Product Choice Strategy for Online Retailers

2011 ◽  
pp. 220-238
Author(s):  
Ruiliang Yan ◽  
Amit Bhatnagar
Keyword(s):  
Product Category ◽  
Product Categories ◽  
Online Retailers ◽  
Two Factors ◽  
Brick And Mortar ◽  
Online Channel ◽  
Online Stores ◽  
Set Up ◽  
The Right ◽  
The Web

An important strategic issue for managers planning to set up online stores is the choice of product categories to retail. While the “right” product category would depend on a number of factors, here we focus on the following two factors: compatibility of the product with the online channel, and the competition between the traditional brick and mortar channel and the online channel. This is to acknowledge two well-known facts: Certain products are more suitable for selling through the Web than through other channels; and an online retailer competes with not only other online retailers, but also traditional brick and mortar retailers. To determine the right product category, we develop a game theoretical model that allows for competition between the retailers. We study both Stackelberg and Bertrand competition models, as these two models capture the essence of different types of competition on the Web. Based on our results, we propose that, under all types of competition, the optimal product is one that is only moderately compatible with the Internet.

To Bid or to Buy?

2010 ◽  
Vol 6 (2) ◽  
pp. 1-20 ◽  
Author(s):  
Fan-Chen Tseng
Keyword(s):  
Online Auctions ◽  
Online Retailing ◽  
Online Retailers ◽  
Online Shoppers ◽  
Online Stores ◽  
The Right ◽  
Practical Implications

Online retailing is a rapidly expanding business. There are three major purchasing channels for online shoppers to choose when they conduct online purchasing: (1) shopping in online stores, (2) bidding in online auctions, and (3) direct purchasing in online auctions. Each channel has its strengths and weaknesses, and suits different kinds of online shoppers. This article explores the relationships between online shoppers’ lifestyles and their preferences for online purchasing channels. Knowledge about online shoppers’ preferences for online purchasing channels helps online retailers place right products in the right channel for the right customers and consequently generate stable revenues. Major findings are: (1) the online shoppers with extravert lifestyle prefer online auctions, (2) the online shoppers with indulgent lifestyle prefer online stores, and (3) the online shoppers with shrewd lifestyle have a more balanced preference for all three purchasing channels. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed.

Do wine buyers behave differently in brick and mortar vs online stores?

2020 ◽  
Vol ahead-of-print (ahead-of-print) ◽  
Author(s):  
Marguerite Higuet ◽  
Hervé Remaud
Keyword(s):  
Customer Loyalty ◽  
Design Methodology ◽  
Double Jeopardy ◽  
Grape Variety ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Product Categories ◽  
Brick And Mortar ◽  
Period Data ◽  
Online Stores ◽  
One Year

PurposeTo measure the extent to which wine buyers behave differently when purchasing wine online vs in two brick and mortar stores. The article aims to extend the use of the Double Jeopardy principle and empirical-based methodology to the wine category in a European retailing context.Design/methodology/approachCustomer loyalty data of two brick and mortar stores and the website orders of a Belgian retailer have been gathered for a one-year period. Data have been analysed based on three specific wine attributes: country of origin, grape variety and brand. Double Jeopardy measurements have been calculated for each of these attributes.FindingsThis study enlarges the scope of use of the Dirichlet principles. All three hypotheses derived from the Double Jeopardy patterns across all attributes are confirmed. From the perspective of these principles, we demonstrated that wine buyers do not behave differently in brick and mortar vs online stores.Originality/valueVery few studies have analysed and understood wine buyers' behaviour using actual purchasing data from retail stores, and none have been released comparing online and brick and mortar stores owned by the same retail brand. From that perspective, our study demystifies the way people really buy, and confirms what has been found in other product categories.

