Journal of Interactive Marketing

Crowdfunding campaigns are traditionally used as a means for entrepreneurs to raise capital to fund the development of new products. We show that reward-based crowdfunding may serve an additional purpose of allowing entrepreneurs to successfully implement price discrimination. The entrepreneurs’ ability to implement such price discrimination depends on the extent to which they are eager to raise capital through the crowdfunding campaign in comparison to the eagerness of contributors in the campaign to ensure that the product becomes a reality. Specifically, we show that enhanced consumer surplus extraction through price discrimination is feasible when the total surplus that the project generates is relatively small, when the pool of potential contributors in the campaign is relatively small, and when the extent of heterogeneity in the consumer population is relatively high. In contrast, when both the development and the financing costs from traditional funding sources are relatively high the capacity of crowdfunding to serve as a price discrimination device is hampered. We also provide insights regarding the entrepreneur's choice of the funder reward and campaign goal, two decision variables that entrepreneurs traditionally set in reward based crowdfunding campaigns.

Online reviews are of considerable interest to both practitioners and academics. Prior research has focused mostly on the valence and volume of online reviews. Questions on how the emotional content of online reviews influence consumers remain open. Given that non-verbal cues of communication are limited in the online environment, content can be a strong driver of attitudes and, in turn, online purchases. Importantly also, a wide stream of research indicates that different self-construal levels (i.e. independent or interdependent self-construal) perceive emotions in different ways. Therefore it is necessary to examine whether the effect of emotional content within online reviews on product attitudes varies across consumers with different self-construals. Hence, we conduct three studies to analyze the relationship between the emotional content within online reviews (positive, negative, mixed) and product attitudes. Results from Study 1, conducted in Austria (n = 280), show that emotional content within online reviews has an effect on product attitudes, which goes above and beyond that of a review's overall valence. Further building on this finding, Study 2, also conducted in Austria (n = 420), offers specific insights on how reviews containing different emotional cues (i.e. positive, negative and mixed emotions) influence consumers’ hedonic and utilitarian attitudes. Finally, Study 3 investigates the moderating role of self-construal by comparing consumers from two countries which differ considerably in terms of self-construal, namely USA (n = 480) and Thailand (n = 480). The findings of these three studies are discussed. Theoretical and managerial implications of these findings are considered as well as implications for future research.

This research investigates the behavioral effects of firms’ online activeness in influencing customer engagement in word-of-mouth communications. Using a large-scale field dataset of hotel reviews and managerial responses, this study empirically examines firm responsiveness in relationship to community members’ participation in the online review posting. Novel findings are reported that response volume and speed are important for effecting firm–customer interactions. This highlights a firm-leading influence on customers’ word-of-mouth behaviour by identifying firm engagement as a motivational driver of customer engagement. It offers implications for researchers and practitioners with regard to social media marketing, in particular firm engaging in the online communication network by acting in an active and prompt manner.

As the importance of online grocery shopping increases, both pure-play online grocers and multichannel grocers are likely to be interested in setting optimal prices for their online stores. We use a unique household scanner panel dataset to investigate how a grocery retailer with both online and offline stores can set prices for its online store. We observe the same households shopping interchangeably at the online and offline stores of the same grocery chain and investigate their purchase behavior in specific product categories. We find that across three product categories, these households exhibit lower price sensitivities when shopping online than offline. In addition, a household's price sensitivity is inversely related to distance to the closest physical store. We compute the retailer's category profit-maximizing prices for the online store and explore several alternative pricing schemes that are consistent with the retailer's current price image. We find that the retailer can substantially increase its profits from online operations by fine tuning its current pricing policy. Given the estimated inverse relationship between price sensitivity and store distance, we investigate online zone pricing as a price discrimination tool based on residential location and find that the retailer can further improve store profits. We examine the potential mechanism to assign zones and determine the optimal number of pricing zones.

This study explores the role of language style in the perceived quality of online reviews. Drawing from research in psychology and sociology, we posit that language style matching (LSM) of a review—the degree to which the language style of a review matches the language style of intended customers—directly influences the perceived quality of the review. We also propose that LSM should matter more when processing fluency is greatly needed such as when customers learn about new products and process complicated product information. Using restaurant reviews from Yelp, we calculate the LSM score for every review to measure the distance between the language style of the focal review and the typical language style of the restaurant's intended customers. We find that LSM has a significant and positive effect on the number of useful votes received by a review. In addition, the effect of LSM is more pronounced for less familiar restaurants and for more complicated reviews. We discuss the implications of these findings for online review platforms, restaurant managers, and online review writers and close by identifying several opportunities for further research.

This paper explores the combined impact of social media and customer relationship management (CRM) on retail sales in the context of green (aka organic, natural and healthy) retailing, specifically in terms of duration. In particular, the study explores the impact on green retail sales of altruistic or egoistic marketing posts on a Facebook brand page relative to CRM membership over time compared with other types of sales. The results show that the purchase expenditures for longer-term members of a retailer's loyalty rewards program are higher and that over time, consumers are more likely to respond to messages related to healthy benefits than to those related to price and environmental benefits. This study demonstrates the value of managing social media in conjunction with CRM, which can positively influence the purchase behavior of a retailer's most valuable customers.

Although posting food photos has become a pervasive phenomenon on social media platforms and has significant marketing implications for restaurants, there is not much evidence concerning why this practice has such implications. Building on research into self-expression and social influence, we hypothesize that posting food photos serves as a form of self-expression, which in turn leads to an enhanced dining experience. A field study, a laboratory experiment, and archival data from a popular Chinese social media platform provide support for our hypotheses. Specifically, Study 1 indicates that posting photos of food enhances consumers’ dining experiences and leads to positive evaluations of restaurants. Study 2 identifies self-expression as the underlying mechanism and tests the moderating role of supportive interactions. Study 3 is a follow-up investigation into the real-time interactions examined in Study 2, using archival data from a popular social media platform.