Yes / Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to understand the integrated impact of the application of protection measures against identity theft on consumers’ synergistic perception of trust, the cost of products/services and operational performance (OP) – all of which in turn is postulated to contribute to purchase intention (PI) when shopping online. Design/methodology/approach: In order to accomplish the specified aim, this study first conducted an experiment by involving the students from a university in Bangladesh. Then a survey was conducted to capture their opinion based on the previous experiment. Findings: The study identified that in e-commerce, OP and trust have potential impact on pursuing consumers’ PI. Traditionally, price is always an issue in marketing; however, for e-commerce, this issue does not have direct impact on PI. Research limitations/implications: The main limitation of this study is that a less established e-commerce example was utilized to conduct the experiment and survey for validating the model. Also, the study was conducted only in the context of Bangladesh and a student sample was utilized. Future studies can test the model in different contexts (particularly to verify the impact of privacy) by utilizing data from consumers. Practical implications: This study has resolved a controversial issue by generating clear guidelines that the overall conjoint effect of OP, trust, and price on PI is neither negative nor neutral. Synergistically, the application of these controlling tools of identity theft can substantially enhance consumers’ trust, which is the single most predictor to pursue consumer PI. Originality/value: This study has provided in-depth insight into the impact of different controlling measures in e-commerce PI. Practitioners have potential learning from this study that if consumers find the application of different controlling mechanisms against cybercrimes, particularly identity theft, enhancing the reliability, authenticity and security of transactions in this virtual medium, they do not mind paying a higher price. Such insights have not been provided by existing studies on this topic. Developing trust on e-commerce purchase is the driving force, not the price.

Abstract Background: The packaging design of a product, primarily the design element colour, affects purchase intention extensively. This has been stated in prior studies. However, whether colour has the same effect in the Swedish market has not been researched. Furthermore, there has been limited research on the difference between the genders' perception of gendered colours on product packaging and colours' effect on purchase intention in the Cosmetics and Personal care industry. Therefore, these elements are the focus of this research.   Purpose: This research aims to evaluate the effect of product packaging colour on Swedish residents' purchase intention in the Cosmetics and Personal Care industry. Furthermore, the relationship between gendered colours on product packaging and purchase intention will be analysed, comparing females and males.   Method: This study is deductive research, and it is based on a positivism paradigm. It uses a quantitative approach of gathering data through an online questionnaire. The sample consisted of 194 Swedish residents gathered through convenience sampling. Moreover, the data was analysed using Cronbach alpha coefficient, Spearman's rank correlation coefficient and Ordered logistic regression to test the hypotheses.    Findings: The theoretical framework identified a research gap concerning the impact of product packaging colours on purchase intention and how gender-specific packaging colours affect males and females differently. Based on the existing literature, five hypotheses were formulated. The findings confirmed that product packaging colours for all Swedish residents, had a significant positive influence on purchase intention, leading to the acceptance of H1. Moreover, both males and females demonstrated a significant positive effect on purchase intention when exposed to packaging colours associated with their respective genders, resulting in the acceptance of H2 and H4. However, both genders demonstrated a non-significant effect on purchase intention when exposed to packaging colours associated with the opposite gender, leading to the rejection of H3 and H5.   Conclusion: The results show that product packaging colour has a positive effect on purchase intention among Swedish residents. Moreover, it shows that the Gender Schema theory is still relevant in today's society, which shows contribution to theory. Further, marketers should continue to use gendered colours in their product packaging.

The purpose of this study is to investigate the topic of how a brand’s increased associations with unintended customer segments may impact the consumers who purchase the brand’s products for their intended use. This regards the consumer’s brand perception, brand avoidance, and purchase intentions. The focus of this study is the outdoor sports brand Haglöfs and Swedish gangster culture as the unintended customer segment. The possible associations between Haglöfs and gangster culture gave rise to this thesis. This research adopts a qualitative logic, using a focus group to collect data and gain insight into consumers’ brand perception, brand avoidance, and purchase intentions. Six (6) participants in total were included in the interview. The data was analyzed with ananalytical framework with support from the existing theoretical frameworks. The results from the focus group suggested that the increased associations between gangster culture and Haglöfs have not largely negatively affected the participants’ brand perception, brand avoidance, and purchase intention, with the exception of one participant. However, other insightful results were discovered related to ‘product avoidance’. The managerial contributions may include insights for brands in mitigating potential devaluation of brand perception as a result of being associated with unintended customer segments.

