Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services

The impact of the deregulation of trading hours on trips to planned shopping centres is studied using the retail aggregate space-time trip (RASTT) model, where changes in consumer spatial behaviour are analysed at three malls in seven year periods (1980/82, 1988/89, 1996/98) in Sydney, Australia (The Sydney Project). After effective deregulation in 1992, the subsequent repeat samples in a hierarchy of shopping malls show significant structural change in only the afternoon samples at community and regional planned shopping centres. The results show a substantial increase in the attractiveness of planned shopping centres over traditional retail centres, where less consumers are shopping locally. There was a shift in spatial demand towards Sunday for ‘small centre’ behaviour and the appearance of high frequency regular trips to the regional planned centre. The RASTT model suggests that these changes in the structure of consumer behaviour are a result of moving the time boundary to seven days-a-week shopping at these centres. These structural changes may account for the on-going long term vacant shop problem that has manifested itself under shopping hour liberalisation in south east Australian, British and Canadian traditional retail hierarchies in the 1990s.

The paper begins to explore and unravel the intricate relationship between corporate strategy and labour market restructuring within the UK food retailing industry during the late 1980s and early 1990s. It is argued that the increasingly diverse and heterogeneous nature of part-time working within UK food retailing has facilitated the metamorphosis of the corporate strategies employed by the major UK food retailers away from ones dominated by productivity enhancement of the new ‘Super-Service’ era. The introduction of Super-Service is shown to have had significant qualitative effects on the working practices and quality of work experienced by part-time workers within UK food retailing.

In this paper we examine the different characteristics that have been associated with store loyalty in the grocery sector and how these characteristics have changed over time. We also analyse whether the characteristics associated with the loyal consumer in Anglo-Saxon countries are relevant for the study of a buyer with a Latin character, such as the Spanish. Finally, we determine the extent to which the process of identification of the loyal buyer is improved if we discriminate between consumers in function of their involvement with the purchasing process and of their available time. The results indicate that customer involvement has a limited discriminatory power in the study of repetitive purchasing in the same store in the acquisition of the grocery products being analysed. However, the buyers’ available time is shown to be an aspect that should be taken into account when studying this phenomenon.

Two important benefits of brand equity have largely been assumed in most previous research: reduced marketing expenditures required to launch brand extensions; and channel participants as an important source of brand equity. Results of a discrete choice experiment with independent retail grocers indicate that brand names influence independent retailers’ probability of listing brand extensions, but their sensitivity to mix elements such as consumer advertising, promotional allowances, and wholesale price, as well as competitors’ listing actions are not influenced by brand names. This means that retailers treat each dollar of consumer advertising or promotional allowance the same, regardless of who is spending it. Manufacturers should not assume that retailers will be less sensitive to other elements of the marketing mix for stronger brands.

One of the most pressing problems in urban America today is the serious shortage of supermarkets in many inner cities despite America’s abundant food supply and state-of-the-art food distribution system. Since the 1950s, numerous supermarket chains and independent grocers have departed low-income inner city neighborhoods. Consequently, inner cities have been left with smaller and less accessible stores that are generally unable to provide both the quality and variety of foods needed for a healthy population. In addition, these smaller stores are often unable to offer affordable prices to inner city households. Supermarket access in the inner cities is an important issue that has not been fully addressed by any sector. This paper attempts to reignite debate about the plight of inner city neighborhoods by discussing some of the critical issues, challenges and opportunities facing the development of supermarkets in poor urban neighborhoods.

Key Account Management (KAM) is surprisingly little known marketing approach in retailing and consumer services context, however it has much to offer to companies in these industries. It provides an effective, practical and rather simple method for companies interested in increasing their profits by right customer and relationship management. Indeed, KAM is a business-to-business marketing approach, however most retailers and service companies can greatly benefit from it. A large number of retailers and service companies operate both in the consumer and business-to-business market. Few retailers or service providers have never invoiced another company. Moreover, most consumer goods and services are influenced by business-to-business services. The availability and quality of consumer goods and services often essentially depends on various business-to-business services in the earlier phases of marketing channels. Furthermore, by understanding the logic of KAM, retailers and consumer service providers can develop their own key supplier management. Information is one of the most important resources of goods and services in post-industrial economy. Information-intensive services are based on knowledge and refining of information. Increasing number of information-intensive services emerge both in the consumer and business-to-business market. This paper describes the nature of KAM and information-intensive services, and suggests a framework for KAM practices in information-intensive services.

