Debbie Ellis

Don’t believe the hype: a grounded exploratory six country wine purchasing study

ABSTRACT The purpose of this exploratory study was to understand the extent that consumers report purchasing wine on mobile devices and to empirically examine potential drivers of m-wine purchasing across six countries to guide theoretical research enquiry moving forward. Purposive sampling was employed. An online survey involving 2853 respondents from France, Germany, Greece, Canada, US and South Africa forms the basis for the current study. The results of the study indicate that though mobile phone usage, wine consumption and purchasing rates are high, mobile-wine purchasing prevalence is low within all six countries. While technology hype has us believe an online presence is essential for business revenue growth and performance; the current study indicates wineries should carefully consider consumer readiness towards mobile-wine purchasing. Limitations and recommendations for future research are identified.

The effect of wine knowledge type on variety seeking behavior in wine purchasing

ABSTRACT Wine is a prolific, but complex and information-intensive product, so it is important for marketers to understand the behaviors and characteristics of different wine market segments, in order to better target their marketing strategies to these different segments’ needs. Yet little is known about how the characteristics of consumers’ subjective and objective knowledge of wine impact their variety seeking purchasing behavior. As variety seeking behavior affects customer retention and loyalty, a better understanding of this behavior is important to wine marketers. Results of a survey show that wine knowledge types are a significant predictor of variety seeking purchasing behavior of wine. Wine consumers who think they know a lot about wine, tend to engage in more variety seeking behavior in their wine purchasing. This suggests that marketers should adapt their segmentation, targeting and channel strategies to individual knowledge types to be more successful.

Attributes influencing clothing store choice for an emerging market’s Generation Y Twixter customers

Abstract The aim of this paper was to determine the key attributes influencing a sub-segment of Generation Y, the Twixters’ choice of clothing retailers in South Africa, an emerging market. Generation Y has been identified as an important segment particularly for apparel and the Twixter sub-group comprises a third of the segment. Using a positioning theory lens, retailers need to understand the attributes a target market finds important as stores are positioned in consumers’ minds on those attributes. The study therefore sought to determine what these Twixters consider to be important attributes in their clothing store selection. The study comprised two stages; a qualitative stage based on focus group discussion data in which the attributes were determined, discussed and defined, and a quantitative stage, which involved a survey administered to 368 Twixter respondents which determined the relative importance of the attributes to Twixters in their clothing store selection. The results reveal that these Twixters appreciate the price–quality relationship and prefer clothing stores which provide high quality, unique and fashionable merchandise that meets their value for money requirements. The results of the study, although not generalisable, provide noteworthy insight for clothing store and apparel marketers targeting these Generation Y customers.

Customer Cohort Climate: A Conceptual Model for Group Service Encounters: An Abstract

Group service encounters, when multiple customers are intentionally batched and involved in the delivery and consumption of a service, are common in tourism and hospitality, recreation, and education. In such service settings, customers will accept, expect, and sometimes even desire to share and consume the service experience “with” other customers. Thus, in group service encounters, customer-to-customer interactions are often integral to the service being provided.