Psychological elements explaining the consumer's adoption and use of a website recommendation system: A theoretical framework proposal

The purpose of this paper is to understand, with an emphasis on the psychological perspective of the research problem, the consumer's adoption and use of a certain web site recommendation system as well as the main psychological outcomes involved. The approach takes the form of theoretical modelling. Findings: A conceptual model is proposed and discussed. A total of 20 research propositions are theoretically analyzed and justified. Research limitations/implications: The theoretical discussion developed here is not empirically validated. This represents an opportunity for future research. Practical implications: The ideas extracted from the discussion of the conceptual model should be a help for recommendation systems designers and web site managers, so that they may be more aware, when working with such systems, of the psychological process consumers undergo when interacting with them. In this regard, numerous practical reflections and suggestions are presented

Semantic Shopping: A Literature Study

The digitalization of the economy and society overall has a significant impact on customers’ shopping behavior. After being conditioned by experiences in entertainment or simple Internet search, customers increasingly expect that a smart shopping assistant understands his/her shopping intentions and transfers these to shopping recommendations. Thus, the emerging opportunity in this context is to facilitate an intention-based shopping experience similar to the way semantic search engines provide responses to enquiries. In order to progress this new area, we differentiate alternative types of shopping intentions to provide the first set of conversation patterns. Grounded in the Speech Act Theory and a structured literature review, semantic shopping is defined and different types of shopping intentions are deduced

Development of a Revenue Model for Buyers in Co-Creation Environment

With the advancement of information communications technology (ICT) and dissemination of mobile devices, new businesses are constantly emerging, and collaboration and cooperation between suppliers and consumers are also leading to innovation. Furthermore, to enhance consumer loyalty or to attract new customers, marketing activities are further advancing by utilizing cutting-edge information technology. In particular, user experience is highly emphasized, influencing the stages of planning and developing products, and is even used as a means of marketing. Creating new value and joint innovation through direct customer engagement is indeed a new challenge from design to production, marketing, sales, and delivery of products or services. Personal information on the internet is rapidly increasing due to the advancement of information technology which leads to an increasing use of social networking services and web search, as well as easier access to the internet itself. More companies are attempting to link corporate strategies to the analyses of such personal information and customer propensity or preferences, which is considered key to corporate success. As such, the mobile environment has become a new business tool and channel for sales and purchase for both companies and customers, and new business models to utilize mobile devices are emerging. Services can use the user location to provide information on the areas or shops near the user. User profile can also be provided to advertisers and product sellers, and the advertisers can advertise products that certain users may be interested in based on the user profiles. Users can compare the lowest prices and get information on the related or similar products. This study suggests a buyer revenue model based on such scenario and reviews the technical issues in implementing the model

Low-Income Consumers in Brazil: Nuances of a Market That Can No Longer Be Ignored

The main goal of this paper is to better understand the low income Brazilian market, supported by two basic concepts: price unfairness and perceived product value. In order to meet the research objective a qualitative approach, based on two methodological procedures – observation and in-depth interviews –, was used. The findings indicate that small neighborhood retailers, despite lacking adequate physical infrastructure and management skills, play an important role in meeting the needs of low-income consumers. They offer convenience, personalized services, easy and uncomplicated credit (on an informal basis), and a product mix that matches the needs and desires of their customers. It was also found that although these small retailers charge higher prices than large supermarket chains, their customers still see value in their offerings and do not consider the prices asked to be unfair: they recognize that the benefits they receive outweigh the higher prices they pay. It was also found that low-income consumers relate with neighborhood retail stores in a basis that goes beyond the mere business, but in a cultural basis too. These small stores function not only as points of sale, but also as places where people can meet and discuss issues related to the local community. The principal contribution of this paper is in providing substantive information about the nuances of a market that has hitherto not been adequately explored but that holds a potential that can no longer be ignored. In Brazil, this market contains nearly 90 million consumers, eager to be included in the world of consumption. The findings presented by this study are of relevance not only to academic organisations and businesses, but also to social organizations and public policymakers responsible for improving the quality of life of the poor

Marketing mix for e-commerce

The relevance of the analyzed issue is caused by the need to study the process of transformation of marketing in e-commerce, as the active involvement of business organizations in the field of e-business is often accompanied by problems of applying the usual marketing tools in a virtual environment. The article seeks to identify changes in the elements of the marketing mix in e-commerce in accordance with the trend of e-business and Internet technology. The leading approach to the study of this issue is the marketing model 7P, allowing structuring the changes in a complex of marketing tools with regard to trade and information services of online stores. The results of research were: to establish the determining role of technology and information support of consumers; to identify the areas of transformation of the marketing mix in e-commerce, demonstrating the significant influence of consumers on the content of 7P and personalize the supply of goods and services. The article may be useful for online stores in case of marketing strategy development, identification of the most important elements of 7P, assessment of marketing effectiveness and optimization of marketing costs. © 2016 Pogorelova et al

Online shopping behavior in offline retail stores : strategic value for companies?

