Previous research shows that the success of a retailer depends on strong retail brands and attractive, easily accessible store locations. However, little is known about the relative importance of ...retail brand equity and store accessibility for store loyalty in different local competitive contexts. To provide insight into this issue, we conduct on a cross-sectional study of 4151 interviews and objective data on 30 stores of a focal retailer and its local competitors. We find that store loyalty benefits more from a strong brand than from a conveniently accessible location and that location can benefit from a strong brand. We also find that competitor’s brand equity has an especially negative influence on store loyalty towards a focal retailer and that the strength of the effects of brand equity and location accessibility on store loyalty depends on the local competitive context.
► Both a strong brand and a convenient, accessible store location determine the store loyalty. ► Retail brand has a stronger effect on store loyalty and strengthen perceptions of store location. ► Effects of a retailer’s brand and store location are dependent on the competitive situation. ► Results differ when competitor’s intensity and distance to the next competitor are considered. ► Loyalty to a retailer is reduced especially by perceptions of local competitors brand strength.
This research theorizes and empirically examines whether and how educating customers—a brand's efforts to enhance customers' product-related knowledge—affects customer word of mouth (WOM). In two lab ...experiments across service and retailing contexts, we find that educating customers enhances customers' positive WOM for a brand. Customer satisfaction and perceived expertise mediate this effect. Critically, the positive impact on WOM is stronger for customers who have less prior knowledge regarding the educational topic and are more amenable to knowledge sharing. The current findings add to the literature on customer education and WOM and offer managerial insights for improving brands' WOM campaigns.
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•This study is one of the pioneer studies to examine the effect of educating customers on customers' positive WOM.•Customer satisfaction and perceived expertise mediate the effect of customer education on WOM.•Customers' prior knowledge level and their enjoyment of sharing knowledge serve as critical boundary conditions.•Customer education is a novel marketing communication strategy for companies to generate positive WOM for their brands.
Motivational forces are commonly accepted to have a key influencing role in the explanation of shopping behaviour. In retailing research, shopping motives are a field of research that has received ...considerable attention, often in combination with motivation-based shopper taxonomies. While personal shopping motives and perceived shopping alternatives are often considered independent inputs into a choice model, we argue that shopping motives influence the perception of retail store attributes as well as the attitude towards retail stores. An empirical study, which was carried out in Germany with 560 grocery shoppers as respondents to test these assumptions, showed that the influence of shopping motives is much more profound on the attitude towards retail stores than towards the perception of store attributes, which might be explained by different levels of abstraction and, consequently, subjectivity in the interpretation of these stimuli.
Blinds up or down? Foscht, Thomas; Lin, Yuting; Eisingerich, Andreas B.
European journal of marketing,
03/2018, Volume:
52, Issue:
3/4
Journal Article
Peer reviewed
Purpose
This paper aims to explore how and when a business’ transparency leads to greater willingness to engage in sustainable and responsible consumption by consumers.
Design/methodology/approach
...Data were collected in two studies. Study 1 collected data from 219 consumers in a large shopping mall. Study 2 followed an experimental approach and used data from 327 participants.
Findings
The current research contributes to theory by hypothesizing and demonstrating when transparency is associated with higher willingness for sustainable and responsible consumption. Critically, the positive benefits of transparency vary according to a business’ future orientation, corporate social responsibility (CSR) and levels of customer involvement.
Practical implications
An important societal and practical implication of the current research is that business should not be expected to only focus on transparency in isolation but rather also needs to consider levels of perceived future orientation, CSR and levels of customer involvement to strengthen sustainable and responsible behavior effectively.
Originality/value
This research builds on and extends current knowledge by exploring the key role of business’ transparency in influencing sustainable and responsible customer behavior and examines critical boundary conditions for the observed effects.
Purpose
– The purpose of this paper is to examine the role played by both, self-brand connection and reference groups, in attributing symbolic meaning to a brand. Current studies focus either on the ...influence of reference groups or on the role of self-brand connection. We demonstrate that both interact in attributing symbolic meaning. To explain interactions between the consumer, the brand and the reference groups, we draw on Heider’s balance theory.
Design/methodology/approach
– A questionnaire was developed which included scales on self-brand connection, reference group belonging and symbolic brand meaning. Data were collected through an online survey and analyzed with factor analyses, analyses of variance and correlation analyses.
Findings
– Our findings suggest that consumers may alter their beliefs about a brand depending on both, their self-brand connection and the influence of reference groups. If a consumer feels a strong connection with a brand and this brand is used by a dissociative reference group, the consumer will not attribute high symbolic meaning to that brand. The same is valid if the consumer’s in-group uses a brand which the consumer does not feel connected to.
Originality/value
– The present study introduces Heider’s balance theory to the fields of reference group research and self-brand connection research. Balance theory has proved to be a valuable framework for analyzing the relationships of consumers, their brands and their reference groups in the context of attributing symbolic brand meaning. Building on these insights, researchers and practitioners may better understand the emergence of symbolic brand meaning hereafter.
Decisions about expanding an existing product portfolio and capturing new markets are of critical importance to a firm's financial performance and growth. Yet, important questions remain in regard to ...the extent to which product and brand extensions contribute to a firm's profit in B2B and B2C markets, respectively, and how firms with corporate brands in these markets should pursue an extension strategy that provides maximum impact on firm profit. The authors theorize and empirically address these questions based on a study of firms listed in the U.S. Fortune 500 published ranking. Findings of this research have important prescriptive implications for the management of B2B and B2C firms' growth-based extension strategy and contribute to B2B theory.
