Abstract

With the continuous development of technology, traditional marketing methods no longer meet the needs of the main forces of social consumption, and people urgently need more innovative and personalized marketing strategies. E-commerce companies must develop a comprehensive customer-oriented marketing strategy based on big data and multi-channel to achieve their long-term healthy development. This paper first investigated the impact of the digital economy on e-commerce enterprises, focused on the transformation of the digital economy on the marketing model, expounded the development analysis of e-commerce in the digital economy era, and described the development trend of e-commerce marketing in the digital economy era. Then, this paper expounded the current problems faced by e-commerce enterprises, and discussed the lack of integrity, homogeneity, large-scale marketing strategies, and the lack of analysis and application of big data. After that, this paper put forward the marketing strategy of e-commerce enterprises in the digital economy era, and studied it from three aspects, namely, building a reasonable product management structure, marketing strategy based on customized marketing content, and social media marketing strategy based on information sharing. Then this paper proposed to use genetic algorithm to strengthen the marketing strategy of e-commerce enterprises. Finally, based on experiments and surveys, this paper used genetic algorithms to strengthen the construction of e-commerce enterprise marketing strategy in the digital economy, and concluded that the new e-commerce enterprise marketing strategy was 21% more satisfactory than the traditional new e-commerce enterprise marketing strategy. Through comparison, it can see that the integrity of the marketing plan of the new e-commerce enterprise’s marketing strategy was 0.33 higher than that of the traditional e-commerce enterprise’s marketing strategy, and the integrity of the promotion strategy was 0.34 higher than that of the traditional e-commerce enterprise’s marketing strategy. After using the new e-commerce enterprise marketing strategy, the improved management structure was 0.29 higher than that of the traditional monitoring system, and the high quality of products was 0.18 higher than that of the traditional system.

Introduction

Electronic commerce is the combination of Internet information technology and traditional offline business activities. With the development and maturity of Internet technology, e-commerce continues to grow. Its concept, connotation and meaning evolve gradually with the evolution of technology and actual e-commerce activities. From a historical perspective and combined with the development of information technology, the evolution of the concept of e-commerce can provide a new perspective for observing the development of new forms of e-commerce. In 2023, the Ministry of Commerce implemented the decisions and deployments of the Party Central Committee and the State Council to accelerate the development of the digital economy, promote the important role of e-commerce in restoring and expanding consumption, promoting the integration of data and reality, and deepening international cooperation, and achieve positive results in high-quality development. With the rapid development of the digital economy, e-commerce enterprises have also experienced a golden age of development. Through the analysis and research of relevant industry data, it is not difficult to find that e-commerce business cannot be separated from a large number of consumers. E-commerce enterprises can develop normally with enough consumers. In order to survive in the highly competitive market, e-commerce enterprises must make full use of advanced big data analysis technology and formulate marketing strategies suitable for the development of e-commerce enterprises. Main contribution: This article mainly focuses on the research of marketing strategies related to e-commerce enterprises in the context of big data, and proposes corresponding improvement strategies. Objective: This article aims to promote the healthy and long-term development of e-commerce enterprises in the context of big data through improved marketing strategies based on this foundation.

Conclusions

Currently, how to promote their own development through effective marketing strategies has become an important issue that e-commerce enterprises need to pay attention to in the context of big data. This article mainly studies the marketing strategy related issues of e-commerce enterprises with big data as the background, and proposes corresponding improvement strategies. This article aims to promote the healthy and long-term development of e-commerce enterprises in the context of big data through improved marketing strategies based on this foundation. To sum up, in the new economic era, the marketing strategy of enterprises is very important. The fierce competition between enterprises requires enterprises to constantly innovate, change marketing strategies and maximize market space. Therefore, every enterprise should strive to implement marketing strategies in an innovative spirit. Only by constantly changing marketing strategies and actively adapting to the needs of economic development can enterprises stand out from the competition. E-commerce companies are shifting from single and large-scale marketing strategies to homogeneous and diversified marketing strategies. E-commerce companies need to establish accurate integrated marketing based on big data, customer-oriented and multi-channel to survive and develop in the future competition. The development of genetic algorithms has led to exponential growth in the direct to consumer personal genetic testing industry (such as 23andMe, Ancestry, Microgenes, 23Rubik’s Cube, etc.), resulting in the formation of a vast private genetic database. The author explores the potential impact of genetic algorithms on the field of e-commerce. Based on the results of behavioral GA research, the author proposes to incorporate the influence of genetic factors into the existing theoretical research framework of e-commerce, and use this to examine the potential market applications of genetic algorithms. Genetic research design can be used to test causal relationships, and consumer theory can be improved by revealing the biological mechanisms of behavior. In the future, the author will further evaluate the moral and ethical challenges related to corporate autonomy, privacy, and discrimination, and propose a future research agenda.

