Trade Marketing and its effects

In today’s challenging business environment, the companies are mostly dependent on customer relationship management as they are considered as the key factors for improving the company sales and growth in the end. The report has focused upon the discussion of Customer relationship management (CRM) in the growth of the retail business and the importance of trade marketing for the increasing sales and profitability of the business. On the other hand, the importance of customer satisfaction after a company’s product sale and marketing has been critically analysed and the various challenges the retail companies face in maintaining good customer loyalty in this competitive business environment have been discussed. Through the findings of the literature review, the way buyers decision-making process is involved by a good marketing and sales policy of a company have been analysed and gaps in the previous research on this topic have been highlighted. The methodology section deals with the findings and the process in which the specific data related to the research topic have been collected

Innovation in last mile delivery : meeting evolving customer demands : the case of In-Car Delivery

Parcel delivery today is in urgent need for innovation driven by the imbalance between two forces that can be observed in the market environment. First, the volume of parcels between businesses and consumers is growing rapidly, mainly driven through e-commerce. Second, consumer habits and lifestyles are changing in a way that demands more flexibility and convenience. Ultimately, the feasibility of the delivery moment, reaching consumers at home, is shrinking. Therefore, this thesis deals with service innovations in the Last Mile Delivery of parcels that seek to enhance customer experience and address the insufficiencies of existing delivery models. The emphasis in this work is on In-Car Delivery - a method in which a parcel is delivered to the trunk of a consumer’s car. The objective of the paper is to examine whether consumers would accept In-Car Delivery as a novel way to receive parcels. Key findings suggest that In-Car Delivery can solve the deficiencies of today’s delivery methods, and consumers are willing to use trunk delivery. Yet, the research also shows that In-Car Delivery brings along an unprecedented set of concerns in parcel delivery, namely customer data and privacy concerns. As the exploration of innovative delivery solutions - beyond In-Car Delivery - is continuing, this research helps parcel companies to prioritize and concentrate their resources on the main value drivers. This study identified the following five factors most important to consumers when receiving a parcel: flexibility, convenience, cost, speed, and variety.A entrega de encomendas hoje passa por uma necessidade urgente de inovação, impulsionada pelo desequilíbrio entre duas forças que podem ser observadas no mercado. Primeiro, o volume das encomendas entre empresas e consumidores está crescendo rapidamente, principalmente através do e-commerce. Segundo, os hábitos de consumo e estilos de vida estão mudando de forma a exigir mais flexibilidade e conveniência. E por ultimo, a viabilidade de entrega, de a encomenda chegar às mãos dos consumidores em casa, está diminuindo. Portanto, esta tese trata de inovações de serviços na entrega de encomendas da Last-Mile Delivery que buscam aprimorar a experiência do cliente e abordar as insuficiências dos modelos de entrega atuais e existentes. A ênfase deste trabalho está no In-Car Delivery – um método onde a encomenda é entregue ao porta-malas do carro do consumidor. O objetivo deste trabalho é examinar se os consumidores aceitariam ou não o serviço In-Car Delivery como uma nova maneira de receber suas encomendas. Alem disso, este estudo identificou os seguintes cinco fatores mais importantes para os consumidores quando se trata de receber uma encomenda: flexibilidade, conveniência, custo, velocidade, e variedade. As principais conclusões sugerem que o serviço In-Car Delivery pode resolver as deficiências dos métodos de entrega atuais, e em geral, os consumidores estão dispostos a usar este serviço como método de recebimento de encomendas. No entanto, a pesquisa também mostra que o In-Car Delivery traz consigo preocupações sem precedentes quando se trata da entrega de encomendas, principalmente preocupações com os dados e privacidade dos clientes

Performance Implications of Multi-Channel Strategic Decisions by Incumbent Retailers: The Role of Order of Entry and Degree of Inter-Channel Coordination

