Anne L. Roggeveen

• PhD Columbia University
• Professor at Babson College

Inspired by the goal of making marketplaces more inclusive, this research provides a deeper understanding of consumer vulnerability dynamics to develop strategies that help reduce these vulnerabilities. The proposed framework, first, conceptualizes vulnerability states as a function of the breadth and depth of consumers’ vulnerability; then, it ske...

Many disgruntled consumers who experience service failures turn to brand sabotage, by posting vindictive posts on social media platforms. Such aggressive revenge behavior has the goal of influencing others and causing harm to a firm. Vindictive posts require a response from the firm, to limit their potential negative influence on other consumers wh...

This research presents a novel, conceptual perspective on distinctive opportunities available to retailers with a physical location to create reasons for customers to visit the physical store. A multi-method approach is used, where we combine the study of more than 25,000 online announcements of new approaches implemented in physical stores with 12...

This research examines how retailers convey messages to target customers and facilitate purchase decisions in physical settings. To establish a clear organizing framework for communications in physical settings, the current article examines both how and why retailers communicate with customers. Specifically, the authors address “how” questions from...

This research investigates how shopping on a weekday or a weekend moderates the impact of music on supermarket sales. Contrary to the intuitive beliefs of interviewed store managers, a meta-analysis, two field studies, and a controlled experimental study indicate that playing pleasant music (vs. no music) in supermarkets on weekdays enhances sales,...

This research examines how consumers evaluate the fairness of price increases during collective stress situations. Across three collective stress situations (COVID-19, Black Lives Matter protests, and economic downturn), the authors confirm that a collective stress situation evokes feeling of nostalgia as a coping mechanism. When the collective str...

Existing literature offers multiple suggestions for how to recover from service failures, though without explicitly addressing customers’ negative, high arousal states, evoked by the failure. The few studies that address ways to improve negative emotions after failures focus on face-to-face interactions only. Because most customers today prefer soc...

The conceptual framework proposed herein reveals how firms might establish a human experience focus, using both systematized and non-systematized knowledge to identify points of pain and gain. Such efforts align with the critical need for firms to develop their approaches to the customer experience, by moving beyond addressing how customers respond...

Retailers increasingly use digital displays and projections to enhance traditional endcaps. With two field experiments, the authors investigate how the vividness of an endcap projection affects shoppers. The results indicate an inverted U-shaped relationship between the vividness of an endcap projection and sales, such that endcaps with moderately...

The world of retailing is being reimagined and transformed at breakneck speeds due to new technologies, as well as due to changes in consumer purchasing behavior resulting from the COVID-19 pandemic. This dynamic retail marketplace is forcing retailers to strategize how to best position themselves to survive and flourish in this environment. Recogn...

Online daily coupons (ODCs) (e.g., Groupon) differ from conventional coupons, in that they require customers to make a prepayment for a product or service to receive a substantive discount at a later point in time. Drawing from escalation of commitment literature, this article examines how ODCs’ unique prepayment structure might affect customers’ s...

This research highlights the importance of retailer-consumer identity congruence – the match between the retail brand identity and the consumers’ identity. Retailers can leverage identity congruence to forge meaningful consumer-brand relationships which will result in enhanced engagement, brand loyalty, and willingness to pay. The paper discusses h...

The world of retailing is changing rapidly, and much of that change has been enabled by customer-interfacing retail technologies. This commentary offers a framework for classifying technologies, based on their primary influence on a customer’s purchase journey – in the pre-purchase stage, needs management and search engagement technologies; in purc...

Growing dynamic pricing and price automation trends increase the risk of price mistakes. In the case of low price mistakes, consumers might seek to take advantage of the error, and the company must decide whether to honor or deny the transactions. A set of studies reveal that consumers are more likely to take advantage of the price mistake when the...

Human enhancement technology (HET) is advancing a host of industries, yet it remains limited in its retail, sales, and service applications. Soon, however, these technologies appear likely to have notable impacts on customer experiences. To address their potential influences on customer–employee interactions and the customer experience, this articl...

Customer journey management (CJM) and understanding the role of customer experiences at each stage of the journey is of paramount importance to retailers and manufacturers to survive and thrive in this technology intensive environment. In this special issue we have focused on the following themes: the role of technology, the importance of social, c...

This chapter examines how luxury brands should consider customer experience in a multi-channel world. Building from the customer experience framework and the store environment framework, we present a framework focused on customer behavior and experience. We then focus on three aspects which are particularly important for luxury retailers to conside...