Abstract

In this paper, we examine which of an agency selling or a wholesale contract offered by an e-commerce platform competing suppliers with typical dual-channel supply chains should adopt, where the products are not differentiated between a direct channel and an indirect platform channel, as in the case of digital goods. Specifically, we consider the situation in which each of two competing suppliers chooses its distribution strategy regarding whether it sells via a direct channel and/or an indirect channel via the platform. In addition, a supplier also chooses an agency selling contract or a wholesale contract if selling via the platform. Constructing and solving a game-theoretic model, we derive the primary result that, in equilibrium, one supplier sells products only via the direct channel, while the other supplier sells via both the direct channel and the platform channel through adopting a wholesale contract, even given the assumption of symmetric suppliers. This finding yields the managerial implication that a supplier selling products of the same quality between direct and platform channels in a competitive environment should not adopt agency selling but instead a regular wholesale contract when selling via a platform. Moreover, this finding reverses the conventional insight from existing models in previous studies that at least one competing supplier always adopts an agency contract when the suppliers are without their own direct sales channels.

Introduction

Currently, a wide variety of products ranging from technologically advanced industrial products to daily necessities including food and groceries are sold through online e-commerce platforms worldwide. Consequently, platform companies have experienced tremendous growth over the past decade. For example, Amazon announced that its net sales for 2020 increased 37.6% to $386 billion, compared with $281 billion in 2019. Reflecting the development of these e-commerce platforms, the US Department of Commerce has documented that online retail sales in the US were $791.7 billion in 2020, accounting for 14% of all retail sales in the US.1 Likewise, in China, where the development of e-commerce has been especially rapid, online retail sales reached 11.76 trillion yuan in 2020, accounting for some 30% of total retail sales.2 Accordingly, manufacturers increasingly regard these online e-commerce platforms as one of their essential sales channels.

While online retailers have typically played the role of simple resellers in the past, the rapid adoption of online shopping by consumers has induced major platform companies, including Amazon in the US, Taobao in China, and Flipkart in India, to introduce a sales format known as marketplace in addition to their traditional reseller format. Accordingly, when selling products or services through an online platform, a supplier needs to select between a wholesale contract or an agency contract, depending on whether the supplier wishes to sell products wholesale to the platform or use its marketplace. The essential difference between the two contracts is who has the right to determine the retail price. With the wholesale contract, while a supplier determines the wholesale price of its products, the platform company determines the retail price. Conversely, the retail price decision is delegated to the supplier in the agency contract, such that the supplier directly determines the retail price of its products based on the revenue-sharing rules as determined by the royalty rates and commission fees set by the platform. A major benefit of agency selling to the supply chain is that it resolves the problem of double marginalization, unlike a wholesale contract, and thereby prevents a reduction in the transaction quantity.

Conclusions

Currently, many manufacturing companies are not only utilizing rapidly growing e-commerce platforms as important sales channels, but also they are opening their direct channels and selling directly to end-consumers using advanced IT technologies. Given that many suppliers are now using such dual-channel supply chains, this paper investigates whether a wholesale contract or an agency contract offered by an e-commerce platform is chosen by competing suppliers, in the situation where products are undifferentiated between the direct channel and the indirect platform channel, as is typically the case of digital goods.