As retailers look for ways to increase sales, ethnic segments may offer new opportunities. This paper uses the Rokeach Terminal Values Scale to examine the differences between Hispanic and Anglo values. Demographic and socio-economic variables are also used to examine the values held by Hispanics with respect to the level of acculturation into a majority Anglo society. The results show differences in values between the cultures and some differences in values associated with low and high acculturation. Strategy retailers might consider are suggested.

Recent growth of ethnically diverse US and international populations makes these groups especially attractive to retailers. Although acculturation research suggests that Hispanics differ from other ethnic groups, little research has been conducted on such potential differences within the Hispanic community. This study examined acculturation measures as predictors of differences among Hispanic consumers with respect to shopping orientations, attitudes toward retailer attributes, and information source preferences. Compared to objective measures, multidimensional measures more effectively predicted culturally-related phenomenon; whereas, neither measure discerned disparities in global attitudes. Implications for retailers’ use of tailored versus mass market strategies related to Hispanic consumers are discussed.

Drawing on both the diffusion of innovation and market channel literature, this study compared college students from China and the US regarding predictors of channel choice. Moreover, the research identified barriers impeding use of non-store channels. Logistic regression analyses indicated that intention to use multiple channels is positively related to convenience orientation and Internet connectivity in the Chinese sample, and negatively related to age in the US sample. Content analysis revealed the primary barrier to catalog shopping was that respondents could not see how clothing looked in three dimensions; for Internet shopping, it was the difficulty in assessing clothing quality.

This study explores the extent to which repatronage intentions of retail stores are affected by perceived value for money, customer satisfaction and consumption feelings. In addition, we examine the effect of store service provision as an antecedent to such consumer evaluations of retail stores. These relationships are modeled overall and then examined in the context of both department stores (defined as mass-merchandisers, which highlight quality image and high customer service) and discount stores (defined as mass-merchandisers with an emphasis on self-service and low prices). While all paths (except one) were significant in the overall model, differences were found when comparing the department and discount store models. Overall, perceived value for money played a much more significant role in the discount store model, whereas consumption feelings were shown to be more central to the department store model.

In this exploratory study, a segmentation analysis of a shopping mall's customers is conducted according to the activities they performed during their visit, based on a methodology developed by Bloch et al. (J. Retailing 70 (1994) 23). This methodology is extended with measures of perceptions, emotions, and motivations. Activity-based clusters, obtained with the Variable Neighborhood Search metaheuristic applied to the P-median problem. (Hansen and Mladenović, 1997) proved to be significantly different along many psychographic dimensions (including atmospheric perceptions), and demographic variables. This profiling methodology successfully synthesizes many segmentation approaches that were used separately in previous studies. This results in a complete and distinct profile of each group that may be a useful tool for retail strategists.

This article describes two studies that tested the basic tenet of congruence theory—that there is a relationship between self-concept and evaluation of product concept. The present paper extends the range of previous empirical work by considering the above relationship in a service context, using restaurants and hotels. In the first study, the degree of congruence is assessed by the gap score formula and in the second uses the direct score formula. In both cases the results are regressed against measures of satisfaction, attitude, service quality and behavioural intention. The study highlights the importance of self-concept and suggests that the actual and ideal self-congruence have a variable influence on the above variables. The results presented here also suggest that an applied scale may be useful for evaluating product concept and self-concept.

This study extends the current debate on the consumption and addictiveness of a variety of electronic media such as television, video games, and the Internet to research to the use of MP3 technology. Digitalisation has enabled consumers to enjoy music at any time and in any place. For some individuals, this freedom of choice has led to behaviour that controls other aspects of their lives. The current study is exploratory and combines a qualitative deprivation study and a quantitative survey of 200+ adults to explore the addictiveness of music consumption. The findings imply that for some consumers music use is addictive with negative effects on their lives, but for most consumers it is a life enhancing activity.