The rapidly intensifying adoption of the Internet channel for marketing and sales by incumbent bricks-and-mortar retailers underscores the importance of assessing the impact of the online channel strategies on firm performance in the dynamic competitive environment. At the time when store-based retailers increasingly dominate online sales the questions of when and how an incumbent retailer should adopt an online channel to achieve and sustain a competitive advantage are of utmost interest for both marketing scholars and practitioners. This dissertation investigates the role of two strategic decisions in affecting firm performance: (a) the order of adopting an online channel by incumbent retailers and (b) the degree of coordination between store and online sales channels. The resource-based view and the dynamic capabilities approach are used as theoretical foundations for the study. Following resource-based logic and applying a contingency perspective, this research proposes that firm-specific resource endowments determine the success of the order of online entry strategy for incumbent retailers. This dissertation utilizes the dynamic capabilities approach to propose that the strategy of inter-channel channel coordination leads to higher performance when core, unique dynamic capabilities pertaining to e-commerce are developed in-house, as opposed to being outsourced. By posing and answering the research questions regarding the role of strategic decisions of order of online entry and channel coordination in enhancing long-term financial and operational performance, this dissertation contributes to the development of strategic theory in the nascent areas of electronic commerce and multi-channel retailing, provides further empirical support to resource-based theory of competitive advantage, and assists managers in formulating more informed strategic objectives for achieving multi-channel competitive advantage

Nonmonetary incentives in online purchase decisions : An exploratory research on Finnish consumers’ purchase behavior in the 2020s

The popularity of B2C e-commerce among Finns has continuously increased as consumers have gained access to a vast network of web shops globally. The proliferation of web shops has resulted in a more competitive market which has also attracted the attention of multinational online marketplaces. As a result, smaller e-tailers have been forced to counteract the unrivaled pricing and business model of large multinational corporations to regain a lucrative and sustainable foothold on the market. This thesis investigates potential countermeasures by exploring nonmonetary incentives that influence the purchase decisions of Finnish consumers shopping online. Sub-questions are concerned with the motivation of selecting a web shop for purchasing, the role of nonmonetary incentives in purchase decisions and how Finns give value to them and why. The theoretical framework is based on findings in prior research regarding consumer perceptions in online shopping, the utilitarian and hedonic purchase behavior, herd behavior and impulse purchasing. The selected qualitative research approach studies Finnish e-shoppers of the most active age category through a semi-structured pilot interview and focus group interview. The collected nonmonetary incentives form eight main categories in the research data, comparable with six factors identified in the theoretical background. Both categorizations acknowledge and exclude an additional group related to monetary incentives which are not the focus of this thesis. The results present a multifold of nonmonetary incentives that emphasize the importance of swift and extensive customer service, the scope and quality of product selection and information, along with a streamlined purchase process and a personalized shopping experience. In addition, ambiguous or suspicious communication of the web shop operations cause uncertainty and mistrust which may deter potential customers. A cumbersome or incomprehensible web shop structure may result in a similar outcome. The findings provide a notable foundation for future research which may focus on specific incentives to describe them in greater detail, or to verify their relative influence on purchase decisions in Finland or other contexts. A larger sampling may also generate further information on the prevalence of utilitarian and hedonic characteristics among respondents.Kuluttajaverkkokaupan suosio suomalaisten keskuudessa on kasvanut jatkuvasti ja kuluttajien käytettävissä onkin jo globaali valikoima verkkokauppoja. Kauppojen lisääntyminen on johtanut yhä kiristyvään kilpailuun, johon myös monikansallisten markkinapaikkojen on ollut helppo liittyä. Samalla pienemmät verkkokaupat ovat joutuneet uudistamaan strategiaansa menestyäkseen suurten yritysten ylivoimaisen hinnoittelun ja liiketoimintamallin rinnalla. Tämä tutkielma perehtyy mahdollisiin kilpailukeinoihin ei-rahallisissa kannustimissa, jotka vaikuttavat suomalaisten kuluttajien ostopäätöksiin verkossa. Tutkimuksen alakysymyksinä tutustutaan motivaatiotekijöihin verkkokauppavalinnoissa, ei-rahallisten kannustimien vaikutuksiin ostopäätöksissä sekä suomalaisten arvonmääritykseen ostotilanteissa. Teoria käsittelee aikaisempia tutkimuksia kuluttajien kokemuksista sekä utilitarista ja hedonistista ostokäyttäytymistä, laumakäyttäytymistä ja impulssiostamista. Tässä kvalitatiivisessa tutkimuksessa paneudutaan aktiivisimpaan verkko-ostajien ikäryhmään Suomessa puolistrukturoidun pilottihaastattelun ja ryhmähaastattelun keinoin. Tutkimuksessa muodostetaan kahdeksan ei-rahallisiin kannustimiin pohjautuvaa pääkategoriaa, jotka vastaavat kuutta teoreettisesta viitekehyksestä havaittua tekijää. Lisäksi molemmat ryhmittelyt tunnistavat ja tarkoituksellisesti erottelevat yksittäiset rahallisiin kannustimiin keskittyneet ryhmät, jotka eivät ole tutkimuksen päätavoitteita. Tuloksissa esitellään monipuolinen kokoelma ei-rahallisia kannustimia, jotka korostavat nopeaa ja laajaa asiakaspalvelun tasoa, tuotevalikoiman ja tiedon kattavuutta sekä johdonmukaista ostoprosessia, jossa on huomioitu henkilökohtainen kokemuksellisuus. Lisäksi verkkokaupan monitulkintaisen tai epäilyttävän viestinnän koetaan lisäävän epävarmuutta ja horjuttavan kaupan uskottavuutta, mikä saattaa karkottaa potentiaalisia asiakkaita. Kömpelöllä ja hankalasti ymmärrettävällä verkkokaupparakenteella havaitaan samankaltaisia seurauksia. Tutkimuksen havainnot koostavat merkittävän pohjan tulevaisuuden tutkimukselle, joka voi keskittyä valittujen kannustimien tarkempaan kuvailuun tai niiden suhteellisen merkityksen varmentamiseen kuluttajien ostopäätöksissä Suomessa ja muissa yhteyksissä. Laajemmalla otannalla voidaan myös paremmin kuvata utilitaristisen ja hedonistisen ostokäyttäytymisen esiintyvyyttä ja vaikuttavuutta vastaajien keskuudessa

