Vanitha Swaminathan

A typology of online shoppers based on shopping motivations

This paper develops a typology based upon motivations for shopping online. An analysis of these motives, including online convenience, physical store orientation (e.g., immediate possession and social contact), information use in planning and shopping, and variety seeking in the online shopping context, suggests the existence of four shopping types. These four types are labeled convenience shoppers, variety seekers, balanced buyers, and store-oriented shoppers. The convenience shopper is more motivated by convenience. The variety seeker is substantially more motivated by variety seeking across retail alternatives and product types and brands than any other shopping type. Balanced buyers are moderately motivated by convenience and variety seeking. The store-oriented shoppers are more motivated by physical store orientation (e.g., the desire for immediate possession of goods and social interaction). Shopping types are profiled in terms of background variables and the propensity to shop online. The results are contrasted with a matched sample of off-line shoppers. Implications of this typology for theory and practice are discussed.

'My' Brand or 'Our' Brand: The Effects of Brand Relationship Dimensions and Self-Construal on Brand Evaluations

Consumer-brand relationships can be formed based on individual- or group-level connections. For example, a consumers relationship with a Mercedes may be based on the desire to express individual-level unique identity (e.g., self-concept connection), whereas a relationship with a local brand (e.g., Ford) may be based on a group-level patriotic national identity (e.g., country-of-origin connection). We suggest that the effects of self-concept connection and brand country-of-origin connection vary based on self-construal. Results across two studies reveal that, under independent self-construal, self-concept connection is more important. Under interdependent self-construal, brand country-of-origin connection is more important. (c) 2007 by JOURNAL OF CONSUMER RESEARCH, Inc..

The Impact of Brand Extension Introduction on Choice

This article focuses on the impact of a new brand extension introduction on choice in a behavioral context using national household scanner data involving multiple brand extensions. Particularly, the authors investigate the reciprocal impact of trial of successful and unsuccessful brand extensions on parent brand choice. In addition, the authors examine the effects of experience with the parent brand on consumers’ trial and repeat of a brand extension using household scanner data on six brand extensions from a national panel. In the case of successful brand extensions, the results show positive reciprocal effects of extension trial on parent brand choice, particularly among prior non-users of the parent brand, and consequently on market share. The authors find evidence for potential negative reciprocal effects of unsuccessful extensions. In addition, the study shows that experience with the parent brand has a significant impact on extension trial, but not on extension repeat.

Marketing Alliances, Firm Networks, and Firm Value Creation

Prior research has found that the announcement of marketing alliances tends to produce no effect on firm value creation in a high-tech context. This article reexamines this issue and investigates whether the characteristics of a firms network of alliances affect the firm value created from the announcement of a new marketing alliance. The authors investigate whether network centrality, network density, network efficiency, network reputation, and marketing alliance capability influence firm value creation. They examine this question using an event study of 230 announcements for marketing alliances in the software industry. The results indicate that, in general, marketing alliance announcements create value (i.e., abnormal stock returns) for the firm in the announcement period event window. Furthermore, network efficiency and network density have the strongest positive impact when they are moderate; network reputation and network centrality have no effect. These results point to the greater role of relational network characteristics than size-/status-based benefits. Finally, marketing alliance capability, which reflects a firms ability to manage a network of previous marketing alliances, has a positive impact on value creation.

When Brand Personality Matters: The Moderating Role of Attachment Styles

This research examines the moderating role of consumers attachment style in the impact of brand personality. Findings support our hypotheses regarding the manner in which brand personality and attachment style differences systematically influence brand outcomes, including brand attachment, purchase likelihood, and brand choice. Results show that anxiously attached individuals are more likely to be differentially influenced by brand personalities. Further, the results indicate that the level of avoidance predicts the types of brand personality that are most relevant to anxious individuals. Specifically, under conditions of high avoidance and high anxiety, individuals exhibit a preference for exciting brands; however, under conditions of low avoidance and high anxiety, individuals tend to prefer sincere brands. The differential preference for sincere (vs. exciting) brand personality emerges in public (vs. private) consumption settings and in settings where interpersonal relationship expectations are high, supporting a signaling role of brand personality in these contexts. (c) 2008 by JOURNAL OF CONSUMER RESEARCH, Inc..

