Rituparna Basu

Do apparel store formats matter to Indian shoppers

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to explore store choice behaviour of Indian apparel shoppers and analyses the factors influencing their choice of retail formats from an emerging market perspective. Design/methodology/approach – The research draws on a data set of 336 structured questionnaires with adult urban Indian respondents to understand their perceptions about organised and unorganised apparel store formats. The exploratory study uses a comprehensive list of demographics, shopping situations and format stimuli parameters along with two established psychographic scales to assess the extent of their effect on the store choice of apparel shoppers. Findings – Factor analysis revealed five well defined store attributes influencing the apparel shoppers’ decision. The growing market for organised retail with a preference for multi brand stores is highlighted. The study establishes that the shoppers’ perception of single-brand stores is still going through a formative phase. Further at the micro level...

Are They Really Different? A Study on Apparel Shoppers' Retail Format Perception in USA and India

The retailer’s operating environment today is far more complex and interconnected than that which prevailed during the closing of the last century. Given the trends of changing consumer preferences and the growing importance of the emerging destinations for retail expansion, the focus is definitely on the untapped markets owing to their relatively high market growth potential. Whether global or local, the retailer’s adaptation to market conditions is crucial. However, heterogeneity of the business landscape and divergence of consumer tastes in the ‘spiky world’ calls for well suited format adaptations specific to markets. Hence, this article aims to have a clear understanding of the consumers’ perspectives on organized retail forms in two contrasting markets with the pioneering use of single and multi-brand format classifications. The research respectively uses datasets from the developed US market and the potentially strong evolving retail market in India to explore format perceptions of shoppers in the respective scenarios. The forming format perception of 126 sampled apparel shoppers in urban India is compared with 107 sampled respondents from the US with the use of exploratory factor analysis. Consequently, the failure of confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) to confirm the factors in the Indian case is used to highlight some interesting insights on the inherent departures in the status of consumers’ store learning pertaining to the two markets, giving directions for future research and practices in the domain.

Effect of eWOM Valence on Online Retail Sales

Online retail sector in India has witnessed a phenomenal growth in recent times. Online shopping has also become a popular trend among the younger generation in India. Increasing number of shoppers visit online retailer websites and read online reviews before making their purchase decision. The online reviews or electronic word of mouth (eWOM) becomes an important guiding tool for the online shoppers with its intrinsic product information and evaluation characteristics. The present study aims to analyze the effects of various eWOM antecedents on online sales by considering the effects of positive and mixed-neutral eWOM (MNWOM) valence (stimuli) on sales. It also explores the role of market-level eWOM factors, such as price, on online sales of security products like antivirus software. The confirmatory bias of these factors was noted, while the elaboration likelihood model (ELL) has been used to understand the relative importance of these factors in influencing customers’ purchase decision and sales. Further, a content analysis method supplemented by a multiple regression method was used to analyze 205 real-time online sales (reviews from verified purchasers) data pertaining to popular and top-selling antivirus products taken from two leading e-commerce websites. The study contributes as a pioneering effort in the domain with the use of innovative methodology of capturing real-time online data with a subsequent kappa statistics validation. The results showed a new insightful perspective of eWOM valence and price on sales, and provided further research directions.

Trends and Future Directions in Online Marketing Research

ABSTRACT Over the last decade, the increased adoption of the Internet in public life as well as in developing businesses has led to a phenomenal rise in academic research on online marketing. This article is set to extensively review scholarly articles appearing from 2000 to 2014 on the topic from 10 top-tier academic journals to understand the research trends in the domain. A literature review has reported eight major subjective categories with an analysis of online marketing effectiveness framework. This review found three most significant subject categories: (1) online marketing issues; (2) Internet usage, perception, and attitude; and (3) online shopping and e-commerce. Additionally, some new online marketing research topics such as word-of-mouth, user-generated content, and social network are also highlighted. Finally, a selection of research topics that got the maximum attention of researchers is presented along with discussion of the future research directions in the online marketing space.

Role of children in family purchase across Indian parental clusters

Purpose – The study aims to explore the evolving status of children as active consumers in the emerging Indian market by assessing their impact on family buying practices across distinct parental clusters. Design/methodology/approach – The study uses a structured questionnaire to draw a quota sample of 136 urban Indian parents across four child segments from two Indian metropolitan cities to understand their attitudes towards parenting and the consequent empowerment of their children for actively participating in family purchase decisions around varied children’s product categories. Findings – Exploratory factor analysis reveals five well-defined parental attitudes towards child rearing. The attitudinal factors are used to define three discrete parental clusters, namely, time-pressed parents, child-centric parents and socially influenced parents. The demographic and psychographic profiles of the clusters expose the significant influence of the educated and affluent parents in empowering their children as ...