•With a sharper definition of product extensions and three different types of brand extensions, in the present research, we theorize and empirically address the following questions: (1) what is the contribution of product extensions to a firm's profit in B2B versus B2C markets, and (2) what is the contribution of each brand extension type to a firm's profit in B2B versus B2C markets?•Based on a sample of firms from the published list of Fortune 500 companies, we find that product extensions have a strong, positive effect on the profit of firms that operate in B2B markets, while the effect takes the shape of an inverted-U for B2C firms.•A very different picture emerges for brand extensions.•Although the increasing number of complementary brand extensions positively affects the profit of both B2B and B2C firms, the substitutable brand extensions show a positive impact on firm profit only in the B2B market, but not in the B2C market.•The contribution of independent brand extensions is positive for a B2C firm's profit, but is in the shape of an inverted-U for a B2B firm's profit.•These findings should help firms to make important strategic decisions on how to use each extension strategy for the optimal contribution to firm profit.
Purpose
Customers often want to learn about a product/service, and companies can benefit from such a learning desire. While prior research has shed light on firm-beneficial outcomes of customer ...learning and explored the motivational factors of business partners’ learning behavior, less is known about the critical antecedents of individual customers’ learning behavior. This study aims to explore the key drivers of individual customers’ learning desires and identified customers with a stronger learning desire.
Design/methodology/approach
This research used both a lab experiment (Study 1, N = 148) and surveys (Study 2, N = 553; Study 3, N = 703) across different participant populations and product contexts.
Findings
This study indicated that both involvement and knowledge-sharing intention drove customer learning desire. Customer expertise further strengthened these main effects. Moreover, a stronger learning desire led to greater customer satisfaction.
Research limitations/implications
This study identified key factors involved in customer learning desire and its potential benefits for companies. Additional research to investigate customer learning in specific environments and forms and regarding specific brands is warranted.
Practical implications
This study emphasizes the importance of supporting customer learning and encourages businesses to manage customer learning proactively. It also provides suggestions for effective learning support for targeted customer groups.
Originality/value
This study contributes to the customer learning literature by exploring key influencing factors of individual customers’ learning desires, based on self-determination theory. It also identified the role of customer expertise in shaping customers’ learning processes. Moreover, this study examined customer learning as a novel way to enhance customer satisfaction.
Linking retailing experiences with life satisfaction Grzeskowiak, Stephan; Sirgy, M. Joseph; Foscht, Thomas ...
International journal of retail & distribution management,
02/2016, Volume:
44, Issue:
2
Journal Article
Peer reviewed
Purpose
– A common assumption holds that retailers generally contribute to customer life satisfaction – retailers offer products and services that solve consumer problems – large and small. However, ...some retail experiences have been found to generate dissatisfaction, stress and unhappiness for some customers but not for others. Research is needed to not only demonstrate how retail experiences impact customer life satisfaction. The purpose of this paper is to address the question: why does satisfaction with various store types impact customer life satisfaction differently?
Design/methodology/approach
– The research context of this study is grocery retailers (neighbourhood convenience stores, super markets, and grocery discounters) in Austria. Using stratified random sampling across store types, a total of 379 personal interviews with grocery store customers were conducted. OLS regression analysis was conducted to test the research model.
Findings
– The study results suggest that satisfaction with a store type impacts customer life satisfaction depending on store-type congruity with shoppers’ identity. That is, satisfaction with a store type (e.g. neighbourhood convenience stores, super markets, and grocery discounters) is found to influence life satisfaction if the store type is congruent with the shoppers’ self-image and lifestyle.
Practical implications
– An emphasis on store-type congruity with shopper’s identity allows retailers to shift their attention towards creating more meaningful shopping experiences. Such a shift in focus may not only benefit retailers due to increase in customer loyalty for that store format. It also benefits shoppers themselves – the shopping experience contributes to shoppers’ life satisfaction.
Originality/value
– This research introduces store-type congruity with shopper’s identity as a key concept that connects shopping experiences to customer life satisfaction. This contributes towards building the hierarchical theory of shopping motivation. It demonstrates under what conditions shopping experiences impact consumer life satisfaction – a research topic that has received little attention in the retailing literature to date.
Blinds up or down? Foscht, Thomas; Lin, Yuting; Eisingerich, Andreas B.
European journal of marketing,
03/2018, Volume:
52, Issue:
3/4
Journal Article
Peer reviewed
Open access
Purpose
This paper aims to explore how and when a business’ transparency leads to greater willingness to engage in sustainable and responsible consumption by consumers.
Design/methodology/approach
...Data were collected in two studies. Study 1 collected data from 219 consumers in a large shopping mall. Study 2 followed an experimental approach and used data from 327 participants.
Findings
The current research contributes to theory by hypothesizing and demonstrating when transparency is associated with higher willingness for sustainable and responsible consumption. Critically, the positive benefits of transparency vary according to a business’ future orientation, corporate social responsibility (CSR) and levels of customer involvement.
Practical implications
An important societal and practical implication of the current research is that business should not be expected to only focus on transparency in isolation but rather also needs to consider levels of perceived future orientation, CSR and levels of customer involvement to strengthen sustainable and responsible behavior effectively.
Originality/value
This research builds on and extends current knowledge by exploring the key role of business’ transparency in influencing sustainable and responsible customer behavior and examines critical boundary conditions for the observed effects.
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