The Impact of Recommendation Agents on Consumer Evaluation and Choice: The Moderating Role of Category Risk, Product Complexity, and Consumer Knowledge

Internet shopping (or e-shopping) is emerging as a shopping mode and with its requirement of computer access and use, it is interesting to find out whether consumers associate e-shop-pers with any gender-specific stereotypes. Such stereotypes may be expected because shopping is considered a “female typed” activity whereas technology is considered to be in the male domain. In this article, we address this central question in an empirical study that varies the shopping context in terms of outlet type, product type, and purchase purpose. The respondents are college students with Internet access and familiarity with online shopping. The experimental results suggest that the global stereotype, held by both male and female respondents, is that of a shopper as a woman. This stereotype reverses when the product purchased is technical and expensive (DVD player). In terms of personality attributions, the female shopper is seen to be less technical, less spontaneous, and more reliable and attributions regarding personal characteristics are not influenced significantly by product type, outlet type, or purchase purpose.This article examines consumers’ intention to shop online during the information acquisition stage. Specifically, the study incorporates 3 essential variables, which are likely to influence consumer intentions: (a) convenience characteristic of shopping channels, (b) product type characteristics, and (c) perceived price of the product. Results indicate that convenience and product type influence consumer intention to engage in online shopping. When consumers perceive offline shopping as inconvenient, their intention to shop online is greater. Also, online shopping intention is higher when consumers perceive the product to be search goods than experience goods.The rapid growth of the Internet as an information medium has given rise to “infomediaries” that help aid consumers in making decisions. Recent research in the context of recommendation agents has shown that their use can lead to increases in consumer welfare. However, it is not clear if this varies by customer and by type of product. In this article, the role of category risk, product complexity, and customer category knowledge in moderating the impact of recommendation agents on consumer welfare is examined. A controlled experiment simulating a recommendation agent was used in conducting this study. Various product characteristics for which the recommendation agent provided information were manipulated. The results support some of the hypothesized effects. It is shown that category risk moderates the impact of recommendation agents on decision quality and product complexity moderates the role of recommendation agents on amount of search. The implications of this for theory and research on the Internet are discussed.This article examines consumers’ reactions to the provision of direct access to uncensored competitor price information within an electronic store. Based on notions derived from signaling theory, prior research on trust, and attribution theory, we propose that the facilitation of such access may have a positive impact on consumer preference for an online retailer. Furthermore, we predict that this effect will be moderated by how attractive a vendors prices are. The results of a laboratory experiment demonstrate the possibility that a retailers act of providing access to uncensored competitor price information may result in enhanced long-term preference for that vendor, especially if the latters prices are neither clearly superior nor obviously inferior to those of its competitors. Finally, this positive effect of facilitating access to competitors’ prices on consumer preference is mediated by the perceived trustworthiness of the online retailer.In this article we examine the effect of language, graphics, and culture on bilingual consumers’ Web site and product evaluations. We extend previous bilingual memory research to affective responses and to a new medium—the Internet. A series of studies suggests that attitudinal measures are influenced by the interaction of Web site language with two types of congruity: graphic congruity and cultural congruity. We conclude from our findings that both types of congruity influence bilinguals attitude-formation processes.Advances in information technology are making it possible to deliver multisensory stimuli over the Internet, giving rise to what we call second-generation electronic commerce, and to Web-based exchanges that approach in-store episodes and greatly exceed existing mass-market media in experiential richness. Delivery of multisensory stimuli is not enough, however, to fully activate, generate, and manage the embodied knowledge that is critical to consumer thinking about many types of products and services. Embodied knowledge refers to information elements that are generated and maintained outside the brain cavity and that are incorporated into consumer assessments of products and services. The view that consumers integrate embodied and conceptual knowledge into mental simulations of products and services is used as a foundation for a more general exposition of embodied knowledge and cognition. Three elements of embodied knowledge—body mapping and monitoring systems, proprioceptive knowledge, and body boundaries—are discussed, including their implications for e-commerce theory and practice and for marketing research in general. The methodological challenges of better understanding and managing embodied knowledge are also discussedConsumers often search the Internet for agent advice when making decisions about products and services. Existing research on this topic suggests that past opinion agreement between the consumer and an agent is an important cue in consumers’ acceptance of current agent advice. In this article, we report the results of two experiments which show that different types of past agreements can have different effects on the acceptance of current agent advice. In Study 1, we show that in addition to the overall agreement rate, consumers pay special attention to extreme opinion agreement when assessing agent diagnosticity (i.e., extremity effect). In Study 2 we show that positive extreme agreement is more influential than negative extreme agreement when advice valence is positive, but the converse does not hold when advice valence is negative (i.e., positivity effect). We conclude by identifying promising avenues for future research and discuss implications of the results for marketers in areas such as design of intelligent online recommendation systems and word-of-mouth management on the Internet.When consumers use computers to help make purchase decisions, how do they attribute responsibility for the positive or negative outcomes of those decisions? The results suggest that, in general, attributions of responsibility reflect a self-serving bias: Consumers tend to blame computers for negative outcomes and tend to take personal credit for positive ones. However, the results also suggest that, when consumers have a history of intimate self-disclosure with a computer, this pattern of attribution is significantly mitigated: Consumers are more willing to credit the computer for positive outcomes, and are more willing to accept responsibility for negative outcomes. In addition, this research provides evidence that the causal relation between