This paper examines antecedents of retailers’ loyalty program adoption and their perceptions regarding loyalty program effectiveness. The investigated antecedents consists of sector, competitive and demand, and firm characteristics. To test the hypotheses, we surveyed 180 retail companies active in 15 retail sectors, 37% of which have a loyalty program. The survey data are complemented with expert judgements on sector characteristics. We estimate multi-level models for both loyalty program adoption and perceived effectiveness (tobit-2 specification). We find that the sector characteristics assortment homogeneity and average purchase frequency stimulate loyalty program adoption considerably. Further, customer-oriented firms are most likely to adopt loyalty programs. Contrary to loyalty program adoption, the effectiveness of a loyalty program in terms of additional customer knowledge and customer loyalty is hardly affected by market and organizational factors. But it appears that retail companies should better take into account their technological skills necessary for obtaining useful information from the customer loyalty program data.

As companies struggle to persuade their customers to adopt new self-service technologies (SSTs), it has become increasingly important to understand the factors affecting customers’ attitudes towards these SSTs and their adoption behaviour. Technology readiness (TR), i.e. the customer's mental readiness to accept new technologies, has been proposed as such a factor. TR comprises four dimensions: innovativeness, optimism, discomfort and insecurity. This article investigates the effects of TR on customers’ (1) attitudes towards using SST for airline check-in, (2) adoption of self-service check-in, and (3) evaluations of a new self-service check-in on the Internet, in terms of perceived service quality, satisfaction and loyalty. An empirical study was conducted among loyalty program customers of a European airline, having access to Internet check-in. Data were collected with online and traditional mail surveys, resulting in 1258 usable responses. Analysis of the data revealed that only optimism and innovativeness formed unique individual dimensions. Furthermore, TR had surprisingly little impact on customer attitudes towards SST, on adoption behaviour, and on SST evaluations. Optimism explained consumer behaviour towards SSTs best, whereas innovativeness had only a marginal effect on attitudes towards using the Internet or a mobile phone to check-in. The article concludes with a discussion of the validity of the TR construct and suggestions for future research. Managerial implications are provided.

The interaction of consumers and marketers within the Web environment, particularly for retailing/purchasing is a growing area of importance. This paper focuses on examining Internet users adoption of the Web for retail usage. It uses the Technology Acceptance Model Davis (Int. J. Man-Mach. Studies 38 (1993) 475) as a theoretical foundation to explore adoption of this technology for retail usage. The study also adds what are argued to be key consumer characteristics such as Opinion Leadership, Impulsiveness, Web Shopping Compatibility, Internet Self-Efficacy, Perceived Web Security, Satisfaction with web sites, and Shopping Orientation to understand the adoption of Web retailing by Internet users’. A Web based survey was developed and administered, yielding 392 responses. The findings indicate that TAM is a valid theoretical framework to understand users adoption of the Web for retail purposes. Also Internet users’ perceived usefulness and perceived ease of use were effected differentially by Opinion Leadership, Web Shopping Compatibility, Internet Self-Efficacy, Perceived Web Security, Impulsiveness, Satisfaction with web sites, and Shopping Orientation.

This study examines (1) the relationship between the (dis) advantages of electronic grocery shopping, in comparison to traditional in-store shopping, and consumers’ perception of the innovation characteristics (i.e., relative advantage, compatibility and complexity) of electronic grocery shopping, and (2) the relationship between consumers’ perception of these characteristics and their intention to adopt electronic grocery shopping. These relationships are examined using a sample of 415 households in the Netherlands. The results indicate that the advantages and disadvantages of physical efforts and time pressure related to traditional in-store shopping positively influence consumers’ perception of the characteristics of electronic grocery shopping. The results further show that consumers’ perception of the relative advantage and compatibility of electronic grocery shopping positively influence their intention to adopt electronic grocery shopping. Consumers’ perception of the complexity of electronic grocery shopping negatively influences their intention to adopt electronic grocery shopping. It is also explored whether income, education and age moderate these relationships.

