Stephanie T. Gillison

Exploring consumers’ attitude towards relationship marketing

Purpose – The purpose of this study is to explore consumers’ overall attitude toward relationship marketing and to determine the influence of consumers’ overall attitude on consumers’ intentions and behaviors. Many services companies practice relationship marketing and customer relationship management. Although the benefits and drawbacks of relationship marketing for consumers have been established, little is known about whether consumers have a relatively positive or negative attitude toward relationship marketing practices. Design/methodology/approach – This research investigates consumers’ attitudes toward relationship marketing using a national survey of 245 consumers and a survey of 417 consumers living in the southern region of the USA. Findings – Although approximately 70 per cent of our national consumer sample had a somewhat positive attitude toward relationship marketing, about 30 per cent had a somewhat negative or neutral attitude. Furthermore, approximately 39 per cent of consumers in the stu...

Shopping for yourself versus shopping for someone else

Purpose n n n n nShoppers often shop for and purchase products for other individuals during the course of routine shopping experiences. The purpose of this study is to investigate differences in the shopping trip based on whether the shopper is purchasing a product for him/herself, purchasing a product for someone else’s use that is not intended as a gift and gift purchases. n n n n nDesign/methodology/approach n n n n nThis research utilizes a survey of shoppers to test the proposed hypotheses. n n n n nFindings n n n n nThe results of the study indicate differences in positive affect, flow, fantasy, satisfaction, hedonic shopping value and utilitarian shopping value across the three groups of shoppers. Individuals shopping for themselves generally have the lowest overall shopping trip outcomes, followed by those shopping for a non-gift product for another person. Those making gift purchases have highest shopping trip outcomes. n n n n nOriginality/value n n n n nWhile existing shopping research generally assumes the shopper is making a purchase for him/herself, this study shows previous research by showing differences in the shopping trip based on who the shopper is making a purchase for, either him/herself or someone else. Additionally, this research also shows differences between shoppers making gift and non-gift purchases for another person.

Mother-adolescent daughter identity interplay processes

Purpose – This paper aims to explore the mother–adolescent daughter shopping trip to better understand the experiences and process that occur during these shopping trips. Adolescent girls and their mothers are an important shopping companion pair that has received minimal study. Design/methodology/approach – This research investigates the mother–adolescent daughter shopping trip using in-depth interviews with 28 mothers, adolescent daughters and retail employees in the USA. Findings – The interviews reveal that the mother–adolescent daughter shopping trip consists of three important developmental experiences: conflict and struggle, education and influence and bonding between mother and daughter. Similarities and differences between middle- and high-school daughters relative to these issues are explored. Originality/value – This study is the first to bring together the interplay processes of conflict, education and influence and bonding during mother–adolescent daughter shopping trips. This study extends r...

Employees’ Emotional Reactions to Customer Deal Requests

Customers are increasingly asking for discounts and deals while shopping in traditional retail stores. Using interviews and a survey of frontline employees, this article develops and tests a model that profiles the effect of customer deal requests on employees’ emotional reactions. The findings show that employees’ request self-efficacy and their positivity toward deal requesters increase their comfort with these deal requests. This comfort, along with the employee’s perceptions of the dominance of the customer’s approach style and the reasonableness of the request, impacts the employee’s affective reactions following deal requests. Script theory and motivated reasoning are used to explain this process, while the importance of employee comfort in this process is emphasized. Implications for theory and management are discussed.

SATISFACTION WHILE SHOPPING FOR ANOTHER PERSON: HOW OTHERS’ PRODUCT EVALUATIONS INFLUENCE SHOPPER SATISFACTION

This study looks at a common, but underresearched shopping situation: when the shopper is purchasing a product another person will use. This study uses expectancy disconfirmation theory to take into account multiple individuals’ evaluations and (dis)confirmation judgments and illustrates how these judgments might impact one another. Using a series of four experiments, hypotheses are tested. Results show that a person’s satisfaction with the shopping experience can be significantly impacted both positively and negatively by another person’s product evaluation. Implications for theory and management are discussed and avenues for future research offered.

An Exploratory Investigation of Two Types of Browsers

This research extends knowledge of browsers by segmenting browsers into two groups: browsers who make a purchase and browsers who do not make a purchase. Differences were investigated between both groups of browsers and shoppers who intended to make a purchase and did. Several of the results supported the hypotheses.

Celebrity Branded Products: an Exploratory Investigation Into Consumer Purchase Motivation and General Attitudes Toward the Brand

This paper investigates why individuals purchase celebrity branded products (CBPs). Qualitative depth interviews reveal that CBPs may aid individuals in developing their self-identities and may provide a way for the celebrity’ human brand to extend from the celebrity into tangible products which can be consumed by the celebrity’ fans.

Understanding the Negative Aspects of Role Shopping

Most individuals engage in shopping for others, whether in the search for a special gift for someone else or simply during routine household shopping. Shopping for others has been shown to be a source of pleasure for some people (Arnold and Reynolds 2003; Tauber 1972). However, research also shows that not all individuals enjoy shopping for others (Arnold and Reynolds 2003). Shopping for others may even cause many negative emotions on the part of the shopper. Role shopping “reflects the enjoyment that shoppers derive from shopping for others” (Arnold and Reynolds 2003). Here, role shopping is seen as both a source of positive and negative emotions and outcomes. Therefore, role shopping is defined here as shopping for another person’s consumption in order to fulfill culturally prescribed roles. The current study seeks to investigate the negative emotions evoked by shopping for others and to better understand how role shopping makes individuals feel.

Customer Bargaining in Retail Settings: Employee Perspectives

Bartering, bargaining, and haggling have long been a mainstream practice in many cultures and for certain retail segments such as car, furniture, and electronic retailers. The phenomena have been studied in the context of economics and game theory, business-to-business relationships such as supply chain networks, cross cultural differences of the focal behaviors, and overall marketing strategy. However, generally ignored dimensions have been the emotional aspects of bargaining and haggling on front line employees in traditional retail segments, where these practices are not generally accepted or used. It is especially important to study this phenomenon in traditional retail settings because in this setting neither the employee nor the customer is generally well equipped with the skills necessary to engage in these behaviors in a productive manner, which may lead to increased feelings of stress, conflict, anxiety, tension, unhappiness, and job dissatisfaction for the front line employee. Many consumers have been encouraged by wide-spread news and media stories promoting the practice (e.g., National Public Radio (Siegel 2008), NBC’s The Today Show (Weisbaum 2009)). Additionally, The New York Times (Richtel 2008) and Consumer Reports (2009) have also reported that customer bargaining, or instances when the customer asks the front line employee for a discount or other special deal, is on the rise. While it may be beneficial to both the bargaining consumer and to the retailer as a whole to haggle over prices and bargain for special deals for the purchase of the product, this practice may be emotionally exhausting and challenging for many front line employees. In this paper, the bargaining/haggling phenomenon is investigated from the retail employee’s perspective in order to better understand the impact these practices have on front line employees.