An Empirical Analysis of Purchase Behaviour for Football Ancillaries: An Emerging Market Perspective

Marketers in the modern times are increasingly viewing globalization of the sports market as a huge opportunity to enter unchartered territories by riding on the popularity of a game. The enduring motivation of the sports consumers to connect with their favourite sport comes with an advantage for marketers who can create stronger product/brand associations with the sport. Researches establishing the relationship between the sports fanship and related consumption reinforce the belief. The present study in an exploratory attempt to understand the impact of sports enthusiasm and related consumption in the context of an emerging market uses a mixed method approach with qualitative focus group discussion and a quantitative analysis of the dataset of 226 actual buyers of football ancillary from the National Capital Region of Delhi in India. Consequently, a factor analysis of the key motivators for football ancillaries buying behaviour identified three drivers; namely, social approval, individual passion and utilitarian motivation, for the urban Indian sports enthusiasts. Further, segment-wise product decisions and purchase decisions were reported along with the relative importance of purchasing football ancillaries. The significant influence of football connectedness among urban Indian consumers despite cricket being the most followed sport added a whole new dimension to the study of sports market consumers in the emerging Indian market giving directions for future research and marketing practices in the domain.

Q&A. What Barriers Do Women Face in Becoming High-Tech Entrepreneurs in Rural India?

A. Diversity in India is not just about culture but includes a multitude of dimensions ranging from rural to urban and including both economic status and gender. Managing diversity can be challenging because formal and informal codes of conduct and culture often create meaningless distances that deter both economic and social progression. Such are the gender distances in India. In a country with a population that exceeds 1.3 billion people – approximately 48% of whom are women – female entrepreneurship stands at a dismal 10% of the total number entrepreneurs, and there is a considerable rural–urban gap (Saxena, 2016). Despite the country’s encouraging 30% representation at the level of corporate senior management, the 2015 Female Entrepreneurship Index released by The Global Entrepreneurship and Development Institute (GEDI, 2015) ranked India 70th out of 77 countries. This low rank indicates an unfavourable environment and hence low confidence around the existing ecosystem for female entrepreneurship in India.

Profiling emerging market investors: a segmentation approach

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to obtain a market-oriented approach to segment individual investors in terms of their attitudes and behaviour towards investment. It also attempts to understand the impact of certain demographic variables like gender, age and education on the behaviour of individual investors in the emerging urban Indian market. Design/methodology/approach A structured questionnaire was used to obtain a total of 340 valid responses which were collected from March 2016 to August 2016. Factor analysis was used to explore the components. Based on these components, cluster analysis was used to identify different subgroups. Statistical techniques, namely, t-test, analysis of variance and Fisher’s least significant difference test were used to examine the impact of demographic variables. Findings Factor analysis displayed five components, namely, interest in financial matters, anxiety for money, logical decisions, concern for future and spending tendency. Cluster analysis indicates that individuals can be divided into five clusters based on these components. It further substantiates that gender and education have a significant association with each subgroup. Research limitations/implications Individual investor segments that were identified and profiled may provide an opportunity for advisors, financial analysts, organisations and investors to improve investment decision making. In this way, financial service firms can identify and provide services based on group-specific needs. Originality/value To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this study is the first of its kind to segment Indian investors into different homogeneous groups based on their attitude and behaviour towards financial matters.

Dainik Jagran: sustaining leadership in the newspaper industry

Subject area The subject area is strategy and business. Study level/applicability The case can be used for MBA students. This is equally effective in short courses meant for low-to-mid-level working executives. The case is suited for classes in strategy, general marketing, media management and family business courses. Case overview Dainik Jagran – a vernacular daily – is the most read newspaper in India. Under the banner of Jagran Prakashan Ltd.; which is one of the leading media houses in India, the success of Dainik Jagran has been an outcome of the strategic marketing decisions taken by its founder and his successors in the post-independence era. With extensive circulation, it created a large readership base and took bold decisions to launch multi editions to its daily through a series of acquisitions, mergers and consolidations from 1975 to 2010, enabling it to step into product diversification. Readership surveys, investments in technology, advertising, regular branding events and smart phone applications are a few tools that helped. While the group has diversified into other industries, there is an underlying anxiety about the future prospects of its newspaper business. With the onslaught of online news dailies, will Dainik Jagran be able to expand and maintain its readership base using its previous business and marketing strategies? Or is it time to change strategies for businesses in the newspaper and allied media industry in India? Expected learning outcomes The study has the following outcomes: application of value chain concept in businesses serving two-sided markets; application of environmental analysis, Porter’s five forces analysis and related strategy concepts; and learning to critically approach and develop a sustainable growth strategy framework for a successful family-run newspaper business in India. Supplementary materials Teaching notes are available for educators only. Please contact your library to gain login details or email support@emeraldinsight.com to request teaching notes. Subject code CSS 11: Strategy.

Book Review: Arindam Banik, Ananda Das Gupta and Pradip K. Bhaumik, Corporate Governance, Responsibility and Sustainability: Initiatives in Emerging Economies

Arindam Banik, Ananda Das Gupta and Pradip K. Bhaumik, Corporate Governance, Responsibility and Sustainability: Initiatives in Emerging Economies. London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2015, 192 pp. £ 70 (ISSN: 978-11-373-6184-4 [Hardback])