The key result from our model is that if there is no differentiation between channels such that consumers perceive the direct and platform channels as substitutable, then neither of the competing suppliers chooses the agency contract. This result holds regardless of how much the platform increases the suppliers’ share of profits by lowering its royalty rate and thereby making the agency contract more profitable to them. This yields the managerial implication that a supplier selling products of the same quality across channels, such as digital goods in a competitive environment, should adopt a regular wholesale contract, not an agency contract when selling through a platform. Intuitively, if a supplier adopts a wholesale contract, this appears undesirable for the supplier because the problem of double marginalization is likely to occur. However, our results lie contrary to this intuition. Moreover, it is also a notable result that even though suppliers are assumed to be symmetric regarding demand and cost conditions in our model, their distribution strategies emerging in equilibrium are asymmetric. These asymmetric distribution channel strategies allow a supplier to differentiate itself from the rival supplier if the former sells through the platform. Because we have obtained all our main results and implications clearly in analytical form solely by solving our model, we do not conduct numerical analysis in this paper.

Abstract

Fintech revolutionized the traditional banking business models in emerging countries. The effect of fintech on banks’ operating efficiency and risk-taking behavior is still inconclusive. The study is aimed at exploring the effect of fintech products on banks’ operating efficiency and risk-taking behavior. The study used a quantitative research approach by collecting secondary data from annual reports of 50 commercial banks from emerging countries, namely, China, India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh, for the period 2014 to 2021. The study used panel data for path analysis and structural equation modeling (SEM) to test the theoretical mediation model by using STATA. The results show that the fintech product reduces the bank’s risk-taking behavior by enhancing the bank’s operating efficiency. The path analysis results show that operating efficiency mediates the relationship between fintech products and bank risk-taking behavior in emerging countries. The paper offers useful recommendations for central bank and commercial bank policymakers. The study is also beneficial for commercial banks that use fintech solutions to increase operational effectiveness and reduce risk. The study is the first empirical investigation into the connection between the growth of fintech products, bank operational effectiveness, and risk-taking behavior in developing nations.

Introduction

The global financial industry has been rapidly changing with the advancement of financial technology over the last few years. New emerging technologies such as Internet finance, blockchain, and mobile banking are penetrating, forming the fintech that revolutionized the whole financial industry. It offered lower-cost services with more choices for consumers to buy financial services that shift their financial behavior to digitalization. The rise of financial technology (fintech) has brought about significant changes in the financial industry, including the way banks manage risk. Fintech has introduced new tools and technologies that enable banks to more accurately assess and manage risk, as well as new business models that challenge traditional approaches to risk-taking.

The pace of fintech development in developed and emerging economies countries is different. In developed countries such as the UK, USA, and Europe, fintech extended the financing transaction methods through algorithmic trading, helping the manager to build better compliance systems to manage risk, and it also improves the electronic payment systems for both domestic and cross-border payments [1]. However, in developing countries, fintech adoption has been slow despite having growth and expansion opportunities in the digital economy (Zhang et al., 2020). Fintech has expanded financial services digitally across countries, particularly during the COVID-19 pandemic. During the pandemic, the usage of fintech services and products has increased tremendously as identified in research [2].

Conclusion and Recommendations/Implications of the Study

The evolution of digital technology has changed the world drastically. The COVID-19 pandemic changed the whole business structure. The customers’ increasing demand for fintech products increases the competition in the financial industry. To retain their customers and remain competitive in the industry, traditional banks adopted fintech products. So that they can deliver efficient, accessible, and low-cost financial services to their customers with the help of technology. Fintech has facilitated the banking industry with better user experience and lower costs by using technological advancement.

The primary objective of the study is to explore the relationship between fintech products and bank risk-taking behavior with mediating role of a bank’s operating efficiency using a sample of commercial banks from China, India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh. The empirical evidence shows that the bank’s risk-taking behavior decreases, and bank stability is improved with the development of fintech products. Fintech products improve the bank’s operating efficiency. The effect of fintech products on bank risk-taking is more pronounced in countries such as China and India because they are extensively using fintech products in their operations. Banks are adopting fintech products such as artificial intelligence blockchain, mobile banking, and Internet banking. The results show that the banks adopting fintech products in their initial phase increase the bank risk-taking behavior, and then later on, it decreases the bank risktaking behavior by improving their operating efficiency.

Abstract

     Although research underlines the need for SMEs to innovate their Business Model, they face considerable challenges in exploring external business opportunities and experimenting/developing their available resources in unexpected ways. We posit that one way that SMEs can innovate their Business Model is through exaptation, a discontinuous evolutionary process that allows utilizing and adapting existing resources in new application domains. Using a case study approach, we investigate the case of a SME that has successfully innovated its Business Model through exaptation. We then discuss how three key exaptation processes lead to value creation, delivery and capturing, thus supporting Business Model Innovation in SMEs.

