumers prefer shopping from independent shops; in the selection of retailers, consumers consider payment conditions, pricing, and range of merchandise; in the family the parents mostly make the buying decisions for their children's clothes; the age of children making their own clothing decisions varies between six and ten; the most important factors affecting consumers' decisions towards shopping for children's clothing are the price, quality, convenience, payment conditions, and size of the clothing.

The study concentrated on consumer behaviour and preferences regarding children's clothing in a limited population – Izmir, a city of three million.

There are few studies related to children in the literature. For the first time, this study has attempted to explore the growing children's clothing market in Turkey.

To investigate web‐shopping behaviour in Hong Kong: identification of the general attitude towards web‐shopping; relationships between past web‐shopping experience, attitude towards web‐shopping, adoption decisions, search behaviour and web‐shopping intentions; and influences of promotional offers and product categories on web‐shopping intentions.

Relevant hypotheses were constructed and a web‐based questionnaire survey was than conducted using technically educated subjects. The proposed hypotheses were statistically tested and principal components analysis and structural equations were used to produce a structural model.

Web‐shopping intentions are directly affected by web‐search behaviour and web‐shopping adoption decisions, and are indirectly affected by web‐shopping attitudes, past web‐shopping experiences and past experience with the web. Web‐search behaviour was a stronger factor than adoption decision in terms of influencing web‐shopping intentions. The presence of promotional offers had a positive effect on web‐shopping intentions, and web‐shopping intentions were different for different product categories.

The sample employed was composed of technically educated undergraduates and graduates and thus limiting generalizations to a higher levels.

Experienced internet users and experienced web‐shoppers are more likely to be potential future web‐shoppers. Those who have a general dislike for shopping and who tend to buy in a great haste when the purchase becomes absolutely necessary may eventually be another group to become web‐shoppers.

The primary value of this paper lies in extending the understanding of Hong Kong web‐shopper behaviour, and in developing an empirical model that can partly explain the processes leading to web‐shopping intentions.

The present study investigates changes in the shopping behavior of today’s mall patrons as opposed to those in the early 1990s. Data collected in the sample surveys included respondents’ demographic attributes, shopping motivations, situational factors, and purchase behaviors. Although no differences were found between the demographics of the respondents in the earlier and later periods, we discovered significant differences in shopping patterns and purchase behaviors. Compared with the shoppers in the early 1990s, today’s mall patrons tend to be more leisure driven, they have a greater concern for merchandise selection, and they visit the mall less often but make more purchases per visit. The findings also reveal that situational variables are more likely to have an impact on shoppers’ purchase decisions today than they did before. Based on the study’s findings, we suggest a number of pragmatic strategies to aid store and mall managers in their marketing efforts with regard to consumers today.

Innovations in technology and evolution of internet elicited the usage of technology and internet during the shopping process of consumers. Changes in consumer shopping processes opened doors for shifts in consumer buying behavior. As a result of the variations in consumer buying behavior, retailers formed new channel structures to fulfill customer requirements. New channel structures created different retailing formats and enhanced the complexity of retailing processes. As the complexity of retailing processes increased, complexity of consumer shopping behavior increased as well. In this sense, multichannel retailing emerged and expanded all around the world and paved the way for omnichannel retailing. Transformation of multichannel retailing to omnichannel retailing created two different shopping forms as: Showrooming and Webrooming. In this chapter, showrooming and webrooming concepts will be studied and the complementarity dimensions of these concepts will be explained in detail.

The purpose of this study is to explore the impact of both information self-efficacy and information acquisition with regard to information channels on decision quality and also on satisfaction, which provides a new angle for online shopping satisfaction research and practice alike.

This study develops a research model drawing upon customer satisfaction theory, information and decision making theory and self-efficacy theory and tests it using a questionnaire and partial least squares structural equation modelling.

Data collected from 331 Chinese online shopping customers were used to test the model. It was found that self-efficacy in getting information (SEGI) strongly affects perceived decision quality (PDQ) and also satisfaction with online shopping. Meanwhile SEGI negatively moderates the impact of web advertising usage for getting information on PDQ and overrides the effect of consumer review usage for getting information on PDQ.

The current research usefully contributes to the theoretical development of the structural model exploring the effects of information self-efficacy and information behaviour on decision quality and satisfaction with online shopping in the specific context of China and beyond more generally.

The purpose of this paper is to analyze tourist and trip‐related characteristics and tourist motivations in connection with the decision to participate in shopping and for those tourists who decide to participate, the main determinants of the amount of expenditure.

By estimating a Heckman model this paper analyses characteristics relating to the decision to participate in shopping and characteristics related to the amount of corresponding expenditure. The explanatory variables included in the model are tourist motivations and tourist and trip‐related characteristics. Data used for the analysis come from a survey conducted in the high season of 2008 in Mallorca (Spain), a leading Mediterranean sun and sand destination.

The results indicate different motivations and tourist and trip‐related characteristics are associated with the decision whether or not to participate in shopping and with the level of shopping expenditure. This facilitates the identification of the type of tourist, which may be of more interest to the destination in terms of shopping behaviour.

The results are useful in identifying tourist profiles with a different propensity to participate in shopping and with different levels of expenditure. This information may be useful for destination managers interested in promoting shopping activities. Encouraging shopping behaviour may be a way of increasing tourist expenditure at destinations and of providing direct benefits for the local economy.

Tourism literature has given only very limited attention to research on characteristics related to shopping behaviour. This study deals with this subject and it provides information that can help promote shopping activities by tourists. The main contribution of this paper consists of the joint analysis of shopping participation and expenditure amount as a result of trip‐related characteristics and travel motivations.