A proposed design–ambient–social–trialability (DAST) framework for retail atmospherics broadens conceptualizations to encompass not only the in-store experience but also out-of-store experiences that the retailer can control or influence. In turn, it expands understanding of retail atmospherics to incorporate multiple retail touchpoints that a cust...

To remain competitive, brick-and-mortar retailers need to create unique, engaging in-store experiences, such that they evolve from simply competing at a merchandise level and ensure holistic retail experiences that encourage customers to keep coming back. In this chapter, we examine how the five sensory components – vision, audition, olfaction, tou...

Purpose Drawing from prior research, the purpose of this paper is to outline the benefits of cause-related marketing (CRM) campaigns for the sponsoring multinational organization and the non-profit, to examine the impact of firm–cause fit and how this fit forms and to describe consumer reactions to CRM campaigns. With this backdrop, the paper offer...

This paper introduces a conceptual framework for understanding new and futuristic in-store technology infusions. First, we develop a 2 × 2 typology of different innovative and futuristic technologies focusing on their level of convenience and social presence for the consumer. Next, we offer a series of propositions based on the idea that convenienc...

This article contributes to research on advertising effectiveness by investigating the combined influence of ad headlines and visual patterns in the ad on consumer product evaluations. Headlines can convey motion (e.g., “move,” “quick”); when the associated ad features a regular visual pattern, it evokes stronger product evaluations than if it depi...

This article examines whether and why organizing product categories according to the consumption goal they serve (i.e., complement-based assortment organization) may increase purchases compared with organizing product categories according to their attributes or physical characteristics (i.e., substitute-based assortment organization). Across two fi...

Purpose To develop a richer, more complete understanding of how firms define and consider customer engagement on social networks. The research builds from the theoretical backdrop of customer engagement. The research then utilizes a qualitative interview approach to understand the firm perspective. Design/methodology/approach Qualitative data wa...

The 2019 International Conference on National Brand & Private Label Marketing is a unique academic forum for presenting and discussing original, rigorous and significant contributions from researchers around the world on marketing issues that retailers, store brand managers and national brand managers are facing. The three-day event covered a wide...

As shopping and transactions shifted from brick-and-mortar stores to online, it offers challenges as well as opportunities for businesses. One of such opportunities is the adoption of dynamic pricing—offering different prices on the same/similar products to different consumers. Dynamic pricing is typically automated. With price automation, mistakes...

Online daily coupons (ODCs) (e.g., Groupon) offer a large discount with a long redemption period when consumers prepay for given products or services. While these popular coupons present exciting new opportunities, retailers must understand how different factors under their control may impact consumers’ spending at redemption. Building on anchoring...

Firms and academics recognize the importance of creating an engaged customer base, though an in-depth understanding of how to achieve it is limited. This article proposes that firms that use consciousness as a foundational philosophy can create a more engaging and meaningful customer experience. A retailer or service provider with foundations in co...

Retailers have embraced a variety of technologies to engage their customers. This article focuses on " The Future of Retailing " by highlighting five key areas that are moving the field forward: (1) technology and tools to facilitate decision making, (2) visual display and merchandise offer decisions, (3) consumption and engagement, (4) big data co...

Dhruv Grewal (PhD, Virginia Tech) is the Toyota Chair in Commerce and Electronic Business and a Professor of Marketing at Babson College. His research and teaching interests focus on direct marketing/e-business, retailing, global marketing, pricing, and value-based marketing strategies. He has published over 100 articles in journals such as Journal...

Playing music in stores is very common. Music exerts an influence on how people behave (Milliman 1982, 1986), how they perceive the passage of time (Yalch and Spangenberg 1990, 2000), and how they exert an influence on what customers select from an assortment (North et al. 1999). Based on a meta-analysis of 32 research studies on the effects of mus...

Abstract: This research examines how managers act as a boundary spanner in two types of boundary-spanning relationships and how their boundary-spanning activities provide support for customer value creation in service networks. Using an embedded case design in three shopping centers, the results from interviews with retail store managers and shopp...

Purpose – This paper aims to investigate personalized communications through digital media, which include display, search, social and mobile communications. Design/methodology/approach – Drawing on the literature pertaining to different digital mediums, the authors explore how different factors influence consumers’ responses to personalized commun...

Engaging customers: the wheel of social media engagement The top priority of every firm is, or should be, to use the power of social media to engage customers. The abilities that social media provide firms, to target and participate in dynamic conversations with individual customers, means that the return on investments in social media efforts can...