We empirically study and model how socio-demographic variables, attitudes and beliefs towards Internet shopping affect both the adoption decision and usage of the online shopping channel. Previous research on online shopping focuses on whether to adopt online shopping. This paper extends this research by delineating non-adopting individuals into non-browsing and browsing. Our results demonstrate that there is a fundamental behavioural difference between three forms of behaviour: that is, those that purchase online, those that browse online but then purchase in-store and those that do not shop online at all.

What is the effect of mall atmosphere in mall evaluation? Is this effect mediated by self-congruity and functional congruity? Does the effect of mall atmosphere on mall evaluation differ between adult and teenage shoppers? If so how? The research reported in this paper attempts to answer the above questions. A survey of mall shoppers was conducted (N=265) based on a mall intercept. The survey findings indicate that mall atmosphere positively affects functional congruity for both adults and teenage shoppers. However, as expected, the impact of atmosphere on self-congruity is only significant for teenagers. In turn, self-congruity and functional congruity positively affect mall evaluation for both adult and teenage shoppers.

Most of the assumptions made in classic versions of central place-theory make these theories ill-suited to describe the spatial outline of a global urban hierarchy (i.e. a network of world cities). In this paper, a systematic overview of possible alterations to classic central place-theories is presented to advance understanding on how we might assert this emerging global hierarchy. Apart from the observation that new (global) levels of central places are needed, we discern three alterations. First, the informationalization of the global economy implies a whole gamut of new central place functions when compared to the industrial phase of a capitalist system. Second, emphasis is increasingly on city–city relations rather than city–hinterland relations, which requires a revision of the concept ‘hinterland’. Third, hierarchical equivalence does no longer imply functional equivalence, i.e. there are processes of functional specialization between the central places of our global age. The totality of these observations implies that a different approach is required to assess the localization strategies of service firms within the context of the world city-network.

The aim of this paper is to review and critically analyse the internal and external sources of competitive advantage exploited by the major UK food retailers. This aim is designed to facilitate the generation of a chronological and historical explication of sustainable competitive advantage within the UK food retailing sector. The paper begins with a review of the five main theoretical explanations of superior organizational performance. This conceptual overview provides the basis for a more detailed examination of the factors influencing the competitive advantage of companies. This analysis entails a review of industry-level factors as well as the investigation of firm-level attributes. After a brief discussion of the factors influencing the sustainability of competitive advantage, attention is focused on the history of competitive advantage within the UK food retailing industry. Review and analyses suggest that, within this context, competitive advantage is best understood in terms of `competitive eras'. The discussion of past, present and future competitive eras leads to a number of conclusions and implications pertinent to both competitive strategists and retail specialists.

Recent industrial economics and marketing strategy literature focuses on the importance of firm size in explaining cross-sectional variations in profit rate. Porter (Competitive Advantage: Creating and Sustaining Superior Performance, Free Press, New York, 1985; and Competitive Strategy: Techniques for Analyzing Industries and Competitors, Free Press, New York, 1998) argues that advantages accrue to large and small firms, while mid-sized rivals often find themselves “stuck in the middle”. For the general merchandize, apparel and restaurant industries, estimation of a cubic relationship between firm size and return on assets reveals the positive, negative, positive pattern for the linear, squared and cubed firm size terms that is consistent with Porter's hypothesis. Moreover, model coefficients indicate an increased dominance of large firms in certain retail markets.

In this paper, we analyze effects of prices temporally reframed to a short period of time. We transfer a theoretical framework from a similar field of research to the context of temporally reframed prices. Based on this framework, we conduct a new empirical study. The results of the study show that temporally reframing prices leads to higher price attractiveness. However, this positive effect is overcompensated by negative effects of consumers’ feeling of being manipulated and of an increased perceived complexity of the price structure when temporally reframed prices are used instead of aggregate prices.

