Customer loyalty is viewed as the strength of the relationship between an individual’s relative attitude and repeat patronage. The relationship is seen as mediated by social norms and situational factors. Cognitive, affective, and conative antecedents of relative attitude are identified as contributing to loyalty, along with motivational, perceptual, and behavioral consequences. Implications for research and for the management of loyalty are derived.

Customer Loyalty: Toward an Integrated Conceptual Framework:

The author systematically examines one of the important issues of information — establishing the market price. He introduces the concept of «search» — where a buyer wanting to get a better price, is forced to question sellers. The article deals with various aspects of finding the necessary information.

Economics of Information

https://isiarticles.com/bundles/Article/pre/pdf/20016.pdf

Customer loyalty in e-commerce: an exploration of its antecedents and consequences

Research on consumer quality perception is reviewed using the Total Food Quality Model as a structuring device. The relationship between food safety and quality is addressed, and is discussed in the context of research on consumer risk perception. Quality and safety perception is linked to food choice and consumer demand, addressing questions of price perception and the validity of willingness-to-pay measurements. It is concluded that food quality and safety are central issues in today’s food economics, though many research questions remain to be addressed.

Food quality and safety: consumer perception and demand

This study examines the adoption of Mobile Internet (M-Internet) as a new Information and Communication Technology (ICT) from the value perspective. M-Internet is a fast growing enabling technology for Mobile Commerce. However, despite its phenomenal growth and although M-Internet essentially provides the same services as stationary Internet, its adoption rate in many countries is very low compared to that of stationary Internet. The well-known Technology Adoption Model (TAM) has been used for explaining the adoption of traditional technologies. Most adopters and users of traditional technologies (e.g., spreadsheet, word processor) are employees in an organizational setting who use the technology for work purposes, and the cost of mandatory adoption and usage is borne by the organization. In contrast, adopters and users of M-Internet are individuals who play the dual roles of technology user and service consumer. Most of them adopt and use it for personal purposes, and the cost of voluntary adoption and usage is borne by the individuals. Thus, the adopters of new ICT, especially M-Internet, are also consumers rather than simply technology users. By adopting the theory of consumer choice and decision making from economics and marketing research, this study develops the Value-based Adoption Model (VAM) and explains customers' M-Internet adoption from the value maximization perspective. The findings demonstrate that consumers' perception of the value of M-Internet is a principal determinant of adoption intention, and the other beliefs are mediated through perceived value. The theoretical and practical implications of VAM related to M-Internet are discussed.

https://web.yonsei.ac.kr/dslab/Journal/DSS%202007.pdf

Value-based Adoption of Mobile Internet: An empirical investigation

Preliminary measures of pre-purchase uncertainty were developed through focus group interviews and were administered to a nationwide sample of recent appliance purchasers. Responses indicated the presence of two general types of uncertainty: knowledge uncertainty (uncertainty regarding information about alternatives) and choice uncertainty (uncertainty about which alternative to choose). In exploring how each of these uncertainty dimensions was related to search behavior, we found that choice uncertainty appeared to increase search, but knowledge uncertainty had a weaker, negative effect on search. Implications of the findings for previous research on the relationship between uncertainty and search are discussed, along with research directions.

Buyer uncertainty and information search.

The literature has produced an incomplete understanding of factors explaining the variance in price search in markets in which search is a regularly occurring activity. The authors develop a model ...

Price Search in the Retail Grocery Market

A widespread practice in grocery store advertising is to compare the advertised store's prices to a competitor's prices on multiple items. An important, but largely unexplored, issue is how this information is processed and used in conjunction with prior beliefs to influence price perceptions. In our initial studies we manipulated prior beliefs and two data-based cues—frequency of price advantage and magnitude of price advantage—to determine their relative influence on consumer price perceptions. Results indicate that prior beliefs affected price perceptions but that the frequency cue exerted a dominating influence. Several follow-up studies demonstrate the robustness of this phenomenon across a variety of presentational and instructional conditions.

The Influence of Prior Beliefs, Frequency Cues, and Magnitude Cues on Consumers' Perceptions of Comparative Price Data

The intensity of price discounting by retailers and manufacturers raises important questions about consumer price judgments. In the extreme, discounting can take the form of frequent but shallow discounts or deep but infrequent discounts. The research reported here explores the effects of these strategies on consumer estimation of price levels for competing stores and brands. In an initial experiment in which subjects made brand choices over time, a depth effect was observed that contrasted with the frequency effect found in previous research. Subsequent experiments identified the conditions under which depth (vs. frequency) characteristics of price data dominate consumers' price-estimation judgments. Frequency information is more influential when sets of interstore or interbrand comparative prices exhibit complex and overlapping distributions (hence creating processing difficulty); in contrast, a depth bias occurs when prices have a simpler, dichotomous distribution. These results place pragmatically meaningful limitations on the influence of frequency information and illustrate the importance of context in determining consumer price judgments in a promotional environment.

/pdf/the-effect-of-discount-frequency-and-depth-on-consumer-price-wlicr6y3bd.pdf

The Effect of Discount Frequency and Depth on Consumer Price Judgments

In reference-price models, internal reference price is typically estimated from actual market prices. Given the generally poor price knowledge consumers have exhibited in prior research, the question is whether it is reasonable to use actual market prices to estimate consumers' internal reference-price standards. The initial answer provided in this research, surprisingly, is yes. Although internal reference prices are measurable and do affect consumer price perception, the gains in measuring and using those standards in predicting brand choice for frequently purchased products may not be worth the costs. Reasons why the surrogate price measure may work and implications for the measurement of internal reference-price standards are considered.

Joel E. Urbany

Papers

Buyer uncertainty and information search.

Price Search in the Retail Grocery Market

The Influence of Prior Beliefs, Frequency Cues, and Magnitude Cues on Consumers' Perceptions of Comparative Price Data

The Effect of Discount Frequency and Depth on Consumer Price Judgments

Consumer Normal Price Estimation: Market versus Personal Standards