This dissertation research explores the benefit of the presence of a physical store on consumers' willingness to select a retailer in an online shopping context. As digital commerce continues to evolve, understanding the complex relationships between physical stores and online shopping behavior is becoming increasingly important. However, the role of physical store presence in shaping online purchasing decisions remains largely unexplored. This research project builds a conceptual framework based on the mere exposure effect and propinquity theory, which hypothesizes that physical store presence benefits consumers’ online purchase intentions through its effects on several intermediate constructs: retailer familiarity, retailer awareness, retailer loyalty proneness, retailer communication, retailer trust, and consumers' confidence in the retailer. Through three studies, this dissertation finds that having a physical store can significantly improve consumers' favorable attitudes toward a retailer and eventually increase the likelihood that they would select the retailer when making online purchases.The implications of the dissertation research lie in its potential to provide retailers with valuable insights into how strategically maintaining physical stores can positively influence online purchase intentions. The research also aims to contribute to the current literature in the hybrid retail field by providing a comprehensive understanding of the multiple pathways through which physical store presence could affect consumers’ online purchasing behavior. Empirical evidence from this research elucidates the vital role of physical store presence in the era of digital commerce.

Pre-sale activities of buying and post-sale activities of use are separated by time and judged in two time-place forms. Exchange value being one kind of judgment of desirability, separate from use value. However, traditionally marketing has not fully captured the co-creation of value in use, or therefore, how it affects the perceived value of the offering at purchase. The separation of purchase and use has been shown to create buyer uncertainty at the point of purchase about the future value created in use. Consider the decision to buy a service support contract for capital equipment in which the act and experience of use could continue for up to ten years after the decision to buy. At purchase, buyers may not be certain about the future state of use, i.e. whether or not equipment will fail, or indeed how the service will perform in the event of failure. While uncertainty about the state of use will continue across time, it has been argued uncertainty about how the service will perform may be resolved through repeat use or interaction. Through an exploratory case and a web-based survey of 95 organisational buyers of Product Service Systems (PSS) in capital equipment markets, this thesis finds customer-provider co-capability, which facilitates service performance in use, mediates the customer’s perceived risk of re-purchasing. As a result, this thesis makes a contribution to B2B marketing in identifying how value of the offering at purchase is affected by future customer-provider co-capability in use.

Augmented reality (AR) allows the enrichment of the physical world by adding virtual computer-generated digital information in real time to it (Furht, 2014). This provides marketers with previously unimagined options for reaching out and engaging with customers. Having the power to put the (virtual) products in the hand of customers, creates interesting opportunities for the users to engage with a brand, service or product (Yaoyuneyong et al., 2016). Although the AR market is expected to grow exponentially by the year 2020 (Digi-Capital, 2016) and several companies already tried to expand their business with the technology, little is known about whether AR is able to enrich the customers’ shopping behaviour and thus yield favourable outcomes such as increased product knowledge, positive attitudes and higher purchase intentions. This thesis quantitatively addresses the research gap with an experimental method to determine the causal effect of the IKEA AR application on these customer dimensions in comparison to a product experience on the website. Generation Y has been chosen as an appropriate sample to experimentally discover effects on shopping behaviour. Finally, the shopping-oriented AR application is perceived as highly enjoyable and useful, and further evoked higher purchase intentions than its website counterpart. Moreover, the attitude towards the product was not found to be a main driver, but the engaging experience and the conveyed unique product knowledge itself.

