• Asia Marketing Journal
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• v.13 no.4
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• pp.55-76
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• 2012

Most people prefer to choose zero-cost products they may get without paying any money. The 'zero-cost effect' can be explained with a 'zero-cost model' where consumers attach special values to zero-cost products in a different way from general economic models (Shampanier, Mazar and Ariely 2007). If 2 different products at the regular prices of ￦200 and ￦400 simultaneously offer ￦200 discounts, the prices will be changed to ￦0 and ￦200, respectively. In spite of the same price gap of the two products after the ￦200 discounts, people are much more likely to select the free alternative than the same product at the price of ￦200. Although prior studies have focused on the 'zero-cost effect' in isolation of other factors, this study investigates the moderating effects of a self-regulatory resource and a construal level on the selection of free products. Self-regulatory resources induce people to control or regulate their behavior. However, since self-regulatory resources are limited, they are to be easily depleted when exerted (Muraven, Tice, and Baumeister 1998). Without the resources, consumers tend to become less sensitive to price changes and to spend money more extravagantly (Vohs and Faber 2007). Under this condition, they are also likely to invest less effort on their information processing and to make more intuitive decisions (Pocheptsova, Amir, Dhar, and Baumeister 2009). Therefore, context effects such as price changes and zero cost effects are less likely in the circumstances of resource depletion. In addition, construal levels have profound effects on the ways of information processing (Trope and Liberman 2003, 2010). In a high construal level, people tend to attune their minds to core features and desirability aspects, whereas, in a low construal level, they are more likely to process information based on secondary features and feasibility aspects (Khan, Zhu, and Kalra 2010). A perceived value of a product is more related to desirability whereas a zero cost or a price level is more associated with feasibility. Thus, context effects or reliance on feasibility (for instance, the zero cost effect) will be diminished in a high level construal while those effects may remain in a low level construal. When people make decisions, these 2 factors can influence the magnitude of the 'zero-cost effect'. This study ran two experiments to investigate the effects of self-regulatory resources and construal levels on the selection of a free product. Kisses and Ferrero-Rocher, which were adopted in the prior study (Shampanier et al. 2007) were also used as alternatives in Experiments 1 and 2. We designed Experiment 1 in order to test whether self-regulatory resource depletion will moderate the zero-cost effect. The level of self-regulatory resources was manipulated with two different tasks, a Sudoku task in the depletion condition and a task of drawing diagrams in the non-depletion condition. Upon completion of the manipulation task, subjects were randomly assigned to one of a decision set with a zero-cost option (i.e., Kisses ￦0, and Ferrero-Rocher ￦200) or a set without a zero-cost option (i.e., Kisses ￦200, and Ferrero-Rocher ￦400). A pair of alternatives in the two decision sets have the same price gap of ￦200 between a low-priced Kisses and a high-priced Ferrero-Rocher. Subjects in the no-depletion condition selected Kisses more often (71.88%) over Ferrero-Rocher when Kisses was free than when it was priced at ￦200 (34.88%). However, the zero-cost effect disappeared when people do not have self-regulatory resources. Experiment 2 was conducted to investigate whether constual levels influence the magnitude of the 'zero-cost effect'. To manipulate construal levels, 4 different 'why (in the high construal level condition)' or 'how (in the low construal level condition)' questions about health management were asked. They were presented with 4 boxes connected with downward arrows. In a box at the top, there was one question, 'Why do I maintain good physical health?' or 'How do I maintain good physical health?' Subjects inserted a response to the question of why or how they would maintain good physical health. Similar tasks were repeated for the 2nd, 3rd, and 4th responses. After the manipulation task, subjects were randomly assigned either to a decision set with a zero-cost option, or to a set without it, as in Experiment 1. When a low construal level is primed with 'how', subjects chose free Kisses (60.66%) more often over Ferrero-Rocher than they chose ￦200 Kisses (42.19%) over ￦400 FerreroRocher. On contrast, the zero-cost effect could not be observed any longer when a high construal level is primed with 'why'.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Clothing and Textiles
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• v.30 no.12 s.159
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• pp.1747-1758