A Chinese proverb says, “Teachers open the door, but you must enter by yourself.” My goal as an educator is to inspire students to enter by instilling a desire to learn and think critically. To achieve this, I strive to (1) have well designed courses, (2) use a variety of tools and techniques, (3) include practical applications of theory, and (4) l...

According to Hansen et al. (2011), social media technologies have changed the nature of interactions between customers and companies, engendering radically new ways of interacting and, essentially, revolutionizing marketing. This revolution centers on the fact that current and potential customers are using social media to engage both companies and...

This research proposes and tests a framework to understand how one type of low-scope cue, a guarantee, impacts consumer’s evaluations as a function of the retailer’s reputation (high-scope cue). By examining the joint role of cue typicality and the high-scope cue’s valence, this research provides a more comprehensive understanding of the impact of...

Manufacturers and online retailers are readily availing themselves of new technologies to present their merchandise using a variety of formats, including static (still image) and dynamic (video) portrayal. Building on vividness theory, the authors propose and demonstrate that presenting products and services using a dynamic visual format enhances c...

This research explores the impact of discount framing on consumer perceptions of value and purchase intentions. An amount off discount frame results in higher perceptions of value and purchase intentions for higher-priced products (priced over $100). Three studies consistently support this prediction. Experiment 1 examines the interactive effects o...

This article highlights how much remains to be discovered and understood in retailing research. The advent of new technologies and omnichannel retailing shift the retail landscape. This article highlights the importance of considering research from multiple perspectives: substantive, methodological, and conceptual. The overall substantive focus of...

Mannequins are ubiquitous; this research investigates a specific element of mannequin style, namely, the presence or absence of a humanized head. Study 1 demonstrates that in physical stores, the presence of a humanized head enhances purchase intentions for the merchandise displayed on that mannequin. However, in online stores, mannequin styles wit...

Despite the importance of discount practices for marketers, the optimal strategies often are unclear. This experimental study tests the effectiveness of percentage versus monetary discounts in high and low involvement purchase scenarios. Specifically, the authors manipulate discount types and find that for high involvement decisions, consumers expr...

The results of three experiments reveal that when evaluating a series of experiential products (e.g., beverages, music), consumers tend to have higher ratings and rankings for the products evaluated later (earlier) in a series, when the products are desirable (undesirable). Also, when a consideration set consists of both desirable and undesirable p...

Purpose – This editorial aims to discuss how the modern world is causing pricing practices of both retailers and consumers to evolve. The contributions of seven papers included in this special issue have been highlighted. Design/methodology/approach – The purpose is to explore how different cues impact consumer reactions to prices. Findings – The...

Retailers increasingly experiment with a wide variety of store elements; this chapter focuses on in-store marketing tactics and reports the results of 12 in-store experiments conducted in cooperation with different retail chains. Experiments 1-3 address in-store signage (digital, floor) and reveal that digital screens and signage can draw customers...

Customers' in‐store experiences are having a profound impact on their shopping behavior. In this special issue, two key variables are highlighted: the retail environment and role of nonverbal cues. The eight papers in this special issue present numerous cutting edge issues in these two research domains. Each of these papers and some of their salien...

Store atmospherics affect consumer behavior. This message has created a revolution in sensory marketing techniques, such that across virtually every product category, retailers and manufacturers seek to influence the consumer's “sensory experience.” The key question is how should a company design its multisensory atmospherics in store to ensure tha...

This research endeavors to understand the contingent effects of semantic price cues while taking into consideration several important contextual factors. These factors include where the customer encounters the semantic cue (in-store, at-home, online), whether the consumers' shopping goal is hedonic or utilitarian in nature, the impact of shopping a...

This research examines the interaction of two cues, retailer reputation and guarantees on evaluations. Extending Mandler's (1982) incongruity framework, we illustrate across three studies how moderately incongruent signals can be combined to enhance evaluations. Unique to our application of moderate incongruity, however, is the fact that guarantee...

This research investigates how the relationships among pieces of numerical information in a price promotional offer (i.e., regular price, sale price, absolute discount, and relative discount) impacts deal processing fluency. Across four studies (including a field study involving purchase data collected from an online group-buying website), we show...

Retailers increasingly experiment with a wide variety of store elements; this article focuses on in-store marketing tactics and reports the results of 12 in-store experiments conducted in cooperation with different retail chains. Experiments 1–3 address in-store signage (digital, floor) and reveal that digital screens and signage can draw customers...

