Understanding Consumer Reactions to Assortment Unavailability

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As noted, consumers generally prefer high-equity brands and therefore are willing to exercise more effort to obtain their favorite high-equity brand. Furthermore, high-equity brands tend to have a greater distribution level than low-equity brands, which often consist of private labels, regional brands, and price brands. From the perspective of both brand loyalty and brand availability, consumers who are confronted with an OOS situation for an item of a high-equity brand will be more inclined to switch to another store to purchase the preferred item. Schary and Christopher (1979) provide some preliminary evidence for this hypothesis by showing that national brand buyers are more likely to switch to another store than are private label buyers in case of a stock-out situation. Therefore, we expect that the level of brand equity is positively related to store switching, item switching, and postponement of the intended purchase and negatively related to brand switching. We hypothesize that for OOS situations, H1a: Brand equity negatively affects the probability of brand switching. H1b: Brand equity positively affects the probability of store switching. H1c: Brand equity positively affects the probability of item switching. H1d: Brand equity positively affects the probability of postponing. 2.3.2 Hedonic level Several studies have suggested that the type of product is an important variable in explaining OOS behavior and that this variable should be taken into account (Campo, Gijsbrechts, and Nisol 2000; Emmelhainz, Stock, and Emmelhainz 1991; Schary and Christopher 1979). However, products can be classified according to various dimensions. For example, in explaining promotional elasticity, Narasimhan, Neslin, and Sen (1996) use dimensions such as stockpiling, impulse buying, and number of brands in the category to classify product groups. Although we take many of these product-related variables into account in our full model, in our theoretical framework, we specifically focus on the basic benefits that a product provides to consumers. These benefits can be utilitarian and/or hedonic. Products with hedonic benefits like ice cream and salty snacks provide more experiential consumption, fun, pleasure, and excitement, whereas products with utilitarian benefits (hereafter referred to as utilitarian products), like detergent and toilet paper, are primarily instrumental and functional (Batra and Ahtola 1991; Dhar and Wertenbroch 2000). Some products may offer both utilitarian and hedonic benefits to consumers. 35
Shampoo, for example, combines a utilitarian benefit (cleaning hair) with a hedonic benefit (nice smell). Moreover, even products that are bought mainly out of utilitarian motives may provide some hedonic benefits. For example, consumers may perceive a product such as milk, which is often bought for its nutritional value (utilitarian benefit), as very tasty (hedonic benefit). The different nature of utilitarian and hedonic products may affect the buying process, in that the buying process of utilitarian products will be driven mainly by rational buying motives. In the buying process of hedonic products, in contrast, emotional motives also play an important role, which may affect OOS responses. The unavailability of utilitarian products, such as detergent, margarine, or toilet paper, may influence the functioning of the household. Therefore, consumers will be less likely to postpone a purchase and more likely to buy a substitute in the case of utilitarian products. In contrast, hedonic products provide more emotional value to the consumer. For example, when a consumer plans to purchase beer, ice cream, or salty snacks and consume it that evening, he or she will be very disappointed if unable to purchase the desired product (Fitzsimons 2000). This reasoning is supported by Dhar and Wertenbroch (2000), who find that consumers are less satisfied if they experience a problem in the hedonic dimensions of a service and that consumers bond more to hedonic benefits. This trend may lead to more store switching for hedonic products than for utilitarian products. The personal bond to the hedonic benefits of a product also might lead to the lower probability that consumers postpone the purchase. Thus, we find two contrasting theories regarding the effect of the hedonic nature of the product on OOS responses. In general, we adopt the first theoretical explanation in our hypotheses. We expect that item switching and brand switching will be lower in product categories with a high hedonic level, whereas a postponement of purchase will occur more frequently for hedonic product categories. Following Dhar and Wertenbroch (2000), we expect that store switching behavior in OOS situations will be greater for hedonic products. H2a: The hedonic level of a product negatively affects the probability of brand switching. H2b: The hedonic level of a product positively affects the probability of store switching. H2c: The hedonic level of a product negatively affects the probability of item switching. H2d: The hedonic level of a product positively affects the probability of postponing 36
Page 1 and 2: LAURENS SLOOT Understanding Consume
Page 4 and 5: UNDERSTANDING CONSUMER REACTIONS TO
Page 6 and 7: PREFACE (IN DUTCH) Begin 2001 schre
Page 8 and 9: TABLE OF CONTENTS Preface (in Dutch
Page 10 and 11: 3.7 Study 2 74 3.8 Hypotheses 74 3.