Behavioral marketing is something that has received lots of attention due to growing awareness around artificial intelligence (AI) and companies using this technology for marketing purposes. However, the data collection practices have been receiving lots of critique for a while now and therefore it is more important than ever to gain an insight of how the consumers perceive behavioral online marketing. From this standpoint two research questions have been developed: How do consumers’ attitudes towards behavioral marketing, affect their purchase intention? and How does exposure to behavioral marketing affects purchase intention? In order to answer these research questions, the experimental vignette methodology was used to study digital natives, namely individuals between 18 and 30 years old. The experiment provided the basis for the study combined with the questionnaire the participants were asked to complete after the experiment. The experiment process consisted of two purchase scenarios that had to be performed online: a purchase of a low degree behavioral marketing product (city bike) and a purchase of a high degree marketing product (sneakers). One of the most important findings of this research regarding consumers’ attitude’s impact on purchase intention was the fact that trust has a bigger impact on the high involvement products compared to the low involvement product. When it came to exposure to behavioral marketing, the test objects that were exposed to behavioral ads had a higher likelihood to purchase a sponsored item. Therefore, there is a positive relationship between how much behavioral marketing a company use and the likelihood of a user purchasing a sponsored item. One of the most important practical implications that can be derived from this study is that businesses need to prioritize building a strong brand image prior to utilizing behavioral marketing. / Beteendemässig marknadsföring är något som fått större uppmärksamhet i och med betydelsen som artificiell intelligens (AI) har fått samt något som företag använder sig av i marknadsföringssyfte. Däremot har insamling av data länge kritiserats och frågan om hur kunder faktiskt uppfattar annonser online har blivit mer och mer relevant. Utifrån detta resonemang har dessa forskningsfrågor tagits fram: Hur påverkar konsumenternas attityd gentemot beteendemässig marknadsföring deras köpavsikt? samt Hur påverkar exponeringen av beteendemässig marknadsföring gentemot konsumenter deras köpavsikt? För att kunna uppnå detta syfte har experimentell vignettes metodik använts för att studera millenniegenerationen, alltså personer i åldrarna 18-30. Ett experiment gjorde grunden till studien, tillsammans med ett frågeformulär som de var ombedda att göra efter experimentet. Experimentet bestod av två olika köp som deltagarna skulle göra online; en produkt med låg grad av beteendemässig marknadsföring (cykel) och en produkt med hög grad av beteendemässig marknadsföring (skor). Det viktigaste som kunde tas från denna undersökning när attityder undersöktes var att förtroende gentemot ett företag eller varumärke hade en stark påverkan på köpavsikten. Däremot är inverkan för förtroende starkare vid köpa av en produkt med hög grad av beteendemässig marknadsföring jämfört med en produkt med låg grad av beteendemässig marknadsföring. När det gäller exponeringen av beteendemässig marknadsföringen var den största upptäckten att de deltagare som hade blivit utsatta för annonser till en högre grad hade en större chans att köpa en produkt som var annonserad. Alltså, ju mer företag använder sig av beteendemässig marknadsföring som är av relevans för konsumenten, desto mer sannolikt är det att de köper just deras produkt. Den största praktiska implikationen som kunde utläsas var att innan beteendemässig marknadsföring kan bli optimalt för företag måste de prioritera att bygga ett starkt varumärke.

Background: The sociodemographic characteristics of consumers, as important determinants of consumer behavior, has not received much attention in research on Country of Origin (COO) effect. In practical, the rapid progress of urbanization in China has brought great demand in the furniture and home-decoration market. Sweden has variety of world-famous furniture and home-decoration brands and most of these have established business in China. There has rarely been research on Chinese consumers’ perceptions of Swedish furniture and home-decoration brands. Purpose: The purpose of this study is to investigate the effect of Chinese consumers’ sociodemographic characteristics on COO product image in terms of Swedish furniture and home-decoration products and how this affects and influences purchase intentions. Methods: Quantitative research is used in this study through a survey based on an online questionnaire. We test our research model with seven hypotheses based on the survey consisting of 269 valid questionnaires from Chinese consumers. Findings: This empirical study investigates Chinese consumers’ perceptions of Country of Origin image in their evaluation of Swedish furniture and home-decoration products and examines how these are affected by consumers’ sociodemographic characteristics. Taking into account the distinct situation of the Chinese market, we disentangle sociodemographic aspects: age, gender, education and individual income, especially in terms of overseas experience and the scale of city in which the consumer lives. We posit that Chinese consumers’ perceptions of Swedish furniture and home-decoration products vary across distinct facets of sociodemographics. Our finding is that age, education, overseas experience and scale of city do have a significant effect on COO product image, but that age and individual income do not significant influence COO product image.