Stages of Knowledge Discovery in E-Commerce Sites

2011 ◽  
pp. 1830-1834
Author(s):  
Christophe Giraud-Carrier
Keyword(s):  
Web Sites ◽  
Online Questionnaire ◽  
Point Of Sale ◽  
Brick And Mortar ◽  
Wide Availability ◽  
Visit Duration ◽  
Rich Information ◽  
The Rich ◽  
Online Stores ◽  
The Web

With the growth and wide availability of the Internet, most retailers have successfully added the Web to their other, more traditional distribution channels (e.g., stores, mailings). For many companies, the Web channel starts off as little more than an online catalog tied to a secure electronic point of sale. Although valuable in its own right, such use of the Web falls short of some of the unique possibilities it offers for intelligent marketing. Consider the following intrinsic differences between physical, brick-and-mortar stores, and online, Webbased stores. Physical stores are rather static and mostly customer-blind. In particular, 1) the store’s layout and content are the same for all customers, 2) changes to layout and/or content are generally costly, and 3) visits are not traceable except for limited sale’s data, such as what was bought, when it was bought and by what method of payment. Online stores or commercial Web sites, on the other hand, are naturally dynamic and customer-aware. Indeed, 1) layout and content can be modified easily and cheaply, 2) layout and content can be tailored to individual visitors, and 3) every visit automatically generates a rich trail of information about the customer’s experience (e.g., visit duration, pages viewed, items bought if any, etc.), and possibly about the customer’s persona (e.g., demographics gathered through an online questionnaire at registration time). With such flexibility and nearly everything traceable and measurable, the Web is a marketer’s dream come true. Although data-independent initiatives, such as offering social interactions (e.g., user forums) or providing virtual versions of physical stores (e.g., displays, lighting, music) (Oberbeck, 2004), can clearly enhance the user experience, the full benefit of the emerging and growing Web channel belongs to those who both gather and adequately leverage the rich information it provides.

Can offline–online congruence explain online loyalty in electronic commerce?

2021 ◽  
Vol ahead-of-print (ahead-of-print) ◽  
Author(s):  
Maria Eugenia Ruiz-Molina ◽  
Miguel-Ángel Gómez-Borja ◽  
Alejandro Mollá-Descals
Keyword(s):  
Online Survey ◽  
Customer Relationship ◽  
Exploratory Research ◽  
Online Store ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Product Categories ◽  
Multichannel Retailing ◽  
Brick And Mortar ◽  
Online Shoppers ◽  
Online Stores

PurposeOne key issue to be addressed in multichannel retailing strategies has to do with ensuring the consistency of the retailer offerings between the brick-and-mortar and the online stores to offer their customers a seamless experience. This study assesses whether perceived congruence may be relevant to identify segments of heterogeneous based on their online loyalty levels as well as other constructs and variables related to the customer relationship with the retailer for two different product categories.Design/methodology/approachFrom the responses of apparel and electronics multichannel shoppers to an online survey, a CHAID algorithm was performed to identify the most relevant congruence attribute(s) perceived by customers for predicting their loyalty levels toward the online store.FindingsThe results have allowed the identification of five segments of online shoppers, both for apparel and for electronics retailing, so that customers showing the highest scores in all congruence attributes also showed a higher loyalty toward the online store.Research limitations/implicationsThis study presents a first insight into the link between perceived congruence and online loyalty in retailing using a CHAID segmentation-based approach by differentiating various dimensions of perceived congruence for two product categories.Practical implicationsThe results obtained allow for inferring a series of strategies and actions that retailers can adopt for improving perceived congruence between physical and online stores along with a series of dimensions, and ultimately, increase online loyalty.Originality/valueAs the interest of the literature on perceived congruence between offline and online stores is relatively recent, this exploratory research contributes to shedding light on the implications of specific congruence dimensions between the offline and the online store in terms of consumer online loyalty in all multicategory setting.

To Bid or to Buy?