Introduction

     Business Model Innovation (BMI) has been described as “the search for new logics of the firm and new ways to create and capture value for its stakeholders” (Casadesus‐Masanell and Zhu, 2013, p. 464). In this perspective, firms can create and exploit new opportunities linked to their innovative Business Model (BM) by adopting different approaches. Firms might add novel activities through backward or forward integrations, connect activities in a novel way, or modify one or more parties dedicated to any of the activities (Amit and Zott, 2012). For example, firms can choose to alter the set of elementary activities they perform and rely on the resources or technological capabilities of external parties (such as individual, organizations, universities) to develop a new value proposition (Chesbrough, 2007; Saebi and Foss, 2015).

     Researchers underline that BMI is becoming even more important for success than product/service or process innovation (Johnson et al., 2008; Amit and Zott, 2012). However, practitioners have little guidance on how to design innovative BMs (Foss and Saebi, 2017; Teece, 2018). This is particularly true for Small and Medium-Enterprises (SMEs), the main actors in innovation processes and technological development at the local, regional, and even national level (Lee et al., 2012). Accordingly, recent international policies have emphasized the need for SMEs to redefine their BM to sustain and promote their competiveness. In this perspective, BMI is a potentially relevant tool allowing SMEs to resolve the trade-off between innovation costs and benefits, enabling them to create, deliver, and capture new value.

Conclusions

     Prior research has emphasized the pressing challenge for SMEs to exploit, define, and implement an innovative BM to remain competitive. Anecdotal evidence shows that innovative BMs are closely linked to exaptation, observed as an important mechanism to use resources in ways for which they were not originally intended (Dew et al., 2004; Cattani, 2006). This might be particularly fruitful for SMEs that have some difficulties in “thinking outside the box” (Gassmann et al., 2013, p. 2), but at the same time, specific advantages in developing new products and businesses (Vanhaverbeke, 2017). Prior BMI studies have mainly focused on large firms and start-ups, but seldom on SMEs, and to the best of our knowledge, no studies have hitherto focused explicitly on the processes to be implemented to sustain BMI through exaptation in SMEs.

     This study has investigated how SMEs might innovate their BM through exaptation. In analyzing the exaptation process in SMEs, we advance knowledge on how and why exaptation favors BMI. In addition, our study highlights how each stage of exaptation process contributes to BMI by means of value creation, value delivery and value capturing.

Abstract

     Mobile financial services (MFS) have been a powerful innovation to provide cost-effective services and wide coverage to the unbanked population of the world. The topic has gained considerable attention from researchers but lacks a clear guideline or directions for future prospects. Therefore, this article presents a systematic literature review on MFS adoption. Using the Web of Science database, the paper reviewed 118 articles and revealed significant models, conceptual frameworks, antecedents and variables that explain consumers’ adoption of MFS. The paper also outlines highly cited authors, studies and journals utilizing international platforms such as Google Scholar, ResearchGate and SCImago Journal Ranking. The findings of the systematic literature review indicate the technology acceptance model (TAM) followed by the unified theory of acceptance and use of technology (UTAUT) as the leading conceptual framework, and MFS adoption antecedents can be organized into six different categories, viz. Cognitive determinants, affective determinants, social-based determinants, trust-based determinants, barrier-based determinants and consumer-based determinants. The paper concluded with an agenda for future studies with corresponding gaps in the literature.

Introduction

     The eighth goal of sustainable development goals (SDGs) aims to strengthen financial institutions and ensure universal access to financial services by the year 2030. In this regard, mobile financial services have become an influential instrument in stimulating financial inclusion in developing countries. These services have created a dynamic platform by extending the reach and access to financial services to those who have insufficient resources and restricted access to conventional banking (Sihvonen, 2006). As reported by Global System for Mobile communications Association (GSMA), nearly 2.5 billion people in developing countries are unbanked and rely on cash or informal sources for their financial requirements (Plenderleith, 2018). Besides, around one billion of these population have access to mobile phones, which can serve as the foundation to provide various financial services such as balance inquiry, money transfer, payments, investment, insurance and credit facility. Indeed, many major banks have leveraged mobile devices as a principal medium for customers to access their accounts. They have created mobile apps and websites to provide their customers with an appropriate blend of comfort, convenience and user experience (Chawla and Joshi, 2017). Given the magnitude of competition, service providers are inclined to adopt online channels in an attempt to overcome the restriction related to human service encounters (Alalwan, Dwivedi, Rana and Simintiras, 2016a). In particular, the internet and the high penetration of smartphones, on the one hand, have prompted banks, software companies and microfinance institutions to provide these innovative services to extend their client reach and, on the other hand, enabled individuals to perform their financial activities cost-effectively regardless of time and place constraints.

