Critical review of the e-loyalty literature: a purchase-centred framework

Over the last few years, the concept of online loyalty has been examined extensively in the literature, and it remains a topic of constant inquiry for both academics and marketing managers. The tremendous development of the Internet for both marketing and e-commerce settings, in conjunction with the growing desire of consumers to purchase online, has promoted two main outcomes: (a) increasing numbers of Business-to-Customer companies running businesses online and (b) the development of a variety of different e-loyalty research models. However, current research lacks a systematic review of the literature that provides a general conceptual framework on e-loyalty, which would help managers to understand their customers better, to take advantage of industry-related factors, and to improve their service quality. The present study is an attempt to critically synthesize results from multiple empirical studies on e-loyalty. Our findings illustrate that 62 instruments for measuring e-loyalty are currently in use, influenced predominantly by Zeithaml et al. (J Marketing. 1996;60(2):31-46) and Oliver (1997; Satisfaction: a behavioral perspective on the consumer. New York: McGraw Hill). Additionally, we propose a new general conceptual framework, which leads to antecedents dividing e-loyalty on the basis of the action of purchase into pre-purchase, during-purchase and after-purchase factors. To conclude, a number of managerial implementations are suggested in order to help marketing managers increase their customers’ e-loyalty by making crucial changes in each purchase stage

Private vs. Business Customers in the Sharing Economy – The implications of Trust, Perceived Risk, and Social Motives on Airbnb

The sharing economy is continuously changing the hospitality industry while competing with incumbent businesses over the available market share. This study examines the peer-to-peer renting service Airbnb. In particular, we investigate how social motives, trust, and perceived risk of private and business customers, alter the accommodation provider’s intention to accept a booking request. Understanding the implications of private and business customers is key – not only for platform providers, but also for researchers investigating the sharing economy. In this article, we develop a questionnaire for assessing the influence of the respective customer type on trust, perceived risk, and the provider’s intention. Our pretest employs survey data (n = 53) and principal component analysis (PCA) to prepare a clean structural equation modeling

From physical marketing to web marketing

Reviews the criticism of the 4P marketing mix framework as the basis of traditional and virtual marketing planning. Argues that the customary marketing management approach, based on the popular marketing mix 4Ps paradigm, is inadequate in the case of virtual marketing. Identifies two main limitations of the marketing mix when applied in online environments namely the role of the Ps in a virtual commercial setting and the lack of any strategic elements in the model. Identifies the critical factors of the Web marketing and argues that the basis for successful e-commerce is the full integration of virtual activities into the company's physical strategy, marketing plan and organisational processes. The 4S elements of the Web marketing mix framework offer the basis for developing and commercialising business to consumer online projects. The model was originally developed for educational purposes and has been tested and refined by means of three case studies

Can Consumers Detect Deceptive Product Online? An Analysis of Consumers’ Anti-deception Mechanisms For Product-related Deceptions

The rapid growth of electronic commerce (e-commerce) has lead to great loss of online customers every year. Among the different kinds of e-Commerce deceptions, product-related deception receives relatively most attention by practitioners but less attention by researchers. This paper aims to address two questions, 1) Can consumers detect product-related deceptions online? 2) How consumers distinguish the product-related deceptions from the good ones? To answer these two questions, an integrative model and a set of hypothesis, describing the relationship among product-related deception practices, consumers’ perceptions and purchase behavior will be developed. And then, test the proposed model using Partial Least Squares (PLS) method on the data collected via a scenario experiment and servery on real customers

Evaluation and Classification of Mobile Financial Services Sustainability Using Structural Equation Modeling and Multiple Criteria Decision-Making Methods

Despite the fast emergent of smartphones in day-to-day activity, the sustainable development of mobile financial services (MFS) remains low partially due to online consumer’s trust and perceived risk. This research broadens the trust and the perceived risk at the multi-dimensional for understanding and prioritizing alternatives of MFS decision. A combined methodology; structural equation modeling (SEM) with two multiple criteria decision-making (MCDM) methods such as a technique for order of preference by similarity to ideal solution (TOPSIS) and analytic hierarchy process (AHP) were applied for data analysis. The two steps SEM-TOPSIS techniques were adopted through a two-types survey on datasets consisting of 538 MFS users, and 74 both experienced MFS users and experts in Togo. The SEM is used for causal relationships and assigning weights for the TOPSIS input. TOPSIS was applied for providing MFS alternative classification, in which the results were compared with prior research using the SEM-AHP technique on the given population. The results via SEM revealed particularly strong support for the dispositional trust and perceived privacy risk. Trust has a negative relationship with perceived risk. Except for perceived time risk, all the antecedents of perceived risk and trust validated the proposed relationship. The findings of TOPSIS uncovered that mobile money transfer (MMT) remains the core application used, followed by mobile payment (MP) and mobile banking (MB) and, therefore, consistent with AHP. However, the TOPSIS technique is better suited to the problem of MFS selection for this study field. This research offers a novel and practical modeling and classification concept for researchers, companies’ managers, and experts in the areas of information technology. The implications, limitations, and future research are provided

The 4s web-marketing mix model

This paper reviews the criticism on the 4Ps Marketing Mix framework, the most popular tool of traditional marketing management, and categorizes the main objections of using the model as the foundation of physical marketing. It argues that applying the traditional approach, based on the 4Ps paradigm, is also a poor choice in the case of virtual marketing and identifies two main limitations of the framework in online environments: the drastically diminished role of the Ps and the lack of any strategic elements in the model. Next to identifying the critical factors of the Web marketing, the paper argues that the basis for successful E-Commerce is the full integration of the virtual activities into the company’s physical strategy, marketing plan and organisational processes. The four S elements of the Web-Marketing Mix framework present a sound and functional conceptual basis for designing, developing and commercialising Business-to-Consumer online projects. The model was originally developed for educational purposes and has been tested and refined by means of field projects; two of them are presented as case studies in the paper.\ud \u

Adam Smith’s Bourgeois Virtues in Competition

Whether or not capitalism is compatible with ethics is a long standing dispute. We take up an approach to virtue ethics inspired by Adam Smith and consider how market competition influences the virtues most associated with modern commercial society. Up to a point, competition nurtures and supports such virtues as prudence, temperance, civility, industriousness and honesty. But there are also various mechanisms by which competition can have deleterious effects on the institutions and incentives necessary for sustaining even these most commercially friendly of virtues. It is often supposed that if competitive markets are good, more competition must always be better. However, in the long run competition enhancing policies that neglect the nurturing and support of the bourgeois virtues may undermine the continued flourishing of modern commercial society

A meta-analysis of online trust : examining main and moderating effects

textThe purpose of this study was (1) to conduct a meta-analysis on the antecedents and consequences of online trust; (2) to test for seven moderating variables involving online trust; and (3) to use the pooled correlation matrix to fit the research model. The data for the meta-analytic procedure involved 120 papers reporting 150 independent studies. Results showed statistically significant relationships involving online trust and its various antecedents (e.g., perceived security) and consequences (e.g., behavioral intention). The relationships were heterogeneous across studies and the variances for the reported effect sizes were partially explained by certain methodological characteristics. The meta-analytic structural equation modeling analysis indicated that online trust mediates the effect of various antecedents on behavioral intention. A discussion of results, implications, limitations, and future research is provided.Informatio