2011 ◽  
pp. 1-19
Author(s):  
Fan-Chen Tseng
Keyword(s):  
Online Auctions ◽  
Online Retailing ◽  
Online Retailers ◽  
Online Shoppers ◽  
Online Stores ◽  
The Right ◽  
Practical Implications

Online retailing is a rapidly expanding business. There are three major purchasing channels for online shoppers to choose when they conduct online purchasing: (1) shopping in online stores, (2) bidding in online auctions, and (3) direct purchasing in online auctions. Each channel has its strengths and weaknesses, and suits different kinds of online shoppers. This article explores the relationships between online shoppers’ lifestyles and their preferences for online purchasing channels. Knowledge about online shoppers’ preferences for online purchasing channels helps online retailers place right products in the right channel for the right customers and consequently generate stable revenues. Major findings are: (1) the online shoppers with extravert lifestyle prefer online auctions, (2) the online shoppers with indulgent lifestyle prefer online stores, and (3) the online shoppers with shrewd lifestyle have a more balanced preference for all three purchasing channels. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed.

scholarly journals Assessing Customers Attitudes/Expectations Toward Online Grocery Businesses

2011 ◽  
Vol 7 (7) ◽  
Author(s):  
Yoon C. Cho
Keyword(s):  
Customer Satisfaction ◽  
Product Category ◽  
Ease Of Use ◽  
Grocery Store ◽  
Perceived Ease Of Use ◽  
Factors Affecting ◽  
Managerial Implications ◽  
Online Stores ◽  
Customer Attitudes ◽  
The Web

Customer attitudes toward online purchasing behavior have relied on various factors, such as product category, price, and brand name awareness of the store. Customer attitudes toward online shopping are also greatly affected by the inherent limitation of virtual shopping: quality is not easily judged on the Web, particularly for products which the Web cannot deliver sensory experiences. The purpose of this study is to examine customer attitudes toward an online store that sells “look-and-feel” products with various qualities[1] that appear to grow and receive increased attention. In particular, the author investigated i) the factors affecting customer attitudes toward the online grocery store; ii) how those factors affected the perceived ease of use (EOU) and usefulness (U); and iii) the effects of the perceived ease of use (EOU) and usefulness (U) on overall expected customer satisfaction toward the online grocery store. Surveys were conducted and the major findings suggest that customers’ purchase decisions in the electronic marketplace are affected by how online stores apply strategies to maximize customer satisfaction. Furthermore, this study provides managerial implications and offers suggestions for e-businesses. 

scholarly journals Integrated Discounting Framework for Indian Brick-and-Mortar Retailers

2020 ◽  
pp. 110-123
Author(s):  
H.R. Ganesh ◽  
P. S. Aithal ◽  
P. Kirubadevi
Keyword(s):  
Market Share ◽  
Past Research ◽  
Consumer Acceptance ◽  
Validity And Reliability ◽  
Online Retailing ◽  
Online Retailers ◽  
Brick And Mortar ◽  
Research Findings ◽  
Key Drivers ◽  
Online Stores

Since the time online retailing format started getting consumer acceptance in India, consumers now have wider options available for them to buy a product at a discounted price and notably, as online stores in India are following the product discounting as one of the key drivers for consumer acquisition, consumers’ perspective towards discount at Brick-and-mortar store has changed. This change in consumers’ perspective has put the majority of Brick-and-mortar retailers in India into a quandary and they are losing out their market share slowly to online retailers. From the existing literature we have found many discounting frameworks suggested by researchers, but they are all isolated for specific contexts and leave it to retailers to create their own discounting frameworks. In this work, we have attempted to create an integrated discounting framework for Indian brickand-mortar retailers by carrying out multiple experiments with different manipulations and under different contexts along with taking clues from past research findings, insights and suggestions along with testing validity and reliability of the proposed framework in the field.

scholarly journals Long-Term Discounting Frameworks: Insights from Multiple Experiments

2020 ◽  
pp. 84-100
Author(s):  
H. R. Ganesh ◽  
P. S. Aithal ◽  
P. Kirubadevi
Keyword(s):  
Competitive Advantage ◽  
Online Retailing ◽  
Sales Promotions ◽  
Online Retailers ◽  
Brick And Mortar ◽  
Consumer Perspective ◽  
Key Drivers ◽  
Online Stores ◽  
The Impact

