Social shopping communities (SSCs) evolve from a linkage of social networking and online shopping. Apart from direct shopping features in shopbots (e.g., search fields), SSCs additionally offer user-generated social shopping features. These include recommendation lists, ratings, styles (i.e., assortments arranged by users), tags, and user profiles. Purchases can be made by following a link to a participating online shop ("clickout"). SSCs are experiencing high growth rates in consumer popularity (e.g., Polyvore attracts more than 6 million unique visitors per month). Thus, this business model has received considerable venture capital in recent years. By analyzing clickstream data, we investigate which factors, especially social shopping features, are significant for predicting purchasing behavior within SSCs. Our logit model includes about 2.73 million visiting sessions and shows that social shopping features exert a significant impact, both positive and negative. Tags and high ratings have a positive impact on a click-out. In contrast, the more lists and styles used, the less likely the user is to make a click-out. Yet, lists and styles seem to enhance site stickiness and browsing. Moreover, the more direct shopping features that are used, the less likely the user is to conduct a click-out. Increasing transaction costs and information overload could be potential reasons. We also found that community members are more likely to make a click-out than ordinary users. This implies that community members are more profitable.KEY WORDS AND PHRASES: Clickstream data, online consumer purchasing behavior, social shopping, user-generated content, virtual community.Parallel to the increasing importance of the Internet as a shopping channel [30,77], the advent of Web 2.0 is rapidly moving the online landscape into a truly consumer-driven era [8,19,75]. Web 2.0 provides consumers with many methods of creating and sharing user-generated content (UGC) [23,58,80]. Therefore, social media such as blogs, message boards, and content-sharing platforms are growing rapidly [8,54]. In particular, consumers increasingly communicate and exchange information in social networks, such as Facebook [58,79].In the area of e-commerce, this results in a linkage of online shopping and social networking, initiating a new form of e-commerce, that of social shopping [78,80]. In general, social shopping is about connecting consumers and shopping together [75], which is also the focus of social shopping communities (SSCs), which can be defined as follows: An SSC is an online shopping service that connects consumers and lets them discover, share, recommend, rate, and purchase products [21,38]. In contrast to traditional e-commerceThe authors thank an anonymous collaborating company for providing the clickstream data used in this article. Furthermore, the authors thank SAS Institute Germany for providing SAS Enterprise Miner™ Software. Finally, the authors are especially grateful to two anonymous IJEC reviewers for their helpful and insightful comments.
Purpose – The study contributes to our understanding of search engine advertising in two main ways. Firstly, we analyze the comparative effectiveness of its campaign parameters. Secondly, we examine the effect of print advertising on search engine advertising Design/methodology/approach – Based on advertising data for a three-year period, we test the hypotheses by means of a path model with the aid of partial least squares. Findings – The advertising budget and the degree of keyword matching yield the greatest effect on the number of signed contracts. The click-through rate and the bid amount contribute, to a lesser extent, to explaining this financial target variance. The number of keywords had no significant effect. The study did not yield significant evidence of print advertising, directly affecting the number of search engine advertisement impressions, but showed an indirect effect of print advertising on the number of conversions, induced directly by search engine advertising. Research limitations/implications – The multichannel relationship of print and search engine advertising, including its campaign parameters, provides a starting point for future research to provide a coherent methodology for capturing the necessary data, processing the underlying information and evaluating the advertising effects. Practical implications – The multichannel effect needs to be quantified and taken into account when evaluating print advertising and search advertising campaigns and the future advertising mix is planned. Originality/value – The study extends the field of search engine advertising in the direction of multichannel effects. In comparison to previous research, empirical evidence on the multichannel usage of print advertising and search engine advertising, related to an overall economic target, is provided.
Purpose – This article aims to close some research gaps by differentiating between brand types and price tiers. Many consumers perceive high prices as signals of high quality, yet researchers tend to find only low average correlations between price and objective quality. Previous studies do not account for market shares and paid prices though. Design/methodology/approach – A German consumer panel with more than 30,000 households reveals market shares and paid prices. Combining these data with product test ratings, the authors evaluate price-quality relationships with Spearman’s rank correlation coefficients and distinguish food from non-food products, national brands and private labels and three price tiers. Findings – High price-quality correlations for national brands and non-food private labels indicate that a higher price signals greater product quality. For food private labels, negative correlation coefficients inhibit the use of price as a quality indicator. The price-quality relationship for food private labels implies strong competition among brand owners, based on the price and quality of their products. Originality/value – This article investigates price-quality correlations by accounting for paid prices and product market shares; it also reveals differences across food and non-food products, national brands and private labels and different price tiers against the background of competition strategies. By addressing when consumers use price as a quality indicator, it outlines important managerial implications for manufacturers, retailers and consumers.
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