Value Co-Creation Through Multiple Shopping Channels: The Interconnections with Social Exclusion and Well-Being

ABSTRACT

This study examines consumers’ value co-creation via several shopping channels including a traditional out-of-home shopping channel and “smart” channels where consumers use a computer, a mobile phone, or social media. It focuses on the effect that value co-creation has on consumers’ shopping behavior as well as on the perceived contribution of a shopping channel to their well-being, with a focus on individuals who perceive themselves as being socially excluded, particularly by mobility disability. The project was carried out in the United States using an online survey (n = 1,220). Social exclusion has a positive statistically significant effect on respondents’ self-connection with all channels; for many socially excluded respondents the shopping channel has an important role in their lives. Self-connection with the channel has a positive effect on value co-creation and there is a positive relationship between value co-creation and the perceived contribution of the channel on well-being. When consumers help other individuals in their decision making they not only create value for the retailer and for other customers but also contribute positively to their own well-being. Importantly, for smart shopping channels where consumers use a computer or a mobile phone, the effects of value co-creation on the perceived contribution of these channels to consumer well-being are stronger for shoppers with a mobility disability than for those without such a disability.

KEY WORDS AND PHRASES:

• Mobility disability
• multichannel shopping
• shopping channels
• smart shopping channels
• social exclusion
• value co-creation
• well-being

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Charles Dennis

CHARLES DENNIS ([email protected]; corresponding author) is a professor of consumer behavior at the Business School, Middlesex University, United Kingdom. His main research area is (e-)retail and consumer behavior. He is associate editor (Retailing) of the European Journal of Marketing. He is a Chartered Marketer and a Fellow of the Chartered Institute of Marketing. He has published in Journal of Business Research and European Journal of Marketing. His books include Marketing the e-Business, e-Retailing (Routledge); and Objects of Desire: Consumer Behaviour in Shopping Centre Choice (Palgrave). His research into shopping styles has received extensive coverage in the popular media.

Michael Bourlakis

MICHAEL BOURLAKIS ([email protected]) is the director of Demand Chain Management Community (head of department) at Cranfield School of Management. His research interests focus on the interfaces between sustainability, e-business, and marketing and supply chain management. He has published more than fifty journal papers and has been involved with more than twenty research projects funded by the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC), European Union, Technology Strategy Board, and other bodies.

Eleftherios Alamanos

ELEFTHERIOS ALAMANOS ([email protected]) is a lecturer in marketing at Newcastle University, United Kingdom. His work focuses on interventions in consumer behavior. His research has examined consumers’ perceptions of various shopping channels; retail atmospherics; perceptions of food to promote the adoption of a healthy-food-related lifestyle; and location branding and marketing, including tourists’ perceptions of holiday destinations and the influence of holidays on future purchasing behavior.

Savvas Papagiannidis

SAVVAS PAPAGIANNIDIS ([email protected]) is the David Goldman Professor of Innovation and Enterprise at the Newcastle University Business School, United Kingdom. His research interests revolve around electronic business. More specifically, his research aims to inform our understanding of how e-business technologies affect the social and business environment, organizational strategies, and business models, and how these are implemented in functional innovations. His work has been published in several academic journals and presented at international conferences.

J. Joško Brakus

J. JOŠKO BRAKUS ([email protected]) is a professor in marketing at Leeds University Business School, United Kingdom. He studies experiential marketing and branding practices as well as managerial and consumer judgment and decision processes, with specific emphasis in the areas of selective information processing and biased processing. His work has been published in Journal of Marketing Research, Journal of Marketing, Organizational Behavior, Human Decision Processes, and others.