BEYOND FRIENDSHIP: UNDERSTANDING THE ROLE OF COST IN GIFT CHOICES FOR ONESELF AND OTHERS

This study explores how social closeness and self-identification influence the monetary value of gifts chosen for friends and for oneself. Integrating the Self-expansion Model with Resource Scarcity Theory, we provide insights into consumer behavior in gift selection under varying social and financial contexts

Key Determinants of Customer Success

Customer success, not customer satisfaction, is suggested to be the key variable to enhance long-term business relationship with customers. A model of customer success is derived from the philosophy-structure-behavior-performance paradigm. Value sharing and information sharing are proved to be critical to increase the supplier's behavioral orientation for customer success from the empirical analysis

Deal-Seeking Versus Brand-Seeking: Search Behaviors and Purchase Propensities in Sponsored Search Platforms

Using a database of 11,001 unique sponsored search keywords, we investigate the relationship between the characteristics of keywords oriented around deal-seeking and brand-seeking and consumer search behaviors and buying propensities. On the basis of the search depth versus search breadth framework, we hypothesize that deal-seeking keywords elicit a search of greater breadth, whereas brand-seeking keywords induce a search of greater depth. We also explore the moderating effect of product type (search or experience goods) on the relationship between keyword characteristics and consumer search behaviors and how high-demand seasons (e.g., scheduled sales) influence consumers’ search and purchase behaviors. In addition, we estimate the effectiveness of keywords on the basis of their sales-per-cost performance. The findings indicate that search queries containing deal-seeking keywords are associated with higher click-through rates and conversion rates than are search queries without such keywords. We also find that the positive effect of deal-seeking keywords on click-through rates is more pronounced for experience goods than for search goods. However, we identify a negative interaction between experience goods and brand-seeking keywords. A comparison of deal-seeking and brand-seeking keywords in terms of cost effectiveness reveals that deal-seeking keywords generate approximately three times the sales of those produced by brand-seeking keywords