CONCLUSION

     The area of mobile financial services is gaining worldwide attention, witnessing an increasing number of scientific and nonscientific articles. Although, the literature on MFS adoption has been reviewed in the past but existing reviews did not focused on every form of mobile financial services, that is, mobile banking, mobile payment and mobile money. Accordingly, this study highlights the scholarly contribution by synthesizing extant literature on MFS adoption. To do so, we have conducted a systematic literature review on 118 articles published in Web of Science database

     It was observed that the research pertaining to mobile financial services has started appearing in journals from the year 2007 and the count has been gradually increasing ever since. Besides, the publication outlets, the most commonly used theories and frameworks, countries, statistical tools applied in the articles were listed to outline the context and characteristics of MFS adoption studies. Further, a comprehensive list of antecedents, moderators, mediators and consequences employed by researchers to examine MFS adoption is provided. With respect to the antecedents, the literature brings out a myriad of factors that have been used frequently in the studies. To facilitate the interpretation, the antecedents have been classified into six different categories: Cognitive determinants, affective determinants, social-based determinants, trust-based determinants, barrierbased determinants and consumer-based determinants.

Abstract

Purpose

     This study offers an understanding of vulnerable populations’ experiences of actual use of mobile banking and their expectations of mobile banking (MB).

Design/methodology/approach

     Data were generated from MB customers and bankers using online reviews, focus groups and semi-structured interviews, as a mix of methods and sources can provide rich and in-depth understanding.

Findings

    The affordance of MB for vulnerable populations is explained in four concepts: meaning, material, competency and usability. Recommendations that could further engage and improve the service quality of MB apps for vulnerable populations include customization and personalization of services, access to the digital health data of members of vulnerable populations, audio-based option selection and touchscreen options, and enhancement of service and performance standards.

Research limitations/implications

     It is suggested that retail bankers should improve the service quality and performance of their MB apps by considering the recommendations drawn from vulnerable people’s experiences. This study discusses implications for retailers.

Originality/value

     This study applied social practice theory and affordance of technology theory to understand how those in vulnerable populations experienced MB apps; the results could be used to improve the accessibility, performance and service quality of MB apps.

Introduction

     Mobile banking (MB) has become the most attractive channel for retail bankers, especially in developing countries where accessibility to banking services is low compared to developed countries (Thusi and Maduku, 2020). However, although retail mobile banking has many benefits, customers’ acceptance and use of retail mobile banking are limited, especially in developing countries (Mukerjee, 2020; Thusi and Maduku, 2020). In Pakistan, 75% of the population use mobile phones (Kemp, 2020) and smartphone use is expected to increase to 51% by the end of 2020 (Statista, 2016). Although 19 different retail banks offer banking services in Pakistan, in 2019 only 3.1 million (1.5%) of the total population of 204.6 million were registered mobile banking users (Rahi et al., 2019). There is evidence that social distancing, lockdowns, government financial help and the environment of fear engendered by COVID-19 (ReliefWeb, 2020) have increased the use of mobile banking in Pakistan (Hassan, 2020). In addition, retail bankers are keen to know how they can reduce their operational costs, as well as develop a positive banking experience for customers (Mew and Millan, 2021; Thusi and Maduku, 2020; Wiese and Humbani, 2020), which mobile banking may help to deliver.

Findings

     Figure 2 provides an overview of how the keywords, code and major themes were extracted from the findings, and how these concepts helped to develop the final framework. Table 1 provides the definitions and descriptions of major codes which are discussed in findings section.

