“Always on and Always in Touch”: The New Buying Behaviour

Cuomo

2019

ITP

Purpose Social media as a competitive marketing tool deliver online platforms for retailers to get closer to their consumers/visitors/shoppers through continued interaction. The purpose of this paper is to scrutinize how customer values (functional, social and experimental) enhance satisfaction, loyalty and identification, and how such relationships, in turn, impact users’ continuance interaction intention. Design/methodology/approach A mixed-method approach was designed to identify the consumers’ perception toward high-end retailers of worldwide brands. In all, 12 interviews with experts in retailing and a survey among 390 respondents were conducted. Structural equation modeling/AMOS was employed to gain insight into the various relationships and influences. Findings To augment users’ continuance interaction intention, the results indicate that retail managers should focus more on customer-based values when they design marketing strategies for brand pages on social media. The findings also provide guidelines for retail marketing and social media managers to generate consumer value in the retail environment via information quality, product-related learning and economic benefits (functional value); interaction, collaboration and social presence (social value); and experiential value (intellectual and effective value). Originality/value The paper offers critical managerial contributions by presenting a comprehensive picture of the condition in which a favorable brand social media page could be constructed within a brand to satisfy consumer value and achieve satisfaction, loyalty, identification and continuance interaction intention, all of which are critical objectives for every company. In other words, a clear knowledge of the dimensions of consumer value concepts can assist retail communication managers to improve consumers’/visitors’/shoppers’ intention to continue their interaction in a competitive market. The current study is one of the very few emerging research studies to have examined the relationships between consumers’/visitors’/shoppers’ functional values, social values and experimental values empirically, and to have further explored the relationships between the research constructs.

Section: Theoretical Backgroundmentioning

confidence: 99%

Continuance interaction intention in retailing

Cuomo

2019

ITP

Psychology and Marketing

“…At an operational level, new customer management strategies are needed to manage the various customer affective states in a timely fashion. Recent research indicates that firms must be readily available to meet the needs of its customers online, as they expect an always connected and dynamic experience (Gordon & Perrey, ; Heinemann & Gaiser, ). Recent firm‐generated content (FGC) studies show that FGC has positive and significant effects on consumer behavior ( Kumar, Bezawada, Rishika, Janakiraman, & Kannan, ).…”

Section: Managerial Implicationsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Examining Consumers’ Motivations to Engage in Firm‐Hosted Virtual Communities

Claffey

Brady

2017

Consumer engagement is a complex phenomenon and understanding the underlying dynamics that facilitate its development, particularly in the virtual environment, is an important contemporary research priority due to its ability to influence value creation for customers and organizations, and because it introduces ongoing and multifaceted challenges for marketers. This research empirically tests hypotheses regarding the motivational drivers of consumer engagement with 308 members of two firm‐hosted virtual communities. The results suggest that marketers need a multidimensional lens to identify, understand, and manage consumers’ distinctive cognitive and affective states within this environment. Findings support the need for these firm‐hosted virtual communities to be carefully designed to facilitate knowledge sharing, provide social support, deliver an enjoyable and useful experience, and enable consumers to cocreate value through emotional empathy. This research provides critical managerial input into how best to monitor, understand, support, and ultimately leverage firm‐hosted virtual communities aligned to the emotional valence of the consumers.

“…For instance, mobile devices allow consumers to try on products in a social atmosphere, linking the application to e-commerce offers interesting opportunities (Groß, 2015). In addition, optimization of local search, aggregation platforms and offer buildings and local referral marketing on social networks are the main areas to connect brick-and-mortar shopping experience with the benefits of digital channels (Heinemann and Gaiser, 2015). Because of the support of new information and communication technologies, customer experience touch points, atmospheric, technological, communicative and product interaction elements facilitate employee–customer interactions and customer–customer interactions in smart retails (Stein and Ramaseshan, 2016) and evolve brand consideration (Baxendale et al , 2015).…”

Section: The Multi-touch Brand Experience In-storementioning

confidence: 99%

Managing omni-customer brand experience via augmented reality

Cuomo

Tortora

Festa

et al. 2020

QMR

Purpose The adoption of augmented reality (AR) settings represents an extraordinary opportunity to enrich the value of the omni-customer brand experience, especially in fashion retail. AR enhances the brand of extra-contents, both informational and sensorial, amplifies its significance toward consumers and inflects its commercial and emotional charm through new dimensions in the store. In this light, the purpose of this paper is to verify whether AR affects customer behavior toward brands in the retailing system. Design/methodology/approach By means of a qualitative approach, a preliminary research question linking technological settings of the store/brand and customer informational eagerness has been analyzed in a fashion retailing chain store. To frame the research question, the omni-customer segment perspective has been assumed, taking into consideration two main dimensions as follows: implementation of in-store AR settings; and affective/cognitive/functional structure of the experiential brand value. Findings Preliminary findings suggest that AR can create extra brand value by simplifying the decision-making process and engaging customers. In the sum four “realms” in terms of augmented brand experience can emerge and be managed by retailers. Originality/value Even though the contribution of AR is easily understood in selling activities from a marketing perspective, very few retail applied studies can be found to-date. The present analysis aims to narrow this gap. It also contributes to brand management, stimulating the integration of the AR dimension as an additional facet of a brand tool kit in the “project” for value co-creation.