Empirical Evidence of Repertoire Size

Abstract

Empirical research over several decades has demonstrated that the average buyer in a repeat-purchase category purchases a repertoire of brands. While the commonality of this behaviour and its implications for managers are widely cited, little is known about the characteristics of a typical repertoire, and the market factors that may influence the make-up of the repertoire. Such knowledge would be a useful precursor to the implementation of marketing efforts for brands in such categories. This paper provides much needed descriptive knowledge of the typical repertoire (i.e. its size and how it varies across consumers, time and categories). We describe this for all brands in two data sets, one containing 48 consumer goods categories and one containing 74 consumer goods categories. Our research provides information on what is typical given specific market conditions for categories and brands within those categories and thus allows for managers to measure the impact that their activities have on repertoire buying behaviour.

The long-term erosion of repeat-purchase loyalty

“…Next, we consider how erosion might influence the evolution of consumer repertoires. There is evidence that consumer brand repertoires get larger over longer time periods such as from a quarter to a year (Banelis et al, 2013), or longer (Trinh, 2014). A relevant question for this study is, if we observe a cohort of brand buyers that exhibits erosion, how will that erosion be reflected in terms of the accumulated growth in those buyers' repertoires over time.…”

The Natural Monopoly Effect in Brand Purchasing: Do Big Brands Really Appeal to Lighter Category Buyers?

“…Table 4 shows the average purchase loyalty or Share of Category Requirements differs by buyer group. Reading across the columns, we see that light buyers are on average more loyal to their brands, because they purchase the category less often (Banelis et al, 2013) whereas heavy buyers allocate less of their requirements to any particular brand – average SCRs of 75% for light buyers, 40% for medium and 27% for heavy. Second, reading down the rows shows that loyalty varies according to brand size, in line with the Double Jeopardy effect (Ehrenberg et al, 1990): large brands on average get more loyalty than small brands (42%, 46%, 54% SCR for small, medium and large respectively).…”

Has brand loyalty declined? A longitudinal analysis of repeat purchase behavior in the UK and the USA

“…Bhattacharya, Fader, Lodish, & Desarbo, 1996;Jung, Gruca, & Lopo, 2010;Pare & Dawes, 2011), tenure -the length of time a buyer remains as a buyer (East, Lomax, & Narain, 2001;Reichheld & Teal, 1996); repertoire size (e.g. Banelis, Riebe, & Rungie, 2013;Uncles & Ehrenberg, 1990), and the proportion of brand buyers who are solely loyal (e.g. Raj, 1985).…”

“…• Large brands receive more loyalty, small brands receive less, commonly known as the double jeopardy effect . • Consumer loyalty is related to purchase incidence -heavy buyers of a category buy more brands, consequently are less loyal to any particular brand (Banelis et al, 2013). • Large brands tend to monopolize light buyers in a category (McPhee, 1963).…”