Search results

We study how price dispersion varies with product characteristics at a popular online price comparison site – Shopper.com. Our primary finding suggests that price dispersion in online markets varies with product characteristics and firm behavior. We also find evidence that the level of dispersion varies with the percent of firms listing price information in multiple categories. When the percent of firms listing prices in multiple categories is relatively high (low), price dispersion is low (high).

This study aims to extend research in marketing on two important relational constructs, customer satisfaction and brand attachment, by comparing their long-term effects on customer behaviors with different levels of performance difficulty in a relatively understudied domain of durable products.

Using a two-stage quantitative study with US customers from five durable product categories, the authors first explored the hierarchy of customers’ loyalty behaviors based on increasing effort in a pretest study (N = 675). Then, the authors tested the effectiveness of satisfaction and brand attachment for customers’ loyalty behaviors over a nine-month period in a longitudinal study (N = 2,284) with customers from the same product categories.

Compared to satisfaction, brand attachment emerges as a stronger long-term predictor of customer behaviors. The performance difficulty of customer behaviors positively moderates the impact of brand attachment and negatively moderates the impact of customer satisfaction. Brand attachment is particularly effective in predicting difficult-to-perform customer behaviors, which require customers to expend resources such as time and money. Customer satisfaction is mainly effective for predicting easy-to-perform behaviors, but its long-term impact is significantly lower for easy-to-perform behaviors than brand attachment.

The use of consumer durables in the study and samples from only one country restricts the generalizability of the findings.

The complementary roles of customer satisfaction and brand attachment are highlighted. Only satisfying customers is not enough to engage customers in behaviors that require resources such as money, time and energy for the brand.

A comparative study on the long-term effectiveness of two established relational metrics in explaining different customer behaviors varying in their performance difficulty in an understudied domain of durable products.

Companies spend millions on training their sales representatives. Thousands of textbooks have been published; thousands of training videos have been recorded. Hundreds of good pieces of advice and tips for sales representatives have been presented along with hundreds of sales methods and techniques. Probably the largest number of indicators and measures are applied in sales and distribution. On the one hand, this is a result of the fact that sales provide revenue and profit to a company; on the other hand, the concept of management by objectives turns out to be most effective in regional sales teams with reference to sales representatives and methods of performance evaluation. As a result, a whole array of indices has been created which enable the evaluation of sales representatives’ work and make it possible to manage goods distribution in a better way.

The indices presented in this chapter are rooted in the consumer market and are applied most often to this type of market (particularly in relation to fast-moving consumer goods at the level of retail trade). Nevertheless, many of them can be used on other markets (services, means of production) and at other trade levels (wholesale).

Although the values of many indices presented herein are usually calculated by market research agencies and delivered to companies in the form of synthetic results, we have placed the emphasis on the ability to determine them independently, both in descriptive and exemplifying terms. We consider it important to understand the genesis of indices and build the ability to interpret them on that basis. What is significant is that the indices can be interpreted differently; the same index may provide a different assessment of a product’s, brand or company’s position in the market depending on the parameters taken into account. Therefore, we strive to show a certain way of thinking rather than give ready-made recipes and cite ‘proven’ principles. Sales and distribution are dynamic phenomena, and limiting them within the framework of ‘one proper’ interpretation would be an intellectual abuse.

This study aims to explore the opposite effects of single-category versus multi-category products information diversity on consumer decision making. Further, the authors investigate the moderating role of three categories of visitors – direct, hesitant and hedonic – in the relationship between product information diversity and consumer decision making.

The research utilizes a sample of 1,101,062 product click streams from 4,200 consumers. Visitors are clustered using the k-means algorithm. The diversity of information recommendations for single and multi-category products is characterized using granularity and dispersion, respectively. Empirical analysis is conducted to examine their influence on the two-stage decision-making process of heterogeneous online visitors.

The study reveals that the impact of recommended information diversity on consumer decision making differs significantly between single-category and multiple-category products. Specifically, information diversity in single-category products enhances consumers' click and purchase intention, while information diversity in multiple-category products reduces consumers' click and purchase intention. Moreover, based on the analysis of online visiting heterogeneity, hesitant, direct and hedonic features enhance the positive impact of granularity on consumer decision making; while direct features exacerbate the negative impact of dispersion on consumer decision making.

First, the article provides support for studies related to information cocoon. Second, the research contributes evidence to support the information overload theory. Third, the research enriches the field of precision marketing theory.

This paper aims to empirically analyze how adaptive collaboration in supply chain management impacts demand forecast accuracy in short life-cycle products, depending on collaboration intensity, product life-cycle stage, retailer type and product category.

The authors assembled a data set of forecasts and sales of 169 still-camera models, made by the same manufacturer and sold by three different retailers in France over five years. Collaboration intensity, coded by collaborative planning forecasting and replenishment level, was used to analyze the main effects and specific interaction effects of all variables using ANOVA and ordered feature evaluation analysis (OFEA).

The findings lend empirical support to the long-standing assumption that supply chain collaboration intensity increases demand forecast accuracy and that product maturation also increases forecast accuracy even in short life-cycle products. Furthermore, the findings show that it is particularly the lack of collaboration that causes negative effects on forecast accuracy, while positive interaction effects are only found for life cycle stage and product category.

Investment in adaptive supply chain collaboration is shown to increase demand forecast accuracy. However, the choice of collaboration intensity should account for life cycle stage, retailer type and product category.

This paper provides empirical support for the adaptive collaboration concept, exploring not only the actual benefits but also the way it is achieved in the context of innovative products with short life cycles. The authors used a real-world data set and pushed its statistical analysis to a new level of detail using OFEA.