In contrast to the majority of studies relating to employee turnover reported in the marketing literature in general and retailing in particular, which have essentially been from the point of view of the organization selecting a person for a retail position, this study is an attempt to understand retail employee turnover from the perspective of an individual applicant selecting an organization. The study is aimed at providing insights into the effects that realistic job information and interviewer credibility may have on the retail firm's capacity to retain its employees. The important conclusion suggested by this study is that accurate, relevant and detailed job information play a significant role in reducing retail employees' decision to leave the job. The findings of the study also suggest that general interviewer affect by itself does not contribute to reducing retail employees' decision to quit the job. Implications for retail management would seem to be that greater attention must be given to providing realistic information concerning the retail job to potential recruits, rather than attempting to gloss over the less attractive attributes of the employment. If this is done, good recruits might be less likely to leave, and those who should not have been attracted to the position in the first place, will be less likely to be appointed.

The inherent nature of the international e-tailing environment leads to the consideration of purchase risk. In this study, an attempt is made to investigate the effect of three extrinsic cues, e-tailer brand equity, Country-Of-e-tailers (COE) and guarantee quality, within such an environment in Taiwan. The research findings support the proposed hypotheses that these exogenous factors affect a mediator, i.e., perceived e-tailer service quality, which in turn affects purchase risk perceived by online shoppers in a borderless marketplace. In conclusion, managerial implications of the research results as well as future research directions are presented and discussed.

This research investigates cognitive and affective determinants of retail patronage. We examine how perceptual environmental appropriateness alters perceived quality, emotion and shopping value. A nearly infinite number of combinations exist when one considers how various atmospheric elements may be altered. Among these, complementary arrangements exist that are cognitively assimilated and perceptually pleasing. Even relatively small changes in the type and volume of music, the odor, color scheme, or some other characteristics may cause a mental conflict captured by fit. Over 800 mall intercept respondents comprised a sample used to examine a structural model. Model results suggest that when perceptual appropriateness is diminished, consumers report lower positive affect, lower product quality ratings, lower perceptions of personal shopping value and fewer approach behaviors. In addition, the role of perceived quality in shaping shopping outcomes is explained.

This study investigates whether a consumer’s need for social affiliation and a consumer’s relationship proneness impact behavioural intentions (word-of-mouth communication, price sensitivity, repeat purchasing) towards a hairdresser’s. Data were collected from a systematic sample of a hairdresser’s consumers in Belgium. LISREL results revealed that need for social affiliation is a strong determinant of word-of-mouth communication and price sensitivity, while consumer relationship proneness has an indirect effect on price sensitivity via commitment. Important implications of the salient role of both constructs in determining behavioural intentions in a hairdresser’s context are provided.

This paper reports on research aimed at exploiting certain data sources for store choice modelling purposes. Many databases, such as some consumer panels, only record the firm chosen by consumers and not the specific store at which they shop. Four alternative approaches are proposed in order to use this raw information for studying patronage determinants at store level: (a) an ordinary logit model in which chain utility is averaged across stores within; (b) an ordinary logit model in which the choice set is assumed to be composed of the nearest store for each chain; (c) a straightforward application of an aggregate logit model; and (d) the application of an aggregate logit model with choice sets spatially bounded by a distance threshold representing the maximum distance that consumers are willing to travel for shopping. The models are empirically tested in the context of spatial choice behaviour. Goodness of fit indicators reveal that only models (b), (c) and (d) acceptably represent competitive interaction dynamics. As performance of (b) is slightly better than that of (c), it seems that a priori the ‘nearest store assumption’ is a better approach than the modelling of aggregate choice structures. However, when the latter approach is applied with more reliable choice sets, as suggested in model (d), the best performance is achieved. The results thus lead us to think that the aggregate logit model is a promising methodology for solving the problem at issue, but subject to an appropriate definition of the consumers’ choice sets. In fact, such an approach provides a more suitable modelling solution to the extent that the saturation and the intra-firm store heterogeneity become more intense, because these situations presumably imply that consideration sets include several stores from the same chain.

Like many other economic time series, US aggregate retail sales have strong trend and seasonal patterns. How to best model and forecast these patterns has been a long-standing issue in time-series analysis. This article compares artificial neural networks and traditional methods including Winters exponential smoothing, Box–Jenkins ARIMA model, and multivariate regression. The results indicate that on average ANNs fare favorably in relation to the more traditional statistical methods, followed by the Box–Jenkins model. Despite its simplicity, the Winters model was shown to be a viable method for multiple-step forecasting under relatively stable economic conditions. The derivative analysis shows that the neural network model is able to capture the dynamic nonlinear trend and seasonal patterns, as well as the interactions between them.