Abstract

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Abstract

Purpose: Unprecedented communication features of social media noticeably reinforce the active role of consumers in the value co-creation (VCC) of offline and online brands including social media. From the consumer perspective, this study examines a contribution of VCC behavior to consumer-based brand equity (CBBE) and consequent intention to use social media based on Instagram as the most popular platform in Kazakhstan. Methodology: A web-based survey provided data from 550 Instagram users in Almaty city. Empirical analysis includes testing statistical assumptions using SPSS 23, conducting confirmatory factor analysis (CFA), and structural equation modeling (SEM) using Warp PLS 7.0. Findings: With the result of this study investigation, the paper develops the model that explains the effect of VCC on continuous usage intention to use social media through CBBE comprising brand associations, brand loyalty and brand perceived quality. Originality: Even though the importance of social media in the brand VCC process is widely recognized, a brand equity view of social media brands with users’ participation is under-investigated. However, brand equity’s importance for firm sustainability in terms of long-term business strategy is indisputable. This research enhances brand equity theory and VCC concept with the empirical data within the modern social media context. Practical implications: Owners and managers of social media brands can use the conceptual model to grow, maintain and assess their brands’ equities through their marketing efforts on the consumer motivation for brand VCC activities driving continuous usage of the brands.

1. Introduction

Social media proven to be one of the most active online platforms worldwide with more than 3.6 billion users in 2020 anticipated to hit about 4.4 billion people in five years [1]. One of the outstanding features of social media is the unprecedented facilitation of peerto-peer communications and seller–buyer relationships, which is a part of a marketing strategy to meet the long-term brand objectives, including a vital target of higher consumer purchase intention [2]. Another significant utility of social media is the unique way to promote sustainable customer behavior through a sustainable business strategy [3,4].

From the brand perspective, social media noticeably increase consumers’ voice and power to influence the creation, promotion, and consumption of current brands activating customer participation in brands’ value creation. Sales-Vivo et al. [5] demonstrate this role in the example of business-to-business activities, where value co-creation (VCC) is an essential antecedent of a manufacturer’s economic satisfaction. Social media have become the integrative resource contributor to VCC on par with customers and firms reviving VCC theory born in the offline business era [6]. This study explores the impact of consumers’ co-creation behavior on brand value building of social media as the modern digital media, which are widely used for achieving various business aims including sustainability as a growing prominent global trend.

Abstract

     Social media has been taken as an important marketing tool for business today and it has also become increasingly imperative for marketers of SMEs to strategically utilize to attain competitive advantage and excellent performance. However, scholarly research on the social media marketing strategy of SMEs is still scant. To fill this research gap, this study proposes a social media marketing strategy framework for SMEs using customer knowledge management. The research captures the knowledge about customer by text mining and knowledge from customer by the Kano model revealing the critical requirements that will be used for the development of the social media marketing strategy framework, referred to as knowledge for customer. The strategy framework consists of the five common components for SMEs to conduct social media marketing which are Context, Channel, Content, Communication and Continuity. The study offers valuable insight into social media marketing improvement and customer knowledge management in enterprises.

Introduction

     Social media provides opportunities for businesses to improve their competitive position through interactive and cocreative ways [1], and this has made social media widely adopted as a business tool [2]. Social media has been playing a significant role in marketing strategy nowadays [3]. Despite the high adoption rate of social media, the actual usage in enterprises often seems to be improvised and lacks a clear strategy [4]. And enterprises apply their social media marketing strategies guided by only intuition or trial and scant research has systematically integrated and expanded knowledge on social media marketing strategies [5] [6]. Especially in Small and Medium-sized Enterprises (SMEs), due to relatively insufficient human or financial resources compared to large companies [7], the social media workers with relatively lower competency lack the strategy to conduct work, leading to poor performance of social media marketing. SMEs’ usual lack of human capital restrains their internal drive of knowledge, Customer Knowledge Management (CKM) becomes a strategic approach in order to create customer value [8]. This study proposes a strategy framework that identifies and classifies the components of social media marketing to guide SMEs’ marketing activities by using customer knowledge management.

Findings

     The study develops a social media marketing strategy framework using customer knowledge management. The results would be organized into the three types of customer knowledge.