The growing market for organic products presents a tremendous opportunity for marketers to extend their existing brands. However, there is hardly any research that investigates the factors extension from an organic parent brand is preferred over extension into same product category for success of such brand extensions. This paper investigates the role of two different bases consumers may use to evaluate the extension into organic product – organic status of the parent brand and its similarity to the extended product category.

The study involved a 2 × 2 (organic versus regular parent brand and same versus different product category) between-subjects factorial design. Data collected from 164 postgraduate students presented with one of the four scenarios were analysed using ANOVA.

The results reveal that extensions from organic parent brand versus regular brand, and in the same product category versus different category, are evaluated more favourably. Moreover, extension from an organic parent brand is preferred over extension into same product category.

The research contributes to the extant literature on branding and retailing by building on categorisation theory to explain consumer preference for brand extension when launching a new organic product. The findings provide valuable insights to practitioners to launch a new organic product using brand extension.

The purpose of this study is to explore the impact of product category and consumers’ motivations profiles on the determinants of consumers’ preferences and purchase intentions of counterfeits and genuine products, through manipulation of product attributes and purchase situations.

The study relies on an experimental design involving a questionnaire on a convenience sample with two parts: a tradeoff model manipulating three attributes, product type (genuine vs. counterfeit), price (high vs. low) and place of purchase (regular shop, Internet and market) in two product categories, and a scale measuring motivations to purchase counterfeits. Ranking and purchase intentions are analyzed using conjoint analysis and generalized linear mixed model (GLMM).

Ranking reveals a dominant pattern of consumer behavior regarding counterfeiting: product type, price and place of purchase. Product category has a moderating effect on choice criteria: relative importance of place of purchase and price varies according product category. Consumers’ motivations profiles have also a moderating effect on consumer behavior. Some profiles are more receptive to copies. Consumers’ profiles exhibit different hierarchies of purchase criteria and may change them depending upon product category.

Results challenge literature on the dominant role of price among choice criteria. Price alone cannot determine a counterfeit purchase. It is the interaction of price, place of purchase or product type that explains such a behavior. Product category matters: Price and place of purchase importance cannot be considered without accounting for product category. Consumers’ motivations profile matters. Consumers are not homogeneous face to counterfeits.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate consumer willingness to pay a premium for domestically manufactured products in the context of a buy-national campaign and the role of congruity in determining that willingness.

A market-stall-like context was used to conduct a stated-preference choice modelling experiment in six major cities in Australia and New Zealand. Participants were asked to choose one of three country-source alternatives for each of three product categories on display (muesli bars, toilet paper and a merino wool garment) with and without “Buy Australian Made” or “Buy New Zealand Made” stickers. A total sample of 2,160 consumers participated.

Strong evidence for the existence of buy-made-in effects for the muesli bar and toilet paper categories was found at the 95 per cent confidence level. Domestically made toilet paper attracted a premium in Australia (10 per cent) but a discount in New Zealand (5 per cent). Consumers in both countries indicated their willingness to pay a 14 per cent premium for domestically made muesli bars.

This research design, which aimed to achieve a high level of ecological validity, precluded direct quantitative measurement of product category-COO schema congruency in the same experiment, either before or after the choice experiments. Future studies in other countries and product categories would benefit from surveying a separate sample of the same populations to directly estimate cross-population differences in COO “extreme affect” and product-COO congruence to strengthen the untangling of possibly confounding effects.

Brand managers, retail sector organisations and governments may need to reconsider the rationale for participating in buy-national campaigns, given the lack of generalisability of buy-made-in price premiums.

This paper is a rare example of an experiment to test whether consumers are willing to pay a premium for domestically made products in the context of a buy-national campaign.

This study aims to examine the relationship between family business identity disclosure by firms and consumer product evaluations and the moderating impact, if any, of firm size on this relationship. Toward this end, the study seeks to develop a theoretical explanation for how consumers process family business identity information.

A qualitative pre-study was conducted to obtain preliminary evidence that consumers’ perceptions of family businesses originate from both family- and business-based category beliefs. A product evaluation experiment, involving young adult subjects, was used to test the research hypotheses, and the experiment data were analyzed using MANOVA.

The key finding was that the effect of family business identity disclosure on consumer product evaluations is moderated by firm size.

This research has implications for businesses seeking to promote their family business identity in branding communications.

This research provides a theoretical account of why consumers might hold different perceptions of family business brands. The interactive effect of firm size and family business identity information disclosure on consumer product evaluations contributes new insight to family business branding.

The purpose of this study is to analyze the current scenario of private labels from consumers and retailers’ point of view and provide inputs to the retailers that will help them to increase their profitability. Profitability for retailers is a resultant of efficient inventory management in a limited space. This paper studies consumer’s purchase behavior and facilitates retailers in their decision-making of the dilemma between the appropriate mix of national brands (NBs) and private labels to increase their profitability. Retailers will be able to do cross-merchandising of the categories of the goods having strong associations and will increase the shelf space of the products, which are preferred by customers.

Market basket analysis was done for 1,223 transactions including two or more product categories in each transaction. In total, 564 products were studied and these products were further divided into 23 categories. Lift analysis was done 4 times to find an association between the products of all the categories.

The results find a strong association between some categories and advocate the placement of these combinations together – one being a NB and another private label.

Analysis of only a limited set of brands and their product categories for a value retailer cross-merchandising.

The analysis of sales transactions will help retailers in determining the associations between product categories. This association will be helpful in placing their private labels vis-à-vis NBs to do cross-merchandising and allocating judicial space to the product assortment to increase their profitability.