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Retail Marketing Management and Consumer Behavior Research
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Retail Marketing Management and Consumer Behavior Research

A special issue of Sustainability (ISSN 2071-1050). This special issue belongs to the section "Sustainable Management".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (30 September 2023) | Viewed by 9233

Special Issue Editors

Dr. Giang Trinh

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Ehrenberg-Bass Institute, UniSA Business, University of South Australia, Adelaide 5000, Australia
Interests: consumer behaviour; retailing; marketing management
Dr. Anne Sharp

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Ehrenberg-Bass Institute, UniSA Business, University of South Australia, Adelaide 5000, Australia
Interests: sustainable marketing; single use plastics; food waste; kerbside bins; share economy; observational research - what people do rather than claim in retail environments; empirical generalisations; research integrity; stability of perceptual responses; marketing for aboriginal businesses; cross-disciplinary research
Dr. Carl Driesener

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Ehrenberg-Bass Institute, UniSA Business, University of South Australia, Adelaide 5000, Australia
Interests: modelling buyer behaviour and brand performance metrics; brand image; brand equity and the human mind; search engine marketing and online behaviour

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

Sustainability has many aspects in marketing. This Special Issue calls for papers that investigate sustainability in retail marketing management and consumer behaviour. The scope of ‘sustainability’ for this Special Issue includes the aspects of environmental and social sustainability, as well as the long-terms survival of businesses. We welcome submissions that address one or more of the following areas:

  • Green marketing in retailing;
  • Ethical marketing in retailing;
  • Health marketing in retailing;
  • The retail environment and sustainability;
  • Consumer behaviour towards product sustainability claims;
  • Consumer behaviour towards healthier products;
  • Sustainable branding and advertising in retailing;
  • Sustainable packaging in retailing;
  • Sustainability in the supply chain, e.g., local production, carbon footprints;
  • Sustainable product portfolio management in retailing;
  • Sustainable distribution in retailing, e.g., waste avoidance and disposal;
  • Sustainable business growth in retailing;
  • The marketing challenges of making ethical/sustainable consumption mainstream in retailing;
  • Consumer perceptions and scepticism towards sustainability claims;
  • Consumer cynicism, distrust and apathy;
  • Anti-consumption.

This Special Issue seeks to publish a collection of papers that shed light on these topics. The key objective is to help firms in the retailing industry sustainabily grow their business whilst also balancing the needs of the environment and larger society. 

Dr. Giang Trinh
Dr. Anne Sharp
Dr. Carl Driesener
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Sustainability is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2400 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

  • sustainability
  • retailing
  • consumer behaviour
  • marketing

Published Papers (5 papers)