Regulatory fit, or the match between an individual’s regulatory orientation and the strategy used to sustain it, offers a pervasive predictor of customer behavior. Merely reaching a decision in a certain way influences the value of a decision or an outcome. In this research, we conduct a meta-analysis to more fully articulate the role of important...

Retailers generally attract consumers to further locations by offering discounted merchandise. We suggest an alternative strategy is to increase the availability (or certainty) of finding the merchandise at their store (i.e., reduce stock-outs). We conduct three experiments to highlight that consumers view travel time more adversely when there is u...

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to investigate how source, network, relationship, and message/content factors affect how consumers respond to a word‐of‐mouth (WOM) communication in an online social network. Design/methodology/approach – Hypotheses were addressed using two online surveys. The first of these examined persuasive WOM communicat...

Purpose: Information typically posted on group buying websites includes number of previous buyers, whether a limit has been placed on purchase number, and the time remaining until the deal expires. The purpose of this paper is to demonstrate that these factors may interact such that, under certain circumstances, purchase likelihood is reduced. Desi...

The global marketplace is continually shaped by changing realities, including the recent economic downturn and ever-increasing adoption of new technologies. The results of these changing realities affect every element of consumers’ shopping behavior, as well as their value perceptions. This article examines how recent changes in the environment and...

This research demonstrates that the effect of product information on the evaluation of an experiential product depends on the order with which such information is presented. In a series of experiments, we find that when information is presented before consuming an experiential product, the information results in an assimilation effect such that con...

Because co-creation allows customers to help shape or personalize the content of their experience, it can affect customer satisfaction with recovery efforts, as well as offer a more cost-effective alternative to compensation. This article identifies specific situations in which co-creation is and is not useful. Study 1 tests the impact of co-creati...

Purpose – In this brief paper, the aim is to highlight three important pricing areas: the business strategies and pricing models that have evolved over the past 20 years of research, the customers that have been targeted, and the role of the internet on pricing. The advent of social media, mobile marketing and display technologies are likely to enc...

The results of five experiments reveal that when sampling a series of experiential products (e.g., beverages, music), consumers prefer the product sampled second in a series of two desirable products but relatively prefer the product sampled first in a series of two undesirable products. The underlying process for both outcomes is a recency effect,...

Retailers, such as Starbucks and Victoria's Secret, aim to provide customers a great experience across channels. In this paper we provide an overview of the existing literature on customer experience and expand on it to examine the creation of a customer experience from a holistic perspective. We propose a conceptual model, in which we discuss the...

Co-creation enables customers to help shape or personalize the content of their experience. The authors advocate that allowing customers to co-create a resolution to a service failure not only moves customers from passive participants to active collaborators but also may enhance recovery satisfaction and loyalty toward the firm. This enhancement of...

To explore when the presence of compensation enhances repurchase intentions after a service failure, the authors use an experimental procedure and evaluate the impact of compensation in different stability and locus of responsibility conditions. Findings from three studies using scenarios from different service industries indicate that compensation...

Firms are increasingly relying upon offshored and/or outsourced call centers to provide post-sales assistance to their customers. Although the motivation to engage in these practices is efficiency gains, the possibility exists that offshored and outsourced call centers may have a detrimental impact on customer appraisals. The aim of this research i...

Businesses are increasingly turning to call service centers located abroad to provide customer support. Although the country-of-origin literature as well as other reports may lead one to believe that consumers will expect offshore call centers to deliver poorer service, call center location is simply one cue which consumers can utilize to form expe...

Price-Matching Guarantees (PMGs) are a mechanism by which retailers can reassure consumers of the competitive price of products they offer. While current research in marketing has studied consumers’ pre-purchase perceptions of the retailer as a result of offering price-matching guarantees, research on the post-purchase impact of PMGs has been relat...

This research addresses refutation of false beliefs formed on the basis of repeated exposure to advertisements. Experiment 1 explores belief in the refutation as a function of the perceptual details shared (alignment) between the claim and the refutation as manipulated by whether the original claim was direct (assertion) or indirect (implication)....

This research addresses refutation of false beliefs formed on the basis of repeated exposure to advertisements. Experiment 1 explores belief in the refutation as a function of the perceptual details shared (alignment) between the claim and the refutation as manipulated by whether the original claim was direct (assertion) or indirect (implication)....

This research investigates how framing moderates the use of message cues on performance risk evaluations. Understanding the moderating impact of the frame is important from a theoretical perspective as the frame is a critical contingency factor in how evaluations are formed. This research extends previous results by testing whether framing affects...