Erhard K. Valentin

Giving and getting gift cards

Purpose – The reported study was designed to provide insight into gift cards as gifts and their place among gifts of cash and goods. It also was designed to identify promising avenues for further research.Design/methodology/approach – Data were collected using a structured questionnaire administered to a convenience sample of 317 respondents of both sexes who varied greatly in age.Findings – Effective liquidity served largely as the basis for categorizing gift cards. The greater a cards effective liquidity, the more its economic impact on the recipient resembles that of cash. The results indicated the following: face value affects recipient preference for effective liquidity; the giver‐getter relationship affects recipient preference for effective liquidity; the gift cards givers give tend to have less effective liquidity than those they prefer to get; some gift cards are more appropriate gifts than others and some, but not all, gift cards are more appropriate gifts than cash; and people feel less guilt ...

Retail market structure scenarios and their strategic applications

To survive these turbulent times, retailers must do more than respond to changing competitive conditions - they must anticipate them. This article is focused on constructing scenarios for retailing formats in the growth stage of the life cycle. Such scenarios are derived largely by integrating available theoretical and empirical research. They afford insights into the evolution of geographical competitive patterns and provide a sound basis for territorial growth and entrenchment planning.

Pricing risky services: preference and quality considerations

Purpose – This study intends to examine effects of price ending and level on preference for a provider of a risky service, LASIK eye surgery, which poses notable health and financial risk. Additionally, the study aims to explore quality concerns thought to intervene between price cues and preference.Design/methodology/approach – Price was manipulated by showing each of three groups an advertisement offering LASIK surgery at one of three prices: US

Commentary: Marketing Research Pitfalls in Product Development

299, US

Food Attribute Importance, Situational Effects, and Homemaker Values

300 or US

The Influence of the Situational Context on Product Usage

600. Subjects were asked how likely they were to choose the featured provider if they were to have LASIK surgery; replies were interpreted as indicating the degree to which the featured provider was preferred to all other potential providers. To facilitate exploring the possibility that pricing affects preference via perceived quality, subjects were asked 16 questions about service quality.Findings – LASIK provider preference ratings were significantly lower at US

An Exploratory Empirical Inquiry into Consumer Logistics

299 than at US

Does Victim Responsibility Influence Nonprofit Volunteerism

300 and, thus, contradicted much prior research into the effects o...

Consumer logistics as a basis for segmenting retail markets: An exploratory inquiry

In the product development process, marketing research is often used inappropriately. To be useful, marketing research must be focussed on questions to which the answers improve decision making; and marketers should realize that marketing research may do more harm than good when prospective customers do not yet know what they want, which is often the case. Furthermore, too many companies waste time and money inquiring into customer needs and wants and product performance criteria that are perfectly obvious.

Away With SWOT Analysis: Use Defensive/Offensive Evaluation Instead

A repeated-measures analysis of variance design was used to test the hypothesis that food attribute importance, as perceived by homemakers, is affected by the type of food product, anticipated usage, and personal values. The conceptual framework that guided this study was developed by integrating pertinent con structs from various fields of inquiry, especially consumer behavior and psy chology. All hypothesized main effects (the type of food product, anticipated usage, and personal values) and one interaction effect, between the type of food and its anticipated usage, were found statistically significant. Results contain im plications for immediate applications in areas such as nutrition education and for further research.