Need for touch and online consumer decision making: the moderating role of emotional states

PurposeCOVID-19 pandemic-related Government restrictions on the movement of people resulted in consumers moving away from retail outlets. However, sporadic instances of an unexpected surge in retail buying happened across the world immediately after the lifting of such restrictions. This uncommon phenomenon, termed revenge buying, offered an opportunity to revive retail businesses. This paper applies Reactance Theory (RCT) and Self-determination Theory (SDT) to model consumers' revenge buying intentions.Design/methodology/approachData was collected from 384 respondents in India using validated scales. The study used structural equation modelling for model testing.FindingsCOVID-19 restrictions resulted in autonomy need frustration in consumers, which induced psychological reactance and perceived stress. Psychological reactance positively impacted, while perceived stress negatively impacted revenge buying intentions. Thus, revenge buying was observed only when the psychological reactance was more than perceived stress.Research limitations/implicationsThis study, conducted in only one country with a limited convenience sample, limits the generalizability of findings.Originality/valueThis research model the psychological consequences of need frustration to explain the sporadic incidences of revenge buying in retail outlets. Further, it proposes sales recovery strategies for retailers in the immediate post-pandemic market scenarios. Retailers' strategies should focus on alleviating stress and anxiety because of health concerns, highlighting the retail buying experience to stimulate the need to visit the outlet and positioning retail buying as a potential reactance response by consumers.

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Decoding revenge buying in retail: role of psychological reactance and perceived stress

Gupta

Mukherjee

2022

“…Consumers can only perceive integrated interactions if they had previously encountered congruent experiences across the firm's channels (Bèzes, 2021). According to Zheng and Bensebaa (2022), previous perceptual state triggers several attitude and behaviour. Thus, customers' previous experiences with a company or its products/services can influence the customers' perception of available information especially across different customer touchpoints.…”

Section: Schema Theorymentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Previous experience facilitates the understanding of consumer perceptions (Bèzes, 2021;Zheng and Bensebaa, 2022). Lao et al (2021) and Bonfanti and Yfantidou (2021) highlighted the influence that the different components of customer shopping experience has in the shopping context.…”

Section: Previous Oce and Pcnwommentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Second, in light of the influence of reviews on purchase decisions, how should retailers manage relationships with shoppers with different levels of online shopping experience? These questions are vital because previous customer experience influence consumer attitude (Park et al, 2021;Zheng and Bensebaa, 2022;Lao et al, 2021) and experience has been touted as a significant differentiator of how consumers process information (Dagger and O'Brien, 2010;Lao et al, 2021;Talwar et al, 2021). Despite Verhoef, Kannan, and Inman (2015) stating that the changing retail landscape brought about by digitalisation have affected the business models of many retailers, our understanding of the interactions of customer experience and WOM in general remains poor (Talwar et al, 2021).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 1 more Smart Citation

Negative eWOM and perceived credibility: a potent mix in consumer relationships

Izogo

Jayawardhena

Karjaluoto

2022

PurposeBased on the foundations of the schema theory, the elaboration likelihood model (ELM) and customer experience literature, this research examines how the interplay between a consumer's previous shopping experience(s) and perceived credibility of negative online word-of-mouth (PCNWOM) leads to improved consumer–firm relationship quality (RQ).Design/methodology/approachThe authors utilised series of scenario-based experiments (N = 918) to test the research hypotheses.FindingsThe authors show that a focal customer's previous shopping experiences attenuate the perceived credibility of negative word-of-mouth on social media by other customers, which in turn weakens consumer–firm RQ. The authors also show that positive and negative perceptual experiences are asymmetric.Research limitations/implicationsFirst, the online shopping experiences described in the experimental scenarios were generic and did not refer to any particular product/service. Thus, calibrating products and services into categories, and studying how product type differences impact online shopping experiences warrant further research.Practical implicationsFrom a practical perspective, the authors demonstrate that not only does enhancing consumer–firm relationship quality demand meticulous integration of consumers' website and social media experiences but also in positive vs negative perception scenarios, RQ wane as review frequency increases.Originality/valueThe authors contribute significant insight into the existing literature by specifically adopting the premise that consumers' previous online shopping experience(s) will influence how credibly they will perceive negative online WOM posted on social media.

“…More and more consumers prefer to shop online, but consumers only use visual perception to check products online (Basu and Sondhi, 2021;Zheng and Bensebaa, 2022), which prompt online retailers emphasize searchable attributes of the product (e.g. appearance) (Li et al, 2021).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Multichannel retailers' prominent attribute and product positioning strategies

Wang

Ran

et al. 2022

PurposeThis paper studies how multichannel retailers choose the product quality level and decide which attribute to make prominent in their physical store in a competitive environment.Design/methodology/approachThis paper develops a game theoretic model, in which multichannel retailers' decisions are made in three stages. Using prominent experiential attributes (e.g. functionality) in their offline store and product quality decisions, multichannel retailers are capable of transferring the sales between different channels.FindingsThis analysis shows that making different attributes prominent in their physical store may be an equilibrium, and each multichannel retailer chooses the highest quality level for the prominent attribute. However, the prominent attribute of the highest quality level is not always optimal. Under certain conditions, multichannel retailers may make the experiential attribute prominent in their respective physical stores, which can result in equilibrium.Practical implicationsThe results indicate that multichannel retailers should avoid blindly highlighting high-quality attributes in a competitive environment, or falling into price completion.Originality/valueFrom the perspective of prominent attributes, this study designs the optimal product line based on channel characteristics. The results of the research can provide practical implications for multichannel retailers to increase sales.