It is argued here that there are two quite distinct strands of literature on human resource management in food retailing, neither of which appears to pay much attention to the other. The first is written primarily by specialists in retailing, who examine human resource issues along with other aspects of management in the sector. The second strand is publications by human resource management specialists, who examine HR issues in retailing alongside their study of similar topics in other sectors. Both have their strengths and weaknesses, and their theoretical and methodological preconceptions, which tend to limit the development of a proper theoretical base for the subject. It is suggested that greater cognizance should be taken of the ‘other’ literature in each case, and that further advances can only be made through interdisciplinary research studies that combine the best of both groups.

In this paper we show how three relatively unknown optimization techniques could be used to solve important marketing management problems. In particular, we consider genetic algorithms for site location analysis, tabu search for market segmentation, and finally simulated annealing for designing sales territories.

In this article, a new method is illustrated for segmentation of visiting patterns on a web site. Instead of clustering users by means of a Euclidean distance measure, in our approach users are partitioned into clusters using a non-Euclidean distance measure, called Sequence Alignment Method (SAM). This method ensures that sequential relationships, represented by the order of elements, are taken into account. In experiments using real traffic data on the web site of a Belgian telecom provider, the performance of SAM is compared with the results of a method based on Euclidean distance measures. Empirical results show that SAM identifies segments presenting behavioral characteristics not only with regard to content but also considering the order of pages that are visited on a web site.

Prior segmentation research has primarily focused on market behavior, lifestyle and socio-demographics rather than on purchase histories. In this article, the authors propose the use of sequence alignment methods to segment customers based on their purchase histories. The principles underlying the method are discussed, and the method is illustrated using scanner panel data. The findings suggest that, compared to the conventional methods, the proposed method results in a better segment solution that captures both the shopping-frequency and variety-seeking information. These findings have important implications for differentiation and market positioning strategies.

While a significant body of research involving the unique characteristics of services, and management strategies designed to accommodate them, has evolved over the last decade, little attention has been expended to facilitate the decision-making processes of consumers faced with choosing a service provider. Moreover, research involving cross-cultural effects on decision strategies for consumer services is sparse. This study identifies alternative types of information that may facilitate pre-purchase evaluation of services by consumers, and evaluates its usefulness and effect on choice confidence. A preliminary investigation into cross-cultural differences regarding the effect of alternative information is also conducted.

Profiles inform decision making and impact both on the individual being profiled and the organisation acting on the information. When there is no universal empirical support for the profile, decisions are made under conditions of ambiguity. This paper analyses the decision-making process for reporting money laundering suspicions using a framework that highlights the role of technical, formal and informal sub-system elements. We conclude that, in the absence of certainty regarding technical, economic and legal parameters, informal factors play a key role in determining whether systems are adopted and how much is spent.

Power centres are primarily agglomerations of big box retailers. Even though the first power centre was only opened in 1986, there were 713 power centres in the United States by the end of the 1997. This paper addresses the evolution of power centres in the United States and discusses the differences between power centres and traditional shopping centres. Also presented are the operating results, sales figures, location, consumers, trading areas and the advantages and disadvantages of power centres for consumers, retailers and investors. Two power centres are described in detail. These observations are based upon a review of the literature and analyses of industry data. Power centres in Chicago, Washington, DC, California and Texas were also examined. Interviews with developers of power centres helped verify published data. Although power centres may develop in other countries, they are not likely to be as successful in Europe as they are in the United States.

A question is the main measurement instrument in the social sciences. Yet no conclusive results exist with respect to the suitability of alternative answer formats for typical constructs studied in this field. Furthermore, no prior studies have used real answers from respondents to investigate differences in responses as a consequence of answer formats, typically assuming the way in which individuals translate their responses from one answer format to another.In this study we make a first step towards filling the above two gaps. We investigate answer format effects for two different constructs (attitudes, intentions) and three formats (binary, ordinal, metric) using a repeat measurement design.Results indicate that formats lead to the same managerial interpretations with the same reliability; differ in speed and perceived speed while being perceived as equally simple, pleasant, and useful to express feelings. Binary and metric answer formats are found to represent interesting alternatives to the predominantly used ordinal format, especially when speed of completion or the availability of metric data for analyses is essential.