self-disclosure and attributions of responsibility is partially mediated by attraction.In the context of online shopping, a major change in the consumer decision-making cognitive process is the partial shift of effort from consumers to electronic decision aids. The objective of this article is to investigate consumers’ perception of the “effort” expended by decision aids and how this perception influences their satisfaction with the decision process. The findings of two laboratory experiments show that, in comparison to human decision aids, consumers believe that electronic aids exert less effort but save them an equal level of effort. It is also shown that consumers’ satisfaction with the search process is positively associated with their perception of effort saved for them by electronic aids.Recently, it has been proposed that creating compelling experiences in the distinctive consumption environment defined by the Internet depends on facilitating a state of flow. Although it has been established that consumers do, in fact, experience flow while using the Web, consumer researchers do not as yet have a comprehensive understanding of the specific activities during which consumers actually have these experiences. One fruitful focus of research on online consumer experience has been on two distinct categories of consumption behavior— goal directed and experiential consumption behavior. Drawing distinctions between these behaviors for the Web may be particularly important because the experiential process is, for many individuals, as or even more important than the final instrumental result. However, the general and broad nature of flow measurement to date has precluded a precise investigation of flow during goal-directed versus experiential activities. In this article, we explore this issue, investigating whether flow occurs during both experiential and goal-directed activities, if experiential and goal-directed flow states differ in terms of underlying constructs, and what the key characteristics are—based on prior theory—that define “types” of flow experiences reported on the Web. Our approach is to perform a series of quantitative analyses of qualitative descriptions of flow experiences provided by Web users collected in conjunction with the 10th GVU WWW User Survey. In contrast with previous research that suggests flow would be more likely to occur during recreational activities than task-oriented activities, we found more evidence of flow for task-oriented rather than experiential activities, although there is evidence flow occurs under both scenarios. As a final note, we argue that the role that goal-directed and experiential activities may play in facilitating the creation of compelling online environments may also be important in a broader consumer policy context.The World Wide Web has the potential to change much about consumer behavior and consumer communication. Web-based chatting, the focus of this study, is one example. In this article, we provide an illustrative description of various consumer chatting situations, examine the motivations underlying Web-based chatting, and discuss the ways in which chatters act as “naive marketers” in their attempt to attract chatting partners. Using information gathered through the combined use of an Internet survey and a content analysis, we explore five research questions: who chats, why individuals chat, how chatters communicate, what links exist between Web chatting and other consumer behaviors, and which factors lead to a successful chatting experience? The findings provide some insight into how consumers market themselves in cyberspace and the effectiveness of their “personal advertisements” in attracting other chatters.Whereas the Internet itself poses unique challenges and opportunities, it is possible that the context of the Internet (a computer context) affects consumers differently than other contexts would, thereby causing people to think about and evaluate products differently. Drawing from learning theory and the functional theory of attitudes, it is predicted that computers, by being associated with the accessibility of detailed information, will elicit a need for meaning. Consequently, when a computer is present, people may think about and seek more product information than will those evaluating the product on paper (a print context). The results of an experiment support these hypotheses. Across two diverse products, the mere presence of a computer caused people to think more about and request more information about the product than those in the print context did. Furthermore, the attitudes of those in the computer context were more representative of both dimensions described in the advertisement, whereas the attitudes of those in the print context reflected the valence of the dimension that is typically used when evaluating the product. Implications for promoting products and conducting market research in computer environments are discussed.In the bricks-and-mortar environment, stores employ sales people that have learned to distinguish between shoppers based on their in-store behavior. Some shoppers appear to be very focused in looking for a specific product. In those cases, sales people may step in and help the shopper find what they are looking for. In other cases, the shopper is merely “window shopping.” The experienced sales person can identify these shoppers and either ignore them and let them continue window shopping, or intercede and try and stimulate a purchase in the appropriate manner. However, in the virtual shopping environment, there is no sales person to perform that role. Therefore, this article theoretically develops and empirically tests a typology of store visits in which visits vary according to the shoppers’ underlying objectives. By using page-to-page clickstream data from a given online store, visits are categorized as a buying, browsing, searching, or knowledge-building visit based on observed in-store navigational patterns, including the general content of the pages viewed. Each type of visit varies in terms of purchasing likelihood. The shoppers, in each case, are also driven by different motivations and therefore would respond differentially to various marketing messages. The ability to categorize visits in such a manner allows the e-commerce marketer to identify likely buyers and design more effective, customized promotional message.We propose an analytical framework for studying bidding behavior in online auctions. The framework focuses on three key dimensions: the multi-stage process, the types of value-signals employed at each phase, and the dynamics of bidding behavior whereby early choices impact subsequent bidding decisions. We outline a series of propositions relating to the auction entry decision, bidding decisions during the auction, and bidding behavior at the end of an auction. In addition, we present the results of three preliminary field studies that investigate factors that influence consumers’ value assessments and bidding decisions. In particular, (a) due to a focus on the narrow auction context, consumers under-search and, consequently, overpay for widely available commodities (CDs, DVDs) and (b) higher auction starting prices tend to lead to higher winning bids, particularly when comparable items are not available in the immediate context. We discuss the implications of this research with respect to our understanding of the key determinants of consumer behavior in this increasingly important arena of purchase decisions.

