Research into online retailing

A new research paper co-authored by Open University Business School academic Fiona Ellis-Chadwick, Senior Lecturer in Retail Management, reveals that as the growth of internet retail continues, consumers are likely to become less susceptible to the power of one-to-one marketing.

“Word of mouth has greater impact on product judgments, attitude formation, and decision making than formal marketing communications,” states the report, entitled Internet retailing: the past, the present, and the future. It continues by stressing how word of mouth recommendations via social networking is likely to have a far greater affect on the modern consumers’ online shopping behaviour.

The report goes on by suggesting that it is not all doom and gloom for high street retailers, though, as some may have predicted, revealing that while consumers do consult the internet before going shopping, it is unlikely, at least in the short term, to have a significant on demand levels in the city centre stores with customers valuing the “personal and sensual pleasures of going shopping”.

The paper has been selected by Emerald as part of its focus to highlight some of the journals best submissions and disseminate the original articles to a wider audience.