Knowledge about Customer

The knowledge about customer is the critical issues extracted by text mining from customer feedback of SMEs social media marketing, as shown in Table V

Abstract

     The objective of this study is to ascertain the effects of omni-channel retailing on the promotional strategy of retail organisations in order to better understand how to alter the promotional strategy in accordance with the ever-changing needs of customers and ultimately provide the customer with a seamless experience. This research is based on a critical systematic literature review of articles related to the topics of ‘omni-channel retailing’ and ‘promotional strategy’. The analysis made evident that most literature is focused on developing an understanding of omni-channel retailing; uncovering consumer behaviours in omni-channel retailing; and ways to adapt promotional strategies related to merchandising, sales promotion, selling, and word of mouth. Past research is quite fractured and does not represent a holistic picture of the implications of omni-channel retailing for promotional strategy. The analysis provided in this paper provides a general guideline for researchers and practitioners concerning promotional strategies that can be adopted in omni-channel retailing.

Introduction

     The retailing environment is getting increasingly complicated. The rise of technological advances has multiplied customer touchpoints and therefore caused the customer journey to become more complex [1]. Whereas customer journeys in the past could be seen as linear, in the omni-channel environment, those journeys are now highly complex [2]. In addition to this, the amount of retailing channels has rapidly grown; whereas in the past, you were only able to buy a product in a physical store, nowadays, this can also be done online by making use of your phone, tablet, laptop, and even your voice assistant (multiple channels). Furthermore, according to Oracle [3] (p. 3), “more than three-quarters of consumers use two or more channels to browse for, research, and purchase products”. This new omni-channel environment is fading the borders between online and offline retailing [4]. Brynjolfsson, Jeffrey, and Rahman [5] (p. 24) highlight this by stating that omni-channel retailing is “turning the world into a showroom without walls”. As the online and offline worlds are becoming more intertwined, consumers require a seamless experience across channels [4,6]. A way to facilitate this is to integrate promotions across all existing channels [7]. One of the Marketing Science Institute’s [8] five major research priorities for 2020–2022 concerns the rise of the omni-channel environment; specifically, they propose research on the implications of omni-channel retailing for promotional strategies.

Conclusions

     The customer is getting more empowered, and omni-channel retailing is a phenomenon that almost every company nowadays must deal with. It is therefore important to understand how a promotional strategy can be designed in such a way that takes into consideration the needs and preferences of those empowered customers in the omni-channel environment. The main need of the customer is the provision of a seamless customer experience, meaning integration of all channels they use during their shopping journey. However, this is not limited to channel integration only, as it also encompasses brand consistency and promotional alignment. One way of accomplishing this would be to provide personalisation for customers across all channels.

     Furthermore, it is important to understand the types of behaviours that take place in the omni-channel retailing environment. Two phenomena are frequently mentioned in the literature, namely showrooming behaviour and its counterpart, webrooming behaviour. The former states that customers search for information about/to touch a product in store and consequently buy the product online (potentially from a competitor). The rise of mobile phone usage has mainly facilitated showrooming behaviour, and research has shown that customers spend higher amounts when purchasing products via their mobile phones. However, ‘competitive showrooming’ is undesirable behaviour and can be diminished by adapting promotional strategy accordingly. The latter states customers search for information online and consequently buy the product in store. This type of behaviour takes place because customers like to be in control and therefore search for extensive information and confirmation of their judgements online before buying the product in store, where they can touch and see it.

Highlights

Abstract

Keywords

1. Introduction

2. Related work

3. Proposed method

4. Case study: user controversial behaviour in online data service

5. Experiment and discussion

6. Conclusion and future work

CRediT authorship contribution statement

Acknowledgments

References

Vitae

Abstract

Nowadays, online word-of-mouth has an increasing impact on people’s views and decisions, which has attracted many people’s attention.The classification and sentiment analyse in online consumer reviews have attracted significant research concerns. In this thesis, we propose and implement a new method to study the extraction and classification of online dating services(ODS)’s comments. Different from traditional emotional analysis which mainly focuses on product attribution, we attempted to infer and extract the emotion concept of each emotional reviews by introducing social cognitive theory. In this study, we selected 4,300 comments with extremely negative/positive emotions published on dating websites as a sample, and used three machine learning algorithms to analyze emotions. When testing and comparing the efficiency of user’s behavior research, we use various sentiment analysis, machine learning techniques and dictionary-based sentiment analysis. We found that the combination of machine learning and lexicon-based method can achieve higher accuracy than any type of sentiment analysis. This research will provide a new perspective for the task of user behavior.