Exploring the Determinants of Broadway Show Success

This study investigates the determinants of success of an experiential good: Broadway shows. The authors focus on the sources and types of information used in the selection of an artistic event and...

Explaining the Endowment Effect through Ownership: The Role of Identity, Gender, and Self-Threat

The price people are willing to pay for a good is often less than the price they are willing to accept to give up the same good, a phenomenon called the endowment effect. Loss aversion has typically accounted for the endowment effect, but an alternative explanation suggests that ownership creates an association between the item and the self, and this possession-self link increases the value of the good. To test the ownership account, this research examines three moderators that theory suggests should affect the possession-self link and consequently the endowment effect: self-threat, identity associations of a good, and gender. After a social self-threat, the endowment effect is strengthened for in-group goods among both men and women but is eliminated for out-group goods among men (but not women). These results are consistent with a possession-self link explanation and therefore suggest that ownership offers a better explanation for the endowment effect.

Sequential brand extensions and brand choice behavior

Abstract This paper focuses on the impact of sequential brand extensions on brand choice. With few exceptions, past research has primarily examined single brand extensions associated with a unique parent brand. In reality, a single brand name may be extended into multiple product categories. This research uses scanner panel data on two sequential brand extensions to examine the effect of experience with a parent brand and a successful previous brand extension on trial and repeat of a subsequent brand extension. The reciprocal effect of extension on brand choice in multiple parent categories is also examined.

DIMENSIONAL RELATIONSHIPS OF RECALL AND RECOGNITION MEASURES WITH SELECTED COGNITIVE AND AFFECTIVE ASPECTS OF PRINT ADS

This study builds on prior work in advertising by investigating issues associated with the dimensional representation of memory for print advertisements and the antecedent factors that relate to those dimensions. Of particular interest to this research are answers to questions associated with whether memory for print ads is unidimensional or multidimensional, as assessed by aided recall and recognition methods, with the nature of the antecedent factors of ad characteristics and subjective reactions, and with how the antecedents relate to memory. The study identified two dimensions of ad-based antecedents to memory, labeled cognitive and affective aspects, and two dimensions of memory, labeled recall and recognition. It was found that recall is influenced by cognitive, and to a lesser extent, by affective factors, whereas recognition is primarily influenced by affective factors. This research provides support for the potential use of stimulus-related factors in conjunction with, or as surrogates of, memory-based measures of effectiveness.