The Effect of Internet Expertise on Offline Expectations

Because the Internet enhances consumer control over online marketing transactions, more expert web users are hypothesized to generalize this web expertise to their expectations of offline service encounters. This hypothesis is supported for consumers with moderate web expertise as compared to those with little web expertise. However, web users with high levels of expertise have lower expectations of offline encounters than those with moderate expertise. The lower expectations of the most expert web users are likely to be due to a lower level of involvement with offline service encounter, a greater awareness and use of online information by the most expert, and possibly a greater propensity to distinguish between online and offline encounters

Retail Stores in Poor Urban Neighborhoods

This paper examines several hypotheses about access to different types and sizes of retail establishments by residents of poor and nonpoor urban neighborhoods, using Chicago as a case study. As expected, poor zip code areas in Chicago have fewer and smaller retail outlets overall than nonpoor areas, including fewer supermarkets, banks, and large drug stores. After controlling for purchasing power, poor areas still lack large drug stores but, surprisingly, not banks and supermarkets. Residents of poor neighborhoods must travel more than two miles to have access to the same numbers of supermarkets, large drug stores, banks, and other types of stores as residents of nonpoor areas