Page 12 and 13: CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION AND OVERVIE
Page 14 and 15: Most supply chain-oriented reductio
Page 16 and 17: 400 square meters) are disappearing
Page 18 and 19: more. However, Aldi is known to be
Page 20 and 21: antecedents, such as the brand equi
Page 22 and 23: of assortment reduction responses a
Page 24 and 25: assortment benefits and assortment
Page 26 and 27: 2.1 Introduction Out-of-stock (OOS)
Page 28 and 29: other explanatory studies, we study
Page 30 and 31: Studies that apply exploratory desi
Page 32 and 33: Table 2.2: Methodological overview
Page 34 and 35: Situation-related variables. Situat
Page 38 and 39: 2.3.3 The interaction of hedonic le
Page 40 and 41: For example, supermarkets are usual
Page 42 and 43: were selected for further analyses.
Page 44 and 45: example, a key utilitarian benefit
Page 46 and 47: The mathematical formulation of the
Page 48 and 49: Table 2.6: Correlation matrix depen
Page 50 and 51: correlation between the hedonic lev
Page 52 and 53: 2.6 Discussion In this study, we in
Page 54 and 55: Following the literature on promoti
Page 56 and 57: consider this finding when they att
Page 58 and 59: Appendix 2A: Overview and definitio
Page 60 and 61: CHAPTER 3 UNDERSTANDING THE IMPACT
Page 62 and 63: the Dutch food retailer Edah delist
Page 64 and 65: FMI (1993) conducts natural experim
Page 66 and 67: customers no longer or less frequen
Page 68 and 69: extent, comparable to the tendency
Page 70 and 71: Figure 3.1: Graphical display of as
Page 72 and 73: consumers evaluate assortments that
Page 74 and 75: Figure 3.3: Interaction effect of a
Page 76 and 77: SSI (H1). We expect that the brand
Page 78 and 79: 3.8.4 Store-related antecedents Fin
Page 80 and 81: among the 10 specified product grou
Page 82 and 83: Retail assortment-related anteceden
Page 84 and 85: Table 3.4: Average, standard deviat
Page 86 and 87:
3.10.2 Store switching intentions W
Page 88 and 89:
effects indicated in Study 1 (β =
Page 90 and 91:
3.12 Managerial implications Retail
Page 92 and 93:
Appendix 3A: Overview and definitio
Page 94 and 95:
4.1 Introduction Since the early 19
Page 96 and 97:
changes in assortment perceptions (
Page 98 and 99:
Negative sales effects may occur be
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therefore might question the existe
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Table 4.2: Overview of separate ana
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analogously. The resulting complete
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changes in the price level do not i
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Table 4.4: Estimated parameters for
Page 110 and 111:
Table 4.5: Estimated parameters for
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infrequently in the sample stores a
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Measurement. Following Hoch, Bradlo
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4.7 Discussion In this collaborativ
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into consequences at the customer l
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eduction occurs, and the type of st
Page 122 and 123:
Manufacturers in hedonic product gr
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2. When retailers set priorities fo
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References Aaker, David A. (1991),
Page 128 and 129:
Broniarczyk, Susan M. and Wayne D.
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Franses, Philip Hans and Richard Pa
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Narasimhan, Chakravartthi, Scott A.
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Van Trijp, Hans C.M., Wayne D. Hoye
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de rol van het assortiment bij het
Page 138 and 139:
die het out-of-stock niveau binnen
Page 140 and 141:
Campbell, R.A.J., Rethinking Risk i
Page 142 and 143:
Langen, P.W. de, The Performance of
Page 144 and 145:
Slager, A.M.H., Banking across Bord
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