In a world where e-tailing and traditional in-store shopping live together and complement each other in several shopping activities (Chu, et. al, 2010), little is known about the possibility of an emerging reality in which online and offline shopping merge into one single phenomenon. The purpose of this dissertation is to explore whether consumers are willing to engage in a shopping behavior inside retail stores in a way that is similar to the one they have when shopping online. Additionally, it sheds light on the strategic value the online-offline shopping holds. To accomplish these objectives, a smartphone shopping scenario is designed to represent a situation that enables consumers to perform in-store shopping tasks in a digital manner, mixing and enhancing the features and benefits of e-tailing with traditional retail store experience. Moreover, a research model, that includes preliminary assumptions and eleven hypotheses to be tested, is designed to fundament the research methodology used. Based on this research model and the smartphone shopping scenario, a survey is conducted in order to collect empirical data on customer’s appraisal of the online-offline shopping process as well as their availability to permit recording their shopping data obtained after performing shopping tasks via smartphone. Furthermore, to access the strategic value of the online-offline shopping process, Resource-based View theory is used in order to identify the existence of possible sources of sustainable competitive advantage. The findings from the research show that respondents value the characteristics of the online-offline shopping process as well as they are willing to permit recording their own shopping data so that they are able to benefit from a contextual personalized shopping experience while shopping in traditional retail stores. The dissertation concludes that because customers value the characteristics of the online-offline shopping process they have a strong motivation to engage in an online-offline shopping behavior. Moreover, since they are willing to trade their shopping privacy for a contextual personalized shopping experience, it is plausible to admit that a strategy based on contextual personalization has potential to be strategic for retail companies. In fact, to generate such a strategy, the customer knowledge generated in the process is argued to be a firm resource that, combined with dynamic capabilities to leverage its utility in providing a contextual personalization experience, is considered to be a source of sustainable competitive advantage meaning the online-offline process has potential to be strategic to retail firms

Store Choice in the Emerging Indian Apparel Retail Market: an Empirical Analysis

Store Choice has been a subject of frequent research in the developed retail markets of the west. However, the retail sector in India has been largely fragmented and unorganized. However, the retail scenario in India is changing at a very brisk pace. Many international retailers entering India and many Indian retailers in the organized segment are coming up with stores all across the country, but a majority of these stores have merely transplanted western formats onto the Indian retail scene without actually evaluating the salience of various store attributes from the customer perspective. In light of this the purpose of this paper is to study the store choice criteria in the context of apparel retailing in India. Drawing from major global and Indian studies conducted in the past, this research has identified two dimensions, which in different combinations could create sustainable store choice and hence, store loyalty. These two dimensions are termed “loyalty drivers†and experience enhancersâ€.Consumer Behaviour

Transaction Streams: Definition and Implications for Trust in Internet-Based Electronic Commerce.

In this paper we analyze how transactions related to the exchange of goods and services are being performed on the Internet. The adoption of electronic markets in an industry has a disintermediation potential because it can create a direct link between the producer and the consumer (without the need for the intermediation role of distributors). Electronic markets lower the search cost, allowing customers to choose among more providers (which ultimately reduces both the costs for the customer and the profits for the producer). In this paper we contend that electronic markets on the Internet have the opposite effect, resulting in our increase in the number of intermediators. We introduce transaction streams, which model how transactions are being conducted and help explain the types of new intermediators that are appearing on the Internet. We also describe mechanisms by which companies are exploring ways of extending transaction streams. To illustrate the model and validate our findings, we analyze transaction streams in the insurance industry and review associated concepts such as trust and brands.transactions; electronic markets;

A Survey on True-reputation Algorithm for Trustworthy Online Rating System

The average of customer ratings on a product, which we call a reputation, is one of the key factors in online shoping. The common way for customers to express their satisfaction level with their purchases is through online ratings. The overall buyer?s satisfaction is quantified as the aggregated score of all ratings and is available to all buyers. This average score and reputation of a product acts as a guide for online buyers and highly influences consumer?s final purchase decisions. The trustworthiness of a reputation can be achieved when a large number of buyers involved in ratings with honesty. If some users wantedly give unfair ratings to a item, especially when few users have participated, the reputation of the product could easily be modified. In order to improve the trustworthiness of the products in e-commerce sites a new model is proposed with a true - reputation algorithm that repeatedly adjusts the reputation based on the confidence of the user ratings

Designing an Agent for Information Extraction from Persian E-shops

E-shops are among the most conventional applications of Electronic Commerce. In these shops, the buyers search for their goods through key words or classifications and read the product description provided by the sellers. Though, when the number of items is high, this gets to be difficult for the users. On the one hand, there are too many e-shops, and browsing in these shops to find the best and most appropriate goods is a difficult and time-consuming process. On the other hand, product descriptions are not the same in different websites, and there are different product forms. This study investigates about products and sellers in various websites based on the conditions and user requirements through software agents which present the extracted information in the form of a table to the users which enables them to compare prices and each seller’s conditions without spending too much time for browsing. Using this method increases precision and recall indices comparing to a conventional user browsing