Part 1: The question of marketspace and marketplace
1. The key drivers of perceived omnichannel service quality
Elena Patten, Macromedia University of Applied Sciences, Germany
The complexity of the customer journey has increased tremendously in the context of e-commerce because customers use various touchpoints at different channels when interacting with a retailer. This book chapter aims to investigate the concept of integration in omnichannel retailing by considering the different elements of the retail mix. Furthermore, it will elaborate the key drivers of perceived omnichannel service quality.
2. Omnichannel and brand equity: a new balance of sustainable competitive advantage
Claudio Becagli, University of Florence, Italy
Fashion retailing has recently been characterised by considerable changes. Many of the changes are industry-specific but many others come from the external environment, such as economic and technological development. These forces oblige companies to manage their brand engagement in both physical and online channels with the aim of delivering a seamless shopping experience to their customers while at the same time pursuing satisfactory economic and competitive performances. The brand experience depends not on one or more channels but it results from a holistic approach in which the company must try to simultaneously combine and align all brand-customer touchpoints.
3. Opinion leaders, short videos and virtual community construction
Peng Chen, School of Economics and Management of Jiujiang University, China
Research on opinion leaders can be traced back to Lazarsfeld's work in 1944. Earlier research focused on the characteristics, identity and influence of opinion leaders. In the past 20 years, with the development of internet technology, the application of opinion leaders in marketing, public affairs, medical treatment, management, tourism, fashion and other fields has attracted the interest of a large number of scholars. Short videos, as a form of social media, have become a new growth point of network marketing in recent years. As modern internet opinion leaders, internet celebrities are active in various virtual communities and attract the attention of internet users. They have a significant influence on the marketing campaigns of the fashion industry. Based on the theories of consumer behaviour, this chapter will study the ways and methods of internet celebrities in the fashion industry to build virtual communities through short videos, and it will ask: How can fashion brands connect with consumers through the virtual community built by internet celebrities?
4. Characteristics and temperament of fashion bloggers
Deidre Bowen, Northumbria University, UK
This chapter will discuss the general characteristics of bloggers and how they differ from the characteristics of bloggers on fashion goods. Bloggers on technology will have specific knowledge or expertise on the products. What types of knowledge do fashion bloggers have or require? Is fashion blogging predominantly about emotional intelligence and hence linked to the temperament of the blogger?
Part 2: Online Brand Communities and Customer Relationship
5. Customer participation versus consumer loyalty in online brand communities
Wilson Ozuem, Michelle Willis, Silvia Rafangni
University of Cumbria (UK) and University of Florence (Italy)
Online brand communities (OBCs) have maintained the close link between consumers and fashion brands, encouraging consumers to actively participate in online platforms leading to the question: How is loyalty affected by online participation? This chapter explores millennials' level of participation in OBCs and the extent to which it affects their loyalty to the brand and the community in the fashion industry. Four main customer participatory behavioural traits (brand identification, interactivity, media valence and perceived community sentiment) are proposed contingent on different participatory motives and consumers' perception of a fashion brand.
6. Post-recovery strategy and customer relationship
Yllka Azemi, Indiana University, USA
Online positive word of mouth remains a powerful source for companies' prediction of customers' re-purchasing behaviour after a recovery experience. In the high-end industry of luxury products where customers' expectations are high, it could be assumed that positive word of mouth after a recovery experience does not necessarily present the highest level of satisfaction as to imply post-recovery. In these instances, luxury customers switch to other companies. It is important for luxury companies to understand the true meaning of customers' online positive content. This supports managerial decision making to follow up positive word-of-mouth customer relationship activities that lead to customers' continual purchasing intention.
7. Effects of online brand communities on millennials' brand loyalty
Michelle Willis, University of Cumbria, UK
Online brand communities (OBCs) are gaining traction in the development of marketing strategy within the fashion industry, but it is unclear how the dominant group of users, the millennials, is responding to the prevailing and varying customer loyalty programmes. Grounded in understanding that loyalty is seen and understood differently by people who participate in OBCs, this chapter provides conceptual insight into how OBCs activate multi-dimensional customer loyalty intentions to fashion brands. Based on a constructivist perspective combined with hermeneutic methodology and an embedded case study research strategy, the chapter presents a framework that categorises customer loyalty into: Ambassador loyalists, Public-Voting loyalists, Loveless loyalists and Mercenary loyalists.
8. Smartphones: features. Triggers and positioning strategies
Dominic Appiah, Arden University, UK
The evolution of the smartphone has impacted significantly on consumer behaviour and choice. Mobile phone technology was initially used only for communication purposes but has recently advanced to include additional features that have created a greater market and altered the purchase behaviour of consumers. In this modern era of technological advancement, users of mobile phones expect other features such as media support, internet connectivity and special applications. This chapter aims to provide some insights into brand switching in the luxury smartphones industry and offers opportunities for marketers and scholars in the development of related marketing plans.
