Consumer decision making has been a focal interest in consumer research, and consideration of current marketplace trends (e.g., technological change, an information explosion) indicates that this topic will continue to be critically important. We argue that consumer choice is inherently constructive. Due to limited processing capacity, consumers often do not have well-defined existing preferences, but construct them using a variety of strategies contingent on task demands. After describing constructive choice, consumer decision tasks, and decision strategies, we provide an integrative framework for understanding constructive choice, review evidence for constructive consumer choice in light of that framework, and identify knowledge gaps that suggest opportunities for additional research.

https://www.jstor.org/stable/pdf/10.1086/209535.pdf

Constructive Consumer Choice Processes

On-line consumer reviews, functioning both as informants and as recommenders, are important in making purchase decisions and for product sales. Their persuasive impact depends on both their quality and their quantity. This paper uses the elaboration likelihood model to explain how level of involvement with a product moderates these relationships. The study produces three major findings: (1) the quality of on-line reviews has a positive effect on consumers' purchasing intention, (2) purchasing intention increases as the number of reviews increases, and (3) low-involvement consumers are affected by the quantity rather than the quality of reviews, but high-involvement consumers are affected by review quantity mainly when the review quality is high. These findings have implications for on-line sellers in terms of how to manage on-line consumer reviews.

https://www.jstor.org/stable/pdfplus/27751234.pdf

The Effect of On-Line Consumer Reviews on Consumer Purchasing Intention: The Moderating Role of Involvement

Popularity of brand posts on brand fan pages : An investigation of the effects of social media marketing

Electronic mail (e-mail) has been used to distribute surveys and collect data from online users for almost fifteen years. However, some have suggested that the use of e-mail is becoming obsolete. This study analyzes response rates to e-mail surveys undertaken since 1986 and examines five influences to response rates: the year the study was undertaken, the number of questions in the survey, the number of pre-notification contacts, the number of follow-up contacts and survey topic salience. Response rates to e-mail surveys have significantly decreased since 1986. Correlation and regression analyses suggest that year that the survey was undertaken and number of follow-up contacts had the most influence on response rates. A discussion of other influences and future research into this area is provided.

E‐mail Survey Response Rates: A Review

Scholars have questioned the effectiveness of several customer relationship management strategies. The author investigates the differential effects of customer relationship perceptions and relationship marketing instruments on customer retention and customer share development over time. Customer relationship perceptions are considered evaluations of relationship strength and a supplier’s offerings, and customer share development is the change in customer share between two periods. The results show that affective commitment and loyalty programs that provide economic incentives positively affect both customer retention and customer share development, whereas direct mailings influence customer share development. However, the effect of these variables is rather small. The results also indicate that firms can use the same strategies to affect both customer retention and customer share development.

/pdf/understanding-the-effect-of-customer-relationship-management-2bdnthpwpj.pdf

Understanding the Effect of Customer Relationship Management Efforts on Customer Retention and Customer Share Development

Internet forums as influential sources of consumer information

The rise of online reviews written by consumers makes possible an examination of how the content and style of these word-of-mouth messages contribute to their helpfulness. In this study, consumers are asked to judge the value of real online consumer reviews to their simulated shopping activities. The results suggest the benefits of moderate review length and of positive, but not negative, product evaluative statements. Non-evaluative product information and information about the reviewer were also found to be associated with review helpfulness. Stylistic elements that may impair clarity (such as spelling and grammatical errors) were associated with less valuable reviews, and elements that may make a review more entertaining (such as expressive slang and humor) were associated with more valuable reviews. These findings point to factors beyond product information that may affect the perceived helpfulness of an online consumer review. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

https://business.camden.rutgers.edu/files/Schindler-Bickart-2012.pdf

Perceived helpfulness of online consumer reviews: The role of message content and style

Consistency among the various elements of a marketing program is believed essential in building and maintaining brand image and equity. And yet, a brand's ultimate presentation to customers is cont...

Brand Equity Dilution: Retailer Display and Context Brand Effects:

We report the results of an experiment in which consumers wereinstructed to gather online information about one of ﬁve speciﬁcproduct topics by accessing either online discussions (i.e., Internetforums or bulletin boards) or marketer-generated onlineinformation (i.e., corporate webpages). At the end of a 12-weekperiod, the consumers who gathered information from onlinediscussions reported greater interest in the product topic than didthose consumers who acquired information from the marketer-generated sources. We discuss the study’s implications for betterunderstanding word-of-mouth communication and for developingmore successful consumer websites. © 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. andDirect Marketing Educational Foundation, Inc.fJOURNAL OF INTERACTIVE MARKETINGVOLUME 15 / NUMBER 3 / SUMMER 2001 31BARBARA BICKART is AssociateProfessor of Marketing at RutgersUniversity, Camden, New Jersey;e-mail: bickart@camden.rutgers.edu.ROBERT M. SCHINDLER isAssociate Professor of Marketing atRutgers University, Camden, NewJersey; e-mail: rschindl@camden.rutgers.edu.

Internet Forums As Influential Sources of Consumer Information

The rise of online reviews written by consumers makes possible an examination of how the content and style of these word-of-mouth messages contribute to their helpfulness. In this study, consumers are asked to judge the value of real online consumer reviews to their simulated shopping activities. The results suggest the benefits of moderate review length and of positive, but not negative, product evaluative statements. Non-evaluative product information and information about the reviewer were also found to be associated with review helpfulness. Stylistic elements that may impair clarity (such as spelling and grammatical errors) were associated with less valuable reviews, and elements that may make a review more entertaining (such as expressive slang and humor) were associated with more valuable reviews. These findings point to factors other than product information that may affect the perceived helpfulness of an online consumer review.

https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/Delivery.cfm/SSRN_ID1701043_code1150988.pdf?abstractid=1701043&mirid=2

Barbara Bickart

Papers

Internet forums as influential sources of consumer information

Perceived helpfulness of online consumer reviews: The role of message content and style

Brand Equity Dilution: Retailer Display and Context Brand Effects:

Internet Forums As Influential Sources of Consumer Information

Perceived Helpfulness of Online Consumer Reviews: The Role of Message Content and Style