title: Essays on consumer behaviour and marketing strategies
Creators: name: Wang, Lingyan
Publisher: name: The University of Edinburgh
Year: 2024
Subjects: subject: consumer behaviour
subject: marketing strategies
subject: customer purchase decision and marketing strategies
subject: prioritise customers
subject: product information
subject: information acquisition
subject: reputation
subject: customer purchase behaviour
subject: lenient return policies
subject: price adjustment strategies
subject: discount depth
subject: discount frequency
subject: sales responses
subject: Little Secret Communities
subject: content providers' price discrimination activities
subject: customer acquisition versus retention
subject: current users' renewal preferences
subject: community owners
subject: pricing preferences
subject: pricing patterns of online content producers

description: This thesis comprises three empirical research papers that investigate consumer behaviour and the relationship between customer purchase decision and marketing strategies. Understanding consumer behaviour is a central focus in marketing research, as it equips retailers with valuable insights and paves the way for enhancing consumer relations. To attain their marketing objectives, firms must develop appropriate strategies that prioritise customers, who drive revenue through their purchases, usage, and influence on others. The three chapters of this thesis present evidence on how product information, information acquisition, and reputation shape customer purchase behaviour. Chapter II explores the impact of lenient return policies on consumer purchase behaviour. Although a relationship between return policy leniency and customer reviews on consumer responses exists, the nature of this impact remains debated. This study utilises signalling theory to predict consumer responses to return policy leniency and customer reviews, shedding new light on the issue and reconciling conflicts in the literature. Specifically, the research addresses the question: 'Does return policy leniency moderate the effect of customer reviews on consumer purchases and product returns?' Analysing a large dataset from e-tailers, the findings indicate that when review volume is high, positive review valence reduces return probability. Furthermore, a lenient return policy weakens (strengthens) the relationship between customer review valence and purchase behaviour and return probability. Chapter III employs a proprietary dataset from a UK national retailer to examine why similar price adjustment strategies, including discount depth and frequency, yield different results in the context of online and brick-and-mortar retail channels. The findings suggest that the channels' distinct implications on consumers' ability to acquire product-related information lead to varying promotional outcomes. Consequently, these results offer systematic guidance for retailers to tailor promotional price adjustment strategies in order to maximise sales responses. In Chapter IV, a confidential dataset from a popular text content provision platform called "Little Secret Communities" is used to study content providers' price discrimination activities related to customer acquisition versus retention. Content providers can offer two different discount rates for new and current users, respectively. The data reveals heterogeneity in the discriminatory policies adopted for new and current users by various types of owners. The findings suggest that discounting strategies are closely associated with new channel and current users' renewal preferences, demonstrating that community owners adjust their pricing preferences based on the observed entry and renewal choices made by new and current users. This research uncovers the underlying pricing patterns of online content producers and bears implications for the central marketing trade-offs of customer acquisition and retention. Overall, this research contributes to both academic literature and the practical field of marketing by offering a comprehensive discussion on the connection between various marketing strategies (promotion, customer acquisition, retention) and consumer behaviour (purchase, repurchase, churn, and return) across different scenarios (online stores, brick-and-mortar stores, and content subscriptions). The study also provides insights into how firms can implement effective marketing strategies to achieve efficiently their promotional goals.