The number of companies using multiple channels in the distribution of each of their products is increasing steadily. Despite this popularity, the drivers of these channel strategies remain virtually unknown. This work attempts to deal with this problem by developing a model regarding the circumstances under which companies adopt multiple channel strategies. Data collected from companies in the UK financial services industry provide significant empirical support to the model. The results indicate that product sophistication, market target sophistication, channel conflict, market maturity, scope economies, and competitive strength, are important considerations in the multi-channel move.

Customer value has turned out to be a very important concept in marketing strategy and research in spite of the fact that the growing body of knowledge about the construct is fragmented. Different points of view are advocated, and there seems to be no widely accepted way of pulling views together. This article highlights some of these conceptual problems, and a new understanding of the consumer's value assessments is suggested which is based on consumer value production within dynamic patterns of consumption. Implications of this understanding are then outlined for marketing strategy and future research.

It is well documented that innovators have a significant impact on the success/failure of new products and services. In view of this, it is understandable that over the past three decades marketing practitioners and academics have tried to identify these elusive innovators. This study proposes and tests a causal model of female fashion innovativeness. Specifically, the model establishes the value of a domain-specific fashion innovator construct, identifies the key determinants and consequents of female fashion innovativeness and tests these relationships on data collected from a sample of female respondents using partial least squares. The results support the predicted relationships suggesting that the model provides a reasonable framework to understand female fashion innovativeness.

In this study, we review the antecedents of consumer expectations discussed in the service literature, incorporate the determinants in a single model, and test the model in the context of the airline industry. Specifically, we use confirmatory factor analysis to model the antecedents of the technical and functional dimensions of should and will expectations. Our model reveals that internal and external sources of information, values, involvement, and need for cognition influence should and will expectations differently. In light of our findings, we consider managerial implications and future research directions, and discuss the ensuing limitations of the study.

Online retailers would benefit from studies that examine which website attributes can be manipulated to favorably affect consumer satisfaction. The purposes of the study were (1) to examine the dimensionality of website quality for apparel retailers and (2) to determine which dimensions of website quality were significant predictors of shopper satisfaction. Data were collected from 273 female online apparel shoppers. Loiacono's WebQual™ instrument was used to measure shopper perceptions of websites. Factor analysis identified six dimensions of website quality: (1) web appearance, (2) entertainment, (3) informational fit-to-task, (4) transaction capability, (5) response time, and (6) trust. Only three dimensions, informational fit-to-task, transaction capability, and response time, were significant predictors of shopper satisfaction.

This research explores the aspect of the interface between store and shopper. The following variables were investigated as functions of apparel shopping orientations: (a) store attributes, (b) apparel purchase influences, (c) personal characteristics, and (d) life-style characteristics. A multidimensional approach was used on a sample of 273 female consumers in four urban South Korean markets to test relevant hypotheses. By cluster analysis of store attributes, three shopper groups were identified. Further, results showed these groups to be unique in purchase decision-making characteristics. Implications for penetrating the South Korean apparel market and suggestions for further research are discussed.

The purpose of this study is to examine the usage of promotional references external to and internal to the retail store setting by selected demographic and psychographic characteristics of the retail apparel consumer. A national random sample of 457 male and 170 female consumers participated in the study. Results indicate that gender has no effect on the internal and external promotional references used by consumers. Furthermore, results indicate that consumers“ use of promotional activities both internal and external to the retail store setting are affected by product involvement.

With the transformation and profesionalisation of British retailing it was expected that a career in retailing would be more appealing than previously. However, the results of a questionnaire survey of 369 undergraduate management students found that, on average, students remain neutral about pursuing a career in retailing. The top five attributes associated with a career in retailing were ‘consumer oriented’, ‘people oriented’, ‘poor salary’, ‘limited advancement’ and ‘poor working hours’. Little has been done to dispel the ‘retailing myth’ as recommended by Swinyard et al. (J. Retailing 67(4) (1991) 451), and retailers and academics need to work independently and together to enhance the perception of retailing as a career option to undergraduates.