Ever since the online retailing format has emerged in India, consumers now have wider options available for them to buy a product at a discounted price and notably, as online stores in India are following the product discounting as one of the key drivers for consumer acquisition, consumers’ perspective towards discount at brick-and-mortar store has changed.This change in consumers’ perspective has put the majority of brick-and-mortar retailers in India into a quandary and they are losing out their market share slowly to online retailers. In this research which is based on recommendations of empirical research previously carried out on the impact of changes in retailer and consumer perspective towards discount post emergence of online stores in India, we have carried out multiple experiments on multiple long-term discounting frameworks to investigate and recommend brick-and-mortar retailers on ideal(a) frameworks, (b) duration, (c) types, (d) assortment coverage, and (e) advertising techniques for long-term discounting strategies to enable brick-and-mortar retailers to design appropriate sales promotions to gain a competitive advantage over online retailing on the discount component.

scholarly journals Assortment Rotation and the Value of Concealment

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kris Johnson Ferreira ◽  
Joel Goh
Keyword(s):  
Competitive Advantage ◽  
Operations Management ◽  
Structural Difference ◽  
Product Categories ◽  
Multiple Products ◽  
Online Retailers ◽  
Relative Product ◽  
Brick And Mortar ◽  
Context Dependent ◽  
General Conditions

Assortment rotation—the retailing practice of changing the assortment of products offered to customers—has recently been used as a competitive advantage for both brick-and-mortar and online retailers. We focus on product categories where consumers may purchase multiple products during a season and investigate a new reason why frequent assortment rotations can be valuable to a retailer. Namely, by distributing its seasonal catalog of products over multiple assortments rotated throughout the season, as opposed to selling all products in a single, fixed assortment, the retailer effectively conceals a portion of its full product catalog from consumers, injecting uncertainty into the consumer’s relative product valuations. Rationally acting consumers may respond to this structural difference by purchasing more products, thereby generating additional sales for the retailer. We refer to this phenomenon as the value of concealment and show that the retailer enjoys a positive and significant value of concealment under quite general conditions. However, we show that when consumers are forward looking, the value of concealment is context dependent. We present insights and discuss intuition regarding which product categories likely lead to a positive versus negative value of concealment. This paper was accepted by Vishal Gaur, operations management.

How products induce regulatory fit: evidence from the health domain

2015 ◽  
Vol 32 (6) ◽  
pp. 441-449 ◽  
Author(s):  
Adilson Borges ◽  
Pierrick Gomez
Keyword(s):  
Pilot Study ◽  
Regulatory Focus ◽  
Practical Implication ◽  
Product Category ◽  
Regulatory Fit ◽  
Motivational Orientation ◽  
Final Exam ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Product Categories ◽  
The Right

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to test whether the simple exposure to different types of products can trigger different motivational orientation on consumers (prevention vs promotion), which in turn would match message frame and increase persuasion. Design/methodology/approach – Three experiments test whether exposure to product categories can trigger consumer’s regulatory focus orientation. Participants in the pilot study are students, while participants in the two other studies are consumers. Findings – A first pilot study randomly exposed participants to a product that could trigger promotion orientation (e.g. orange juice) versus a product that could trigger prevention orientation (e.g. sunscreen). Participants exposed to promotion (prevention) product suggest more promotion (prevention) strategies to reach a particular goal (preparing for their final exam). Study 2 shows that gain (vs loss)-framed messages using health appeals have better evaluations when featuring promotion (vs prevention) products. Study 3 generalizes these results using another sample and different product categories. Research limitations/implications – The paper uses some product categories and including other categories would increase external validity. Practical implications – The practical implication is to help marketers to choose the right health argument to match the product category they are trying to sell. Originality/value – Theoretically, the results from three studies show that exposure to products can temporarily trigger a consumer’s regulatory focus and that messages using health arguments that are consistent with this regulatory focus are more persuasive than those that are not. Managerially, these results help managers to adapt the right message in function of the product category.

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