Measuring Customer Attitudes Toward Single Vs. Hybrid Retail Formats: Impact Of Gender And Brand Name Familiarity

Abstract

Numerous researchers have focused on the issues of online businesses, but not many studies have addressed the issues of catalogue business expansion to online business. This study raises questions that customer attitudes toward those companies offering a combination of catalogue and e-business differ from those offering catalogue or e-business only. A statistical report (www.thestandard.com 2002) shows that the profitability of catalogue business with online is about 79% in 2002, while the profitability of pure e-business is about 36%. In addition, this study explores variables, such as gender and brand name impact, and also consumer satisfaction, factors that are highly related to the customers’ willingness to purchase. Experiments with survey methods have been applied to analyze these research issues. The major findings provide implications and offer suggestions to various retail formats, such as catalogue business, e-business, and e-business including catalogue sales.