Srini S. Srinivasan

Customer loyalty in e-commerce: an exploration of its antecedents and consequences

Abstract This paper investigates the antecedents and consequences of customer loyalty in an online business-to-consumer (B2C) context. We identify eight factors (the 8Cs—customization, contact interactivity, care, community, convenience, cultivation, choice, and character) that potentially impact e-loyalty and develop scales to measure these factors. Data collected from 1,211 online customers demonstrate that all these factors, except convenience, impact e-loyalty. The data also reveal that e-loyalty has an impact on two customer-related outcomes: word-of- mouth promotion and willingness to pay more.

The Global Internet Shopper: Evidence from Shopping Tasks in Twelve Countries

ABSTRACT Globally, the characteristics of a website that are critical to increasing the likelihood that customers will shop at that site and will come back for future purchases are largely unknown. Actual shopping tasks by 299 respondents from 12 countries indicate that site quality, trust, and positive affect toward it are critical in explaining both the purchase intentions and loyalty of visitors to the site. This research indicates that the impact of these factors varies across different regions of the world and across different product categories. Results of this research highlight the need to tailor websites according to each world region and product being offered for sale.

Concepts and strategy guidelines for designing value enhancing sales promotions

Sales promotions are probably the least understood and least analyzed of all the promotional tools, yet they are among the most costly and most frequently used. Today’s top managers are relentlessly searching for new areas in which to cut costs and increase profits, so sales promotion are coming under greater scrutiny than ever. In order to justify and skillfully use expenditures on sales promotions for different objectives and target markets, marketing managers must understand some key concepts and thoroughly examine several critical variables across markets and among sales promotion tools themselves that impact directly on sales, profitability, and value added.

Evaluation of search, experience and credence attributes: role of brand name and product trial

Previous researchers have established that brand names are important in determining perceptions of brand quality and attitude towards the product. In this research we investigate the role of brand name in shaping consumers’ evaluation of search, experience, and credence attributes. The findings confirm that, prior to trial, brand name increases consumers’ perception of experience and credence attribute performance evaluations. However, prior to trial, brand name is found not to affect consumers’ perception of search attributes. Trial of the brand is found to reduce (and not eliminate) the advantage branded products have in enhancing consumers’ perception of experience and credence attributes.

Coupon characteristics and redemption intentions: A segment-level analysis

The authors investigate how different segments of consumers react to different coupon characteristics, such as face value and method of distribution. They utilize a latent segmentation approach to identify the underlying segments. The empirical analysis suggests that different segments of consumers place varying emphasis with regard to economic benefits, psychic benefits, effort costs, and substitution costs. A further examination of the derived segments with respect to consumer correlates such as psychological, attitudinal, behavioral, and demographic characteristics reveals that coupon-related consumer characteristics, rather than demographics, exhibit significant and meaningful differences across these segments. Implications of the segment-level analysis for evaluating coupon drops and managing promotional expenditures are also discussed. ©1998 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. With 269 billion coupons distributed in 1996 in the United States, and approximately 5.3 billion coupons redeemed, for a total savings of

Price discounts or coupon promotions: does it matter?

3.7 billion (Brown, 1997), coupons continue to be among the most important promotional vehicles being used today. To improve the profitability of promotions, an in-depth understanding of the impact of promotions

The Advertising Exposure Effect of Free Standing Inserts

Abstract This article shows that in a model of exogenously given sales expansion target with a dominant manufacturer, the relative profitability of coupon and price-reduction schemes depends on the values of coupon redemption rates and the equivalence ratio of price reduction to coupon face value. It is also shown that retailers margin has an uncertain impact on the compensation constraint on the manufacturers choice between the two schemes. However, higher retailers margin increases the likelihood that the chosen sales expansion scheme (SES) is the one that generates higher consumer welfare. A sales response model is used to estimate the equivalence ratio and critical coupon redemption rate below which the manufacturer will prefer a coupon promotion. A sensitivity analysis of the manufacturers decision reveals that changes in the magnitude of the retailers margin have little impact on the manufacturers choice between alternative SESs.

Examining the dimensionality of coupon proneness: a random coefficients approach

Abstract Manufacturers of consumer packaged goods regularly distribute coupons through free standing inserts in newspapers. In this paper, we investigate the possibility that free standing inserts have an advertising exposure effect that influences the brand purchases of shoppers who do not use coupons in the category studied. If free standing inserts for a brand do have a pure advertising exposure effect, there should be an increase in the sales of that brand even to non-users of the coupons. Results of an empirical analysis show that such an effect does exist for two of the six cases investigated. We also find some evidence of a cross-brand advertising exposure effect indicating that the sales of a competing brand to non-users of coupons decrease in the weeks following the appearance of a coupon in a free standing insert.

E-satisfaction and e-loyalty: A contingency framework

Abstract Many previous studies have sought to measure consumers’ coupon proneness but have tended to assume that this trait is unidimensional in nature, i.e., an individuals coupon proneness is the same for all types of coupons. It is argued in this study that because consumers differ in the products they shop for and in the types of coupons they are exposed to, their coupon proneness is likely to vary across different coupon types, i.e., is likely to be multidimensional. The authors test this proposition using the item response theoretic (IRT) model proposed by Bawa et al. (J. Marketing Res. 34 (1997) 517). In the Bawa et al. study a single coupon proneness parameter was estimated for each individual. The current study extends the IRT model via a random coefficients approach and estimates separate coupon proneness parameters for different coupon types. The results indicate the presence of distinct segments among consumers, with some consumers displaying a generalized coupon proneness tendency across coupon types and others displaying type-specific coupon proneness.