Editorial
Article Type: Editorial From: International Journal of Retail & Distribution Management, Volume 42, Issue 5.
This issue has a special theme of the application of technology and the internet in retail. It includes five submissions from a variety of retailing topics including online customer experience, online auction patronage intentions, e-retailer's assistive intent, online repatronage intention and finally describing the effects of perceived characteristics of mobile coupon services.
The first contribution by Insley and Nunan investigates online customer experience through an empirical exploration of the use of game elements within the online shopping process. As online shopping has grown to become a critical channel for retailers there has been increasing focus on loyalty that gets users to make incremental choices in your favour when all things are mostly equal. However, whilst there is now a significant body of research into online shopping the question of how customer experiences are created and managed online has received less attention. Given the importance of customer experience to online retail, understanding ways to enhance consumer engagement with online shopping is an important part of a successful digital strategy. This study suggests that gamification of online retail can help to generate a deeper level of consumer engagement,and cognitively reposition the shopping experience as a form of entertainment. However, consumers also seek to co-creatively recombine elements to form their own entertainment experience by manipulating pricing or other policies. Overall, the research suggests that when considering gamification retailers should look beyond games as a promotional tool and consider the wider context, particularly where the retailer may be part of the game.
The second paper by Korgaonkar, Petrescu and Becerra investigates the effect of consumers’ shopping orientations and income on online auction patronage intentions. The study collected data using a national sample of 3,000 online auction consumers over the age of 18, who had purchased from internet auction sites eBay, Yahoo or Bargain Hunter in the previous six months and used structural equation modelling (SEM) for data analysis. The results suggest that consumers’ price consciousness shopping orientation, which increases shopping in online stores, decreases patronage intentions towards the online auction site. In addition, the findings indicate that consumers’ search orientation, convenience orientation and income level increase patronage intentions towards the online auction site.
The third contribution by Shobeiri, Mazaheri and Laroche investigates how an e-retailer's assistive intent impacts the perceptions and behaviours of online shoppers. The paper introduces a model that explains and examines the process through which the perceived assistive intent of an e-retailer leads to improved patronage intentions towards the web site. A survey on the most recent e-purchase experiences of more than 600 individuals in North America was conducted. SEM was used to assess the measurement and structural models. The findings suggest that customers’ impressions of an e-retailer's assistive intent positively impact web site patronage intentions both directly and indirectly through two key constructs of e-shopping, including web site involvement and web site attitudes. They also suggest that e-retailers would highly benefit from investing in the development of an assistive image. To do so, e-retailers should leverage the interactive nature of the web and provide supportive tools that facilitate the e-shopping task of clients.
The fourth contribution by Rezaei, Amin and Wan Ismail investigates the impact of perceived usefulness (PU), perceived ease of use (PEOU), perceived value (PV), trust (TRT), perceived risk (PR), privacy concern (PC), internet literacy (IL), satisfaction(SAT) on online repatronage intention (ORI) among Malaysian experienced online shoppers. A total of 219 valid questionnaires were collected via an online survey among experienced online shoppers across young and old students aged 18-31. Subsequently,the two-step SEM technique was employed to empirically examine the proposed integrative theoretical research framework and model fit with maximum likelihood estimation. The analysis support the relationships between PU, PV, TRT and SAT with ORI while the relationships between PEOU, PR, PC and IL with ORI were rejected in which all the factors affecting ORI occur similarly across the study sample. The behaviour of experienced online shoppers was found to be different from findings of previous literature that examined initial adoption and intention. By realizing the differences between inexperienced shoppers and experienced shoppers, online retailers should segment these groups more effectively and should implement a different marketing strategy to target the right segment, right shoppers along with the right marketing tactic.
The fifth contribution by Lewis and Loker is to identify variables important to acceptance and use of advanced technologies by apparel retail employees and to recommend management strategies for effective technology integration in retail stores. The results showed that employee's perceived usefulness of technology was a mediating influence on usage intent for all three technology types. Enjoyment also emerged as a significant mediator for 3D body scanning technology usage intent. Employees’high self-efficacy scores corresponded to higher ratings for usefulness of each technology, suggesting that more technologically confident employees would be more likely to use the three types of technology presented in this study as part of their work.
The purpose of the final contribution by Ha and Im is to empirically develop a comprehensive model describing the effects of perceived characteristics of mobile coupon services on attitudes and the effects of personal innovativeness and subjective norm on consumers’ perceptions about mobile coupon services and on behavioural intention to use such services. Gender differences in the process of mobile coupon service adoption were also investigated. The online survey was distributed to US adult consumers(age 19 and over) recruited through an online sampling service company. A total of 657 useable responses were obtained. The results showed that in general, compatibility and enjoyment are stronger determinants of attitudes towards mobile coupon adoption than ease of use and usefulness of mobile coupon services. Innovativeness and subjective norm showed strong effects on behavioural intention to use mobile coupon services. Furthermore, the results demonstrated gender differences in the relative strength of perceived characteristics that affect attitudes towards mobile coupon services. Enjoyment and usefulness of mobile coupons appear to be more important for females than males.
Neil Towers