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• 2006

Rapid development of the information technology has influenced on the changes in every sector of human environments. One prominent change in retail market is an increase of electronic stores, which has prompted practical and research interest in the product and store attributes that include consumer to purchase products from the electronic shopping. Therefore many marketers are paying much attention to the criteria of evaluating clothing and web service on internet shopping malls. The purpose of this study is to examine differences of clothing and web service criteria of consumer groups (High-Involvement & High-Ability, Low-Involvement & High-Ability, High-Involvement & Low-Ability, and Low-Involvement & Low-Ability) who are classified into consumer involvement and internet use ability. The subjects of this study were 305 people aged between 19 and 39s, living in Seoul and Gyeonggi-do area, and having experiences in buying products on the internet shopping. Statistical analyses used for this study were the frequency, percentage, factor analysis, ANOVA and Duncan test. The results of this study were as follows: Regarded on the criteria of evaluating clothing, the low different groups had significant differences in the esthetic, the quality performance and the extrinsic criterion. Both HIHA group and HILA group showed the similar results. They considered every criterion of evaluating clothing more important, compared with other groups. Regarded on the criteria of evaluating web service related to the low different groups, there were significant differences in the factors related to the shopping mall reliance, the product, the satisfaction after purchase, and the promotion and policy criterion. Both HIHA group and HILA group showed the similar results as well. They considered every criterion of evaluating web service more important, compared with other groups. In conclusion, HI groups perceive relatively more dangerous factors which can be occurred during internet shopping. Therefore, internet shopping malls need to provide clothing that can satisfy the HI groups as well as make efforts to remove the dangerous factors on the internet.

• Journal of Distribution Research
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• v.15 no.3
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• pp.71-110
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• 2010

1. Introduction Today Internet is recognized as an important way for the transaction of products and services. According to the data surveyed by the National Statistical Office, the on-line transaction in 2007 for a year, 15.7656 trillion, shows a 17.1%(2.3060 trillion won) increase over last year, of these, the amount of B2C has been increased 12.0%(10.2258 trillion won). Like this, because the entry barrier of on-line market of Korea is low, many retailers could easily enter into the market. So the bigger its scale is, but on the other hand, the tougher its competition is. Particularly due to the Internet and innovation of IT, the existing market has been changed into the perfect competitive market(Srinivasan, Rolph & Kishore, 2002). In the early years of on-line business, they think that the main reason for success is a moderate price, they are awakened to its importance of on-line service quality with tough competition. If it's not sure whether customers can be provided with what they want, they can use the Web sites, perhaps they can trust their products that had been already bought or not, they have a doubt its viability(Parasuraman, Zeithaml & Malhotra, 2005). Customers can directly reserve and issue their air tickets irrespective of place and time at the Web sites of travel agencies or airlines, but its empirical studies about these Web sites for reserving and issuing air tickets are insufficient. Therefore this study goes on for following specific objects. First object is to measure service quality and service recovery of Web sites for reserving and issuing air tickets. Second is to look into whether above on-line service quality and on-line service recovery have an impact on overall service quality. Third is to seek for the relation with overall service quality and customer satisfaction, then this customer satisfaction and loyalty intention. 2. Theoretical Background 2.1 On-line Service Quality Barnes & Vidgen(2000; 2001a; 2001b; 2002) had invented the tool to measure Web sites' quality four times(called WebQual). The WebQual 1.0, Step one invented a measuring item for information quality based on QFD, and this had been verified by students of UK business school. The Web Qual 2.0, Step two invented for interaction quality, and had been judged by customers of on-line bookshop. The WebQual 3.0, Step three invented by consolidating the WebQual 1.0 for information quality and the WebQual2.0 for interactionquality. It includes 3-quality-dimension, information quality, interaction quality, site design, and had been assessed and confirmed by auction sites(e-bay, Amazon, QXL). Furtheron, through the former empirical studies, the authors