Service attribute importance and strategic planning: An empirical study

There is growing evidence that attribute importance is a function of attribute performance. Several studies reported that service quality attributes fall into three categories: basic, performance, and excitement. Thus, the identification of attribute importance is significantly important as a key to customer satisfaction evaluation and other behavioural intentions. According to customer behaviour literature, attribute importance can be measured in two ways: (1) self-stated importance, and (2) statistically inferred importance. The article evaluates two methods according to their impact on overall customer satisfaction measurement and, managerial implementation. A case study is conducted on the telecommunication industry for analysis

A Market Basket Analysis Conducted with a Multivariate Logit Model

The following research is guided by the hypothesis that products chosen on a shopping trip in a supermarket can indicate the preference interdependencies between different products or brands. The bundle chosen on the trip can be regarded as the result of a global utility function. More specifically: the existence of such a function implies a cross-category dependence of brand choice behavior. It is hypothesized that the global utility function related to a product bundle results from the marketing-mix of the underlying brands. Several approaches exist to describe the choice of specific categories from a set of many alternatives. The models are discussed in brief; the multivariate logit approach is used to estimate a model with a German data set.market basket analysis, multivariate logit model, brand choice behavior, marketing-mix

DOES THE CONSUMER'S VARIETY-SEEKING BEHAVIOR CONDITION THE WILLINGNESS TO TRAVEL FURTHER?

The objective of this study is to test the effect of the consumer¿s variety-seeking behaviour on the distance the tourist is prepared to travel; that is, his/her willingness to travel further. The empirical application is carried out in Spain in a context with 26 destinations, by applying Mixed Logit Models. The results evidence that the variety-seeking behaviour reduces the dissuasive effect of distance. El objetivo del presente estudio es contrastar el efecto del comportamiento ¿búsqueda de variedad¿ en la distancia que el turista está dispuesto a realizar; es decir, su predisposición a viajar más o menos lejos. La aplicación empírica se desarrolla en España en un contexto de 26 destinos, aplicándose un Modelo Logit Mixto. Los resultados evidencian que la ¿búsqueda de variedad¿ reduce el ¿efecto disuasivo¿ de la distancia.Marketing Turístico, Búsqueda de variedad, Modelo Logit Mixto. Tourism Marketing, Variety-seeking behaviour, Mixed Logit Model.

"Incorporating Theory and Modeling in Data Analysis for CRM: RF Analysis based on a Consumer Behavior Model"(in Japanese)

While RFM analysis is popular among practioners, ad-hoc rules are often employed to judge whether customers are alive or not. Because customers do not declare explicitly when they are dead, a company infers a customer is dead if she did not make any purchase, for example, for over three months. Even with the same period of nonpurchase, however, customers with a long interpurchase time need not be worried for death whereas those with a short interpurchase time could be dead. Hence, it is very important to account for customer heterogeneity when assessing the survival of customers. In this research, using standard RF data, I will derive the survival probability of an individual customer based on the common hypotheses on consumer behavior.

Price theory and the role of marketing science

"January 1983."Bibliography: leaves 10-11.by John R. Hauser

Semiparametric Multinomial Logit Models for Analysing Consumer Choice Behaviour

The multinomial logit model (MNL) is one of the most frequently used statistical models in marketing applications. It allows to relate an unordered categorical response variable, for example representing the choice of a brand, to a vector of covariates such as the price of the brand or variables characterising the consumer. In its classical form, all covariates enter in strictly parametric, linear form into the utility function of the MNL model. In this paper, we introduce semiparametric extensions, where smooth effects of continuous covariates are modelled by penalised splines. A mixed model representation of these penalised splines is employed to obtain estimates of the corresponding smoothing parameters, leading to a fully automated estimation procedure. To validate semiparametric models against parametric models, we utilise proper scoring rules and compare parametric and semiparametric approaches for a number of brand choice data sets

La utilización de las Tecnologías de la Información y la Comunicación y su impacto en la actividad promocional. Un estudio sobre los conceptos de eficacia y eficiencia.

La medición del impacto promocional ha sido, en las últimas décadas, un estudio de interés constante para los ejecutivos de marketing y ventas y para los investigadores de mercados, en su intento  por entender la repercusión que tiene la actividad promocional en las ventas y en la lealtad de marca. Las investigaciones coinciden en que existen dos corrientes de  estudio sobre el impacto promocional. Una, toma como medida de análisis al comprador y la otra, toma como medida de análisis la elasticidad de la marca.  En el análisis al comprador se estudian, principalmente, la elección de marca, la incidencia de compra y la cantidad comprada.  En el análisis de la elasticidad de marca se estudian las percepciones del comprador, básicamente, sobre lo atractivo de la promoción, sus percepciones sobre la relación calidad-precio de la marca y el perfil económico de ese consumidor. Las dos corrientes, sin embargo, coinciden en que las mediciones del impacto promocional obedecen, por un lado, a la eficacia y eficiencia de dicha actividad,  y por otro, cómo la utilización de las TIC hacen que la promoción de marca sean eficaz o eficiente o ambas a la vez; éste último precepto se constituye en la finalidad del presente estudio

SOCIAL MEDIA BRAND COMMUNITY AND CONSUMER PURCHASE: A CROSS-BRAND ANALYSIS

Social media brand communities have been widely adopted by marketers as a marketing channel to engage consumers, and by consumers as a source of product/brand information prior to their purchase decisions. The popularity of social media brand communities has attracted some academic research efforts. However, there still exist important research gaps to be addressed in the existing literature. First, previous studies only focused on the impact of consumers? engagement in the community of a brand on their purchases from that particular brand. However, consumers could have preference for multiple brands within a product class. As such, the impact of engagement in the community of a brand on consumers\u27 purchases from other preferred alternative brands remains unknown. Second, previous studies implicitly assumed that consumers only engage in a single community of a preferred brand. However, consumers would engage in multiple communities of multiple preferred brands within a product class. As such, the impact of consumers\u27 engagement in communities of multiple similar brands on their purchases from those engaged brands also remains unknown. This study thus proposes a set of research hypotheses, aiming to fill these research gaps. The findings from this study would offer several notable theoretical contributions

The Effect of Inventory on Purchase Incidence: Empirical Analysis of Opposing Forces of Storage and Consumption

Behavioral studies and recent empirical research suggest higher levels of inventory on hand can lead consumers to increase consumption. Inventory on hand is therefore posited to exert two countervailing forces on the probability of purchase incidence. First, higher levels of inventory reduce the likelihood of purchase as the consumer feels less pressure to buy. At the same time however, theory suggests higher levels of inventory may drive up the rate of consumption, thereby increasing the probability of incidence. We develop an empirical model that explicitly captures these two effects. The elasticity of purchase incidence with respect to inventory derived from the model is shown to capture these opposing forces in a simple and intuitive way. The analytical expression allows calculation of a threshold below (above) which the net effect is positive (negative). The model is estimated on ten product categories from the Stanford Market Basket database and is shown to fit better than both the standard nested logit approach and an alternative formulation developed by Ailawadi and Neslin (1998). The threshold values have plausible magnitudes and are intuitive across categories: butter, margarine and crackers have relatively low thresholds implying that inventory build up does not drive consumption; ice cream and soft drinks have relatively large thresholds (below which the inventory pressure to consume more outweighs the effect to delay purchase). Implications for retail management are discussed. --Choice Models,Consumption,Inventory,Purchase Incidence