Grocery shoppers were questioned about the frequency of purchasing items that were featured in the store's flyers. This measure was used as the dependent variable in a multinomial logit model with the independent variables being various aspects of shopping behaviour, usage of store flyers, age and employment status. Since only one threshold parameter was significant, the four-level dependent variable was then collapsed and a binary model was estimated. This study evidenced that less than half of the respondents looked forward to receiving unsolicited flyers. Most shoppers read the flyers only to be informed of price specials that the store has to offer. The odds ratio of responding to store flyer deals among those who look forward to sales flyers is more than double the odds ratio of those who do not await the flyers, across every category of shopping frequency. Retailers could employ direct marketing to target specific audiences who look forward to receiving store flyers.

This article discusses how the brand architecture of grocery retailers set material and symbolic boundaries for consumer choice, thus limiting consumer sovereignty. The article first discusses previous work on store atmospherics, servicescapes and brand architecture. It is argued that work based on these concepts has taken an internal management perspective on how retailers can manipulate aspects of the retail setting to serve their own interests. Then, we develop an alternative conceptualisation of retailer brand architecture that takes into account that consumers (and other constituents) are active co-constructors of material and symbolic aspects of retail settings. It is discussed how consumers participate in constructing retailer brand architecture and how this concept differs from previous research. Implications for both research and practice are discussed.

The effects on customer emotional responses and behaviour of two physical environment factors—layout and signage—and the overall servicescape were investigated in two retail settings: one where banking transactions were conducted in an automatic teller machine lobby and the other in a branch bank. The emotional responses studied were pleasure and arousal. The findings were generally replicated across both service settings. Better layout, signage, and servicescape resulted in more favourable emotional responses, particularly in terms of pleasure. Pleasure was also found to mediate the effects of these environmental factors on customer behaviour. Arousal was found to consist of two dimensions: one more overt and the other more passive. The banking service environment appears to influence the passive dimension of arousal more so than overt arousal. Some tentative insights were also obtained regarding the potential impact of service customization on these findings. Specifically, it was found that the effect of a good servicescape on customer behaviour was more pronounced when the service offered less customization in the branch bank but not the ATM lobby setting.

The aim of this paper is to explore loyalty, loyalty schemes, and loyalty cards, as well as the internationalisation of loyalty schemes. We focus on loyalty schemes in Asia to define the primary objective of our study: to assess the impact of perceived benefits on the feelings of participants of a specific retailer's loyalty scheme, as well as customer loyalty towards the retailer. A literature review of loyalty schemes and loyalty cards is undertaken as well as the internationalisation of these cards. A survey was conducted in five Asian countries in which Toys’R’Us operates, namely Singapore, Malaysia, Hong Kong, Taiwan, and Thailand. Data was collected among members of the Toys’R’Us Star Card loyalty programme. Structural equation modelling was used to build a model that can be used to explain the simultaneous structural relations between perceived benefits, emotional feelings, and loyalty behaviours. Invariance testing was applied in order to test whether the model holds across the five countries. Our findings suggest that perceived benefits have a weak direct effect on loyalty behaviours. However, perceived benefits have a much stronger effect on feelings, which in turn have a strong effect on loyalty behaviours. We also found subtle differences between the countries in the study, which could either be attributed to cultural differences, to marketing practices, or to both, which can only be ascertained through further research.

This study focuses at the impact of different relationship efforts made by a retailer (direct mail, preferential treatment, and tangible rewards) on key relationship marketing outcomes (trust, relationship commitment, and behavioral loyalty). A cross-sectional study in a retail clothing setting was conducted based on two consumer samples drawn from Belgium and the Netherlands. SEM results indicate that retailers undertaking relationship efforts to loyal consumers can positively affect these consumers’ attitudes and behavior. Consequently, managers and employees of retail companies need to be trained, motivated, and rewarded for making relationship efforts to regular customers.