changed sites quality into usability by judging that usability is a concept how customers interact with or perceive Web sites and It is used widely for accessing Web sites. By this process, WebQual 4.0 was invented, and is consist of 3-quality-dimension; information quality, interaction quality, usability, 22 items. However, because WebQual 4.0 is focusing on technical part, it's usable at the Website's design part, on the other hand, it's not usable at the Web site's pleasant experience part. Parasuraman, Zeithaml & Malhorta(2002; 2005) had invented the measure for measuring on-line service quality in 2002 and 2005. The study in 2002 divided on-line service quality into 5 dimensions. But these were not well-organized, so there needed to be studied again totally. So Parasuraman, Zeithaml & Malhorta(2005) re-worked out the study about on-line service quality measure base on 2002's study and invented E-S-QUAL. After they invented preliminary measure for on-line service quality, they made up a question for customers who had purchased at amazon.com and walmart.com and reassessed this measure. And they perfected an invention of E-S-QUAL consists of 4 dimensions, 22 items of efficiency, system availability, fulfillment, privacy. Efficiency measures assess to sites and usability and others, system availability measures accurate technical function of sites and others, fulfillment measures promptness of delivering products and sufficient goods and others and privacy measures the degree of protection of data about their customers and so on. 2.2 Service Recovery Service industries tend to minimize the losses by coping with service failure promptly. This responses of service providers to service failure mean service recovery(Kelly & Davis, 1994). Bitner(1990) went on his study from customers' view about service providers' behavior for customers to recognize their satisfaction/dissatisfaction at service point. According to them, to manage service failure successfully, exact recognition of service problem, an apology, sufficient description about service failure and some tangible compensation are important. Parasuraman, Zeithaml & Malhorta(2005) approached the service recovery from how to measure, rather than how to manage, and moved to on-line market not to off-line, then invented E-RecS-QUAL which is a measuring tool about on-line service recovery. 2.3 Customer Satisfaction The definition of customer satisfaction can be divided into two points of view. First, they approached customer satisfaction from outcome of comsumer. Howard & Sheth(1969) defined satisfaction as 'a cognitive condition feeling being rewarded properly or improperly for their sacrifice.' and Westbrook & Reilly(1983) also defined customer satisfaction/dissatisfaction as 'a psychological reaction to the behavior pattern of shopping and purchasing, the display condition of retail store, outcome of purchased goods and service as well as whole market.' Second, they approached customer satisfaction from process. Engel & Blackwell(1982) defined satisfaction as 'an assessment of a consistency in chosen alternative proposal and their belief they had with them.' Tse & Wilton(1988) defined customer satisfaction as 'a customers' reaction to discordance between advance expectation and ex post facto outcome.' That is, this point of view that customer satisfaction is process is the important factor that comparing and assessing process what they expect and outcome of consumer. Unlike outcome-oriented approach, process-oriented approach has many advantages. As process-oriented approach deals with customers' whole expenditure experience, it checks up main process by measuring one by one each factor which is essential role at each step. And this approach enables us to check perceptual/psychological process formed customer satisfaction. Because of these advantages, now many studies are adopting this process-oriented approach(Yi, 1995). 2.4 Loyalty Intention Loyalty has been studied by dividing into behavioral approaches, attitudinal approaches and complex approaches(Dekimpe et al., 1997). In the early years of study, they defined loyalty focusing on behavioral concept, behavioral approaches regard customer loyalty as "a tendency to purchase periodically within a certain period of time at specific retail store." But the loyalty of behavioral approaches focuses on only outcome of customer behavior, so there are someone to point the limits that customers' decision-making situation or process were neglected(Enis & Paul, 1970; Raj, 1982; Lee, 2002). So the attitudinal approaches were suggested. The attitudinal approaches consider loyalty contains all the cognitive, emotional, voluntary factors(Oliver, 1997), define the customer loyalty as "friendly behaviors for specific retail stores." However these attitudinal approaches can explain that how the customer loyalty form and change, but cannot say positively whether it is moved to real purchasing in the future or not. This is a kind of shortcoming(Oh, 1995). 3. Research Design 3.1 Research Model Based on the objects of this study, the research model derived is