1. Introduction

As global Internet presentations continue to increase, the number of consumers who provide online comments have increased significantly (Lu & Bai, 2021). If exploited properly, abundant data should produce useful insights. One insight that can be obtained from the statistics is the information of electronic word of mouth (EWOM). EWOM is known for its significant impact on consumer behavior (Tobon & García-Madariaga, 2021). EWOM communication framework demostrates the direct relation of adopting EWOM and consumers’ willingness to purchase. EWOM can provide objective information for more and more consumers who trust these communications (Yaniv & Shalom, 2021).Comment mining concerning sentiment analysis is considered to be a suite of proceedings for identifying sentiments, opinions and author’s attitudes in texts, transforming them into meaningful information and using them to make business decisions (Siddiqui et al., 2021).

Sentiment classification identifies opinions and arguments in a given text, and it is part of opinion mining. It tries to find statements of agreement or disagreement in comments or reviews that involve positive, negative or neutral statements. Sentiment analysis has attracted widespread attention and has been widely used in many fields (Wang & Zhang, 2020). Up to now, many approaches of sentiment analysis have been proposed, which can be roughly split into document-level, sentence-level and aspect-level(Jiang, Chan, Eichelberger, Ma, & Pikkemaat, 2021).Most of the work of sentiment analysis can be achieved by assessing the document’s polarity.Phrase and sentence levels have become common increasingly in recent years.Dictionary-based and machine learning approaches are two of the most common uses of emotion analysis(Ahlem & Khalil, 2020).

Abstract

     The aim of this study is to explore the evolving social media marketing strategies of football clubs involved in the English Premier League (EPL), in a constantly changing sporting and digital landscape. Interviews conducted with practitioners from a range of clubs revealed that social media marketing has been fully adopted as a key strategic marketing channel. Other insights include the importance of trust to clubs being able to harness the collective of passionate fans on social media platforms. Also, how clubs are using social media to grow their global reach and capitalize on worldwide EPL exposure. The paper also highlights some of the negatives of social media, as experienced by football club social media marketing practitioners. Finally, a social media marketing strategy framework applied to football is proposed, based on the social media marketing strategy of football clubs and their understanding of why and how their fans use social media.

Introduction

     Social media marketing (SMM) is a key strategic activity that can achieve organizational goals and create value for internal and external stakeholders.1 Focused on customer engagement and informed by analytics, SMM will be more effective and make a more significant contribution to marketing and commercial performance.2 Deeper levels of customer interaction and data insights enable trust and an increased chance of success through effective social media marketing strategy (SMMS).3 Despite increased scholarly attention on the role of SMMS in sport, there remains a paucity of insights across a variety of football leagues,4 resulting in a lack of theoretical depth.5

     The English Premier League (EPL) is the wealthiest and most popular football league in the world,6 its global success evident by the fact that all EPL clubs are again in the top 50 revenue generating clubs in the world.7 EPL clubs’ revenues totalled over £5bn for the first time in 2018/19,8 with broadcast rights being worth 59% of this total. However, the COVID-19 pandemic has impacted EPL clubs significantly, primarily through matchday revenues plummeting thanks to matches having to be played behind closed doors.

Discussion and conclusions

     This study demonstrates how football clubs have increasingly embraced social media while continually adapting to the digital and sporting landscape. It confirms clubs now consider SMMS to be core to their communications with fans. The research is further evidence that brands use social media as a strategic tool to build relationships with local and global fans and stakeholders, in addition to informing fans to encourage interaction.74 Trust is at the centre of a successful SMMS, with the club as the unifying intermediary between fans and the business organization that is the actual club.

     Similar to research that focused on the fan perspective,75 this study finds that passion, based on an emotional connection with the club, is central to fans following clubs on social media. Moreover, a sense of community and social interaction are key to informing, entertaining and keeping fans engaged with the football club and its SMMS.76 Every club emphasized the insatiable appetite for information their fans have from the SMMS of their chosen club. Such findings link with research claiming fans are motivated to engage with football club SMMS for information, for their own social influence with their community, and for entertainment.77 It also concurs with research that fans are motivated to engage with EPL clubs on social media for information, empowerment via influencing other consumers, social interaction, and passionate, emotional attachment.