A propaganda em sites de pesquisa utilizando anúncios orgânicos e patrocinados corresponde a uma estratégia de Marketing que propicia a interação entre empresas e seu público alvo a partir da utilização de palavras-chave ao efetuar a pesquisa online, dessa forma, os sites de pesquisa agem como intermediários entre necessidades dos consumidores e o grande número de informações disponíveis nas páginas da web. Assim, este estudo tem como objetivo verificar como é a relação entre atenção aos anúncios orgânicos e patrocinados e tipos de comportamento visual acerca da intenção de compra online. Foi realizada uma revisão da literatura sobre os Canais de Comunicação Online, Anúncios Orgânicos e Patrocinados bem como a utilização e eficácia desses tipos de anúncios, também foi abordado sobre a Intenção de Compra Online, Tipos de Comportamento Visual e, por fim, foi traçada a relação entre esses fatores. Na sequência, a partir da coleta de dados primária realizada com 100 estudantes da Faculdade de Administração, Economia e Contabilidade de Ribeirão Preto (FEA-RP/USP) - foi realizado um estudo quantitativo e descritivo utilizando o equipamento eye-tracking seguido da aplicação de um questionário. Utilizou-se a técnica estatística de Regressão Logística com Efeito Aleatório, que permite verificar o comportamento de um indivíduo em cenários diferentes e atender aos objetivos do estudo. A partir da análise, foi possível verificar que os indivíduos têm maior tendência a optar por Anúncios Patrocinados dos sites de pesquisa e que esse fato está positivamente relacionado à atenção visual e independe do tipo do Comportamento Visual que possui. Esses resultados fornecem informações relevantes acerca de apresentação de anúncios em sites de pesquisa, além de proporcionar reflexões teóricas para pesquisas nessa área / Advertising on search sites using organic and sponsored ads corresponds to a Marketing strategy that allows the interaction between companies and their target audience from the use of keywords when doing online search, in this way, the search sites act as intermediary consumer needs and the large number of information available on web pages. Thus, this study aims to verify how the relationship between attention in organic and sponsored ads and types of visual behavior about the intention to buy online. A review of the literature on Online Communication Channels, Organic and Sponsored Ads as well as the use and effectiveness of these types of ads was also made on Online Intention, Types of Visual Behavior and, finally, relationship between these factors. A quantitative and descriptive study was carried out using the eye-tracking equipment, followed by the application of the results obtained from the primary data collection with 100 students from the - School of Economics, Administration and Accounting of Ribeirao Preto (FEA-RP/USP) - a quantitative and descriptive study was performed using eye-tracking equipment followed by the application of a questionnaire. The statistical technique of Logistic Regression with Random Effect was used, which allows to verify the behavior of people in different scenarios and to meet the objectives of the study. From the analysis, it was possible to verify that the individuals have a greater tendency to choose Sponsored Ads of the research sites and this fact is positively related to the visual attention and independent of the type of Visual Behavior. These results provide relevant information about the display of ads on search sites, as well as provide theoretical insights for searches in this area

With increasing trust and utilization of the Internet, the sharing economy is emerging in the tourism and hospitality marketplace. This study focused on tourist non-purchase intention to use peer-to-peer accommodation. To explore the non-purchase intention, the relationship between perceived risk and tourist non-purchase intention to use peer-to-peer accommodation, as well as the relationship between impeding factors and perceived risk were tested. The study employed survey data (N = 280) gathered from active adult U.S travelers who have never used peer-to-peer accommodation before and have no intention to use peer-to-peer accommodation in future. The results showed that six impeding factors (i.e., lack of trust, perceived cognitive effort, perceived cost, perceived safety and security, perceived service quality, perceived cleanliness) had significant effects on tourists’ perceived risks. Two perceived risks (i.e., Performance Risk, Psychological Risk) had significant effects on tourist non-purchase intention. Based on the results. both academic and practical implications are provided.