The appraisal of Facebook online community: An exposition of mobile commerce in social media reviews

Peer reviewe

Three Essays on New Challenges and Opportunities for Marketing in an Evolving Technological Environment

Ongoing advancements in technology have significantly shaped the marketing landscape over the course of the last decades. Consequently, new technology-driven opportunities and challenges for marketing research and practice emerge. Those urge the need to redefine firm-based value propositions, to adapt business models, to place significant emphasis on topics such as innovation, design and strategy, but also to develop new knowledge and skill sets. In response to those changes, this dissertation addresses two major developments and related opportunities and challenges – namely, digitized retail environments and innovative, complex business models – in three different essays. Thereby, this dissertation contributes to a better understanding of the evolving relationship between marketing and technology. Essay 1 and Essay 2 address the increasing digitization of physical retail environments. Retailers embrace a plethora of retail technologies to facilitate activities and processes for creating, communicating and delivering value to consumers and to consequently improving physical retail stores. Essay 1 provides an integrated literature review on digital retail technologies’ impact on consumer behavior at physical retail stores. Thereby, Essay 1 adopts a shopping cycle based framework structured around distinct phases of consumer behavior to delineate and summarize findings from existing literature on the behavioral effects of retail technologies embraced by retailers. With the applied shopping cycle based framework, Essay 1 identifies specific gaps in extant literature relative to currently embraced practices of retail technology, but furthermore on emerging trends, which have the potential to reshape the retailing environment. Subsequently, an extensive research agenda is proposed to advance the next generation of knowledge development. With its integrated literature review and research agenda, Essay 1 contributes to research in the retail area, such as research on customer experience, shopper marketing and specifically on the role of technology in retailing. Essay 2 analyzes consumers’ response to one particular innovative retail technology and thus replies to future questions of the research agenda developed in Essay 1. Essay 2 analyzes the perceptions and consequences of attribute-based personalized advertising in physical retail stores, where other people are present and can see the personalized content. Essay 2 shows when and how social presence of others impacts consumers’ attitudes and behavioral intentions, as well as emotions, when exposed to personalized advertising. The findings of two experimental studies provide evidence, that the presence of others does not influence consumer response per se, but it interacts with personalization. Further, the results show that consumers’ negative response to personalized ads in the social presence of others is mediated by embarrassment and moderated by consumers’ congruity state (the extent to which the ad is consistent with the consumer’s self-concept). These findings offer new theoretical insights into how consumers respond to personalized advertising in the social presence of others, and thus advance marketing research on personalized advertising, digital displays, shopper marketing as well as research on customer experience. Further, the results disclose meaningful managerial implications for the application of new consumer tracking technology. Essay 3 addresses opportunities and challenges related to innovative, complex business models resulting from technological advancements. With customer orientation in free e-services, Essay 3 analyzes a strategically highly relevant phenomenon, which thus far has been neglected by prior research. Free e-services are characterized by the superiority of free costumers and interdependencies between free and paying customers. Essay 3 investigates how free e-service providers respond to those particularities in their customer orientation activities. Results from one qualitative and one quantitative study uncover, that only free-born providers, that from the outset strategically committed themselves to the free business model, possess customer orientation capabilities that match the particularities of free e-services. They use customer orientation toward one customer group to increase the satisfaction of the other simultaneously and, thus, are reaching their financial goals. Contrastively, laggards, that started with a non-free business model before launching their free e-service, do not exploit the full potential of customer orientation, as they focus too much on the paying customer group. These findings offer new theoretical insights for research on customer orientation, research on two-sided markets as well as on stakeholder marketing. Moreover, Essay 3 provides valuable and actionable insights for managers of free e-services. Taking a broader perspective, this dissertation advances marketing knowledge on technological innovation, new types of consumer data, strategy shifts, as well as new firm capabilities and managerial skill sets required in an age of disruption within the virtual, but also the physical world. By using a variety of methods including conceptual work, experiments, qualitative interviews as well as survey research, and furthermore by ensuring high practical relevance, this dissertation adds important perspectives to the evolving relationship between marketing and technology