9. Customer experiences: a new perspective to reinforce brand knowledge in online markets
Joelle Lagier, La Rochelle Business School, Italy
Recognising the uniqueness, originality and exclusiveness status of luxury contrary to the democratising nature of social media - in its wideness of customer reach and interactivity as well as information sharing - luxury fashion brands only recently totally embraced social media for customer relations and engagement. If, in the past, the internet and social media marketing (SMM) were considered taboo because they were a challenge to exclusivity and rarity in the conceptualisation of luxury brands, then the new fast-growing economies showed the importance of digitalisation in optimising brand knowledge and engagement for customers. Through the analysis of a SMM platform, this chapter will provide an in-depth overview of how customer experiences can enhance the knowledge of fashion products from the streetwear sector.
10. Online customer experience and brand consideration: emerging practices
Giada Salvietti, University of Parma, Italy
This chapter will focus on the topic of online customer experience and its influence on digital consumers and their inclination towards brand consideration and adoption. In omnichannel marketspaces, effective customer experience requires companies to interact with customers by creating distinguished stimuli, and with synergies between offline and online touchpoints. This chapter explores the impact of digital customer experience in fashion, considering that companies operating in this market must face the issue of maintaining brand consistency across different channels.
11. The value and antecedents of user-generated content, service failure and recovery strategies
Samuel Ayertey, Plymouth University, UK
The growth of user-generated content (UGC) within fashion brands' online platforms has increased consumers' awareness of service failure and impacted their level of involvement and attitude towards recovery strategies. However, a limited number of studies have explored the value and antecedents of UGC on service failure and recovery strategies in the fashion industry. Drawing from an actor-network and social influence theory perspective, the chapter aims to develop a conceptual framework that provide insights into how UGC impacts millennials' perspective and behaviour towards failure-recovery strategies in the fashion industry.
12. Building a sustainable brand image in luxury fashion companies
Monica Faraoni, University of Florence, Italy
Brand image is a set of perceptions and beliefs about a particular brand that are held in the mind of the consumer. The objective of this chapter is to seek correspondences or discrepancies in the luxury brand image of sustainable brand associations between consumer perceptions and the identity conveyed by the company. By using a netnographic and text mining methodology, this chapter proposes a consumer versus company analysis of luxury brands which have developed an online and an offline business.
Part 3: Complexities and Possibilities: Tactics and Strategies
13. Becoming digital: the need to redesign competences and skills in the fashion industry
Lucia Varra, University of Florence, Italy
The digitisation of fashion companies has an impact on staff skills and competences. This chapter aims to investigate, through the analysis of a business case, the following aspects: the change in the set of skills and competences of some traditional roles of fashion firms (seller, designer, project manager, etc.) due to the impact of technology on business processes; the new professional figures, especially with reference to customer communication processes; and the new leadership and management competencies (with particular reference to human resource management) connected to the new staff skills that must be attracted, selected, developed and retained in digital fashion companies.
14. Channel partners and network brand management: cases of international fashion companies
Serena Rovai, La Rochelle Business School, France and Li Jing, Chongqing University, China
Luxury fashion brands have become increasingly present in the Chinese consumer market and lifestyle; the purchase of luxury goods to experience a luxury lifestyle has taken on an unexpected importance and meaning in the Chinese social context. The birth of the Chinese middle class has fuelled the emergence of a highly diversified consumer class with a new way to express their taste; they have different purchasing attitudes, motivations for purchasing and conceptualisations of luxury as well as an increasing brand consciousness and mode of purchasing. This chapter aims to better understand how domestic Chinese luxury fashion companies can improve their China market entry strategy through network management. The chapter aims to examine three luxury fashion brands that have optimised their entry market strategy and brand positioning in the rapidly rising and evolving luxury market in the PRC. Through an exploration and comparison of the three different luxury fashion brands, the chapter will further deepen understanding of the Chinese luxury brands functioning in China.
15 New consumer generations and their relationships: marketspaces and marketplaces
Nicola Bellini, University of Pisa, Italy
Among the new generations of consumers, millennials certainly represent the most interesting one for luxury fashion brands. They have become a popular research target because they are known for their influences on their own purchasing behaviour as well as on those around them. Millennials are known as the first digitally native generation; technology touches virtually every aspect of their lives. Their knowledge of and interest in the marketplace and love of technology have made them a force to be reckoned with. An increasing number of studies have focused on the online and offline purchasing behaviours, motivations and online shopping attitudes of luxury consumers and consumers' purchasing experience or in-store service in the offline context, this chapter aims to explore the new consumer generation and their relationships in the marketspaces and marketplaces.