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Research

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16 pages, 302 KiB  
Article
Myths and Realities of Retail Shopper Behaviour towards ‘Sustainable’ Brands
by Anne Sharp, Meagan Wheeler and Magda Nenycz-Thiel
Sustainability 2023, 15(24), 16661; https://doi.org/10.3390/su152416661 - 8 Dec 2023
Viewed by 1235
Abstract
Sustainable marketing aims to encourage consumer behaviour that will improve the environmental and social outcomes of consumption. Despite decades of effort, however, manufacturers and retailers often see disappointing shopper responses to their sustainable marketing efforts. This paper argues that this is because many [...] Read more.
Sustainable marketing aims to encourage consumer behaviour that will improve the environmental and social outcomes of consumption. Despite decades of effort, however, manufacturers and retailers often see disappointing shopper responses to their sustainable marketing efforts. This paper argues that this is because many sustainable marketing efforts are hampered by false assumptions about how buyers behave in retail settings. The purpose of this paper is to take two commonly accepted sustainable marketing retail beliefs—that ‘sustainable’ brand buyers are a different type of retail shopper and that they are more loyal to these brands than shoppers of non-sustainable brands—and draw upon two established marketing empirical generalisations, the Law of Brand User Profiles and the Law of Double Jeopardy, both built over decades of research, to show that these beliefs are, in fact, myths. We use 22 sets of continuous data spanning five categories in the UK to illustrate this. Mean Absolute Deviations were used to compare the profile of sustainable brand users against non-sustainable brand users. The Dirichlet model of buyer behaviour was applied to the data to examine loyalty to sustainable brands. The results show sustainable brands are just like all other retail brands in their performance. This is a positive finding as it means they can utilise ‘regular’ brand growth knowledge to increase their market share. Overall, the paper illustrates the process and benefits of moving to a view of sustainable marketing that has stronger scientific underpinnings and that leads to more realistic shopper response expectations for retailers and manufacturers. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Retail Marketing Management and Consumer Behavior Research)
21 pages, 2374 KiB  
Article
Unique and Cheap or Damaged and Dirty? Young Women’s Attitudes and Image Perceptions about Purchasing Secondhand Clothing
by Madeline Taylor, Katherine M. White, Lucy Caughey, Amy Nutter and Amelia Primus
Sustainability 2023, 15(23), 16470; https://doi.org/10.3390/su152316470 - 30 Nov 2023
Cited by 1 | Viewed by 2860
Abstract
There is increasing pressure on young consumers to practice sustainable consumption. With young women being key agents in fashion consumption, switching their purchasing to secondhand clothing over new is instrumental to reducing textile waste. This study applied the Theory of Planned Behaviour and [...] Read more.
There is increasing pressure on young consumers to practice sustainable consumption. With young women being key agents in fashion consumption, switching their purchasing to secondhand clothing over new is instrumental to reducing textile waste. This study applied the Theory of Planned Behaviour and Prototype Willingness Model to identify key drivers informing young women’s secondhand clothing purchasing decisions. Young Australian women (N = 48) completed qualitative surveys assessing their underlying attitudinal, normative, and control beliefs and perceived images of typical secondhand clothing shoppers. Thematic analysis indicated the main benefits of secondhand clothing purchasing to be the environmental impact and cost savings, with drawbacks being quality issues, reduced shopping experience, and greater effort required. Clothing diversity was both positive (‘unique finds’) and had a downside (limited sizes). Approvers of secondhand purchasing were mainly friends and family, with older relatives being less supportive. Key barriers were increased prices for quality items and the time required to locate them. Images of typical secondhand clothes shoppers were generally positive (‘cool’, ‘thrifty’, ‘unique’, ‘eco-friendly’), while ‘materialistic’, ‘upper-class’, and ‘ignorant’ but also ‘trendy’ indicated mixed perceptions about those who did not. Crucial in our findings was clarifying the intersections and contextual context of participants’ responses. Identifying the nuances in the underlying beliefs driving young women’s fashion choices assists in theory-informed strategies to encourage sustainable consumption of clothing. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Retail Marketing Management and Consumer Behavior Research)
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17 pages, 2400 KiB  
Article
Influence of and Resistance to Nudge Decision-Making in Professionals
by Michela Balconi, Carlotta Acconito, Katia Rovelli and Laura Angioletti
Sustainability 2023, 15(19), 14509; https://doi.org/10.3390/su151914509 - 5 Oct 2023
Cited by 4 | Viewed by 1403
Abstract
This study investigated how professionals’ decision-making is influenced by nudging and their resistance to such a form of conditioning. A total of 61 professionals performed a nudge task in which three different scenarios related to wellbeing and sustainable behaviours were presented to the [...] Read more.
This study investigated how professionals’ decision-making is influenced by nudging and their resistance to such a form of conditioning. A total of 61 professionals performed a nudge task in which three different scenarios related to wellbeing and sustainable behaviours were presented to the participants under boosted and soft nudge conditions. After the presentation of each scenario, participants were required to decide between two options of choice: one choice was more nudge-induced, the other was not. Electrophysiological (EEG), autonomic, behavioural, and self-report data were collected to determine the correlates of resistance with nudge conditions. The findings showed that professionals’ resistance to nudging is high and not influenced by boosted or soft nudges. Also, while the generalized increase in EEG delta, theta, and beta power localized and lateralized in the right temporoparietal regions can lay the foundation of “the neural architecture” of resistance to nudging, the significant increase in SCR for the boosted compared to soft condition highlighted the pivotal role of this marker as the only indicator that differentiates the two nudge conditions. Overall, evaluating the correlates of the resistance to nudge can be useful to render professionals aware of the explicit and implicit factors to be strengthened to resist to such form of conditioning. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Retail Marketing Management and Consumer Behavior Research)
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20 pages, 328 KiB  
Article
Disentangling Consumers’ CSR Knowledge Types and Effects
by Mark Avis, Roman Konopka, Diana Gregory-Smith and Nitha Palakshappa
Sustainability 2022, 14(19), 11946; https://doi.org/10.3390/su141911946 - 22 Sep 2022
Cited by 4 | Viewed by 1498
Abstract
This paper examines consumers’ objective knowledge of corporate social responsibility (CSR) for brands over different product categories, and investigates whether objective knowledge influences attitudes to CSR, and the relationships between demographics and objective knowledge. The research uses an innovative approach to examining consumer [...] Read more.
This paper examines consumers’ objective knowledge of corporate social responsibility (CSR) for brands over different product categories, and investigates whether objective knowledge influences attitudes to CSR, and the relationships between demographics and objective knowledge. The research uses an innovative approach to examining consumer CSR knowledge via (largely) unprompted recall. The analysis uses independent judges to score actual consumer objective knowledge of the CSR of well-known brands against the policies and actions of the brand owner. The research reveals that participants’ objective knowledge of CSR was limited or, in many cases, there was no knowledge. Further, the number and type of CSR policies did not influence overall evaluations of CSR. However, where objective knowledge was held, it did positively influence evaluations. The findings of the research direct managerial attention towards improvement of the communication of CSR, including using the research methodology here to evaluate the success of current communications. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Retail Marketing Management and Consumer Behavior Research)

Other

Jump to: Research

11 pages, 282 KiB  
Concept Paper
Sector-Scale Proliferation of CSR Quality Label Programs via Mimicry: The Rotkäppchen Effect
by Ralf Buckley
Sustainability 2023, 15(14), 10910; https://doi.org/10.3390/su151410910 - 12 Jul 2023
Cited by 2 | Viewed by 807
Abstract
Proliferation of CSR quality certification programs can be analysed within theories of mimicry. Some firms use third-party quality certificates to signal their CSR practices to consumers accurately. These firms and consumers benefit from few, simple, recognized, reliable labels. Other firms use competing or [...] Read more.
Proliferation of CSR quality certification programs can be analysed within theories of mimicry. Some firms use third-party quality certificates to signal their CSR practices to consumers accurately. These firms and consumers benefit from few, simple, recognized, reliable labels. Other firms use competing or own-brand labels to signal deceptively, gaining competitive advantage without compliance costs. Unreliable labels act as mimics to dupe consumers. If consumers cannot determine which labels are misleading, they ignore them all. Within ecological theories of mimicry, this is known as aggressive reverse Brouwerian automimicry. CSR-label research has a different naming tradition, and this sector-scale effect could be called a rotkäppchen effect, analogous to program-scale groucho and firm-scale goldilocks effects. It is testable by analysing mimicry mechanisms or predicted patterns. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Retail Marketing Management and Consumer Behavior Research)
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