Is traditional retail moving to e-commerce in the field of the fashion industry in India?

The main aim of this dissertation is to discover whether consumers feel that e-commerce provides superior performance and technology facilities than traditional retail from the perspective of Indian consumers, and to assess the importance of Omni-channel concepts and operations in the fashion industry. The fashion industry is one of the foremost business segments in India. Currently, the fashion industry is overcoming with new technology and innovation in their business. In the 1990s e-commerce was introduced saw the potential possibilities of innovation, and the new concepts which made the consumer base attractive towards e-commerce. Online retailers are growing faster than traditional retailers due to high pressure from online retailer’s offers and strategies. This research is identifies the issues in the fashion retail business in India. What are the challenges faced by traditional retail? What are the environmental causes disturbing the fashion retail industry which are argued with more detail in PEST analysis and Porter’s five forces of modern retailing and communication? Traditional fashion retailers understand how to solve difficulties and challenges in the supply chain. Discussed many technologies for fashion retail markets to improve their strategy and customer satisfaction. Researching the hypotheses are collecting behaviourism, functionalism, and experimental ideas what should traditional retailers do in their retail shop and which channel should they adopt for their business? Hypotheses are used to conduct a quick market analysis to understand the Indian demographic attitudes towards technologies, client interest, and Omni-channel. We need to understand which approaches we can use to gain knowledge in theoretical perspective. Multiple techniques are involved in the analysis and validation of hypotheses. I used SPSS tool for data analysis with cross-tabulation function. In this research I found that traditional retail and e-commerce are independent of each other but gradually merging, a most important factor for future fashion industry trends. They are systematically embracing Omni-channel strategy to provide good consumer service

Mobile commerce adoption in India, a revised technology acceptance model

Nowadays, Mobile Commerce (M-Commerce) is expected to make a substantial impact on the business landscape. In India, the mobile cellular market is the fastest growing telecommunication market in terms of subscribers and popularity and is expected to grow by 55% from its present size of $2 billion to$19 billion by 2019. This research presents an extended Technology Acceptance model (TAM) that integrates extracts from the Unified Theory of Acceptance and Use of Technology (UTAUT), Personal Innovativeness and Trust into the TAM to investigate what determines user Mobile Commerce (MC) acceptance in India. The proposed model was empirically tested using data collected from a survey of 249 Indian Mobile Commerce users. Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA) was performed to examine the reliability and validity of the measurement model and Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) to evaluate the causal model. The findings demonstrate the applicability of the modified TAM in assessing Mobile Commerce acceptance in India. From the study it can be seen that Mobile Commerce acceptance in India is influenced directly by Perceived Usefulness (β=0.443, p<0.001) Perceived Ease of Use (β=0.442, p<0.001) less so by Social influence (β=0.086, p<0.05) and indirectly by Facilitating Conditions (β= 0.554, p<.001) and Trust (β=0.068, p<0.05). A Multi-Group analysis based on gender (exogenous) and Frequency of Use (endogenous) was also conducted to gain a better understanding of the underlying Sub-Group dynamics. The recommendations made for the Indian Mobile Commerce sector based on the implications of the research and the typology for future research are also outlined

Semantic discovery and reuse of business process patterns

Patterns currently play an important role in modern information systems (IS) development and their use has mainly been restricted to the design and implementation phases of the development lifecycle. Given the increasing significance of business modelling in IS development, patterns have the potential of providing a viable solution for promoting reusability of recurrent generalized models in the very early stages of development. As a statement of research-in-progress this paper focuses on business process patterns and proposes an initial methodological framework for the discovery and reuse of business process patterns within the IS development lifecycle. The framework borrows ideas from the domain engineering literature and proposes the use of semantics to drive both the discovery of patterns as well as their reuse