IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/joreco/v41y2018icp37-47.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The internet dilemma: An exploratory study of luxury firms’ usage of internet-based technologies

Author

Listed:
  • Baker, Jeff
  • Ashill, Nick
  • Amer, Noha
  • Diab, Ekram

Abstract

Surprisingly, there exists a paucity of research examining the adoption of Internet-based technologies by luxury firms. This represents a major shortcoming in our understanding of how luxury firms maintain the image of their brand, sustain a personal link with customers, and retain an aura of exclusivity as they seek to provide their products and services to increasingly technologically-astute customers. Using content analysis, we present the findings of a qualitative investigation of 92 luxury firm websites across the categories of automobiles, fashion, jewelry, watches, and yachts. Study findings indicate that there are noticeable differences in website characteristics and functionality across sectors. Implications of the results are discussed, noting that decisions about using the Internet for branding and selling, one-way and two-way communications, as well as operational and innovative features, are driven by the characteristics of the products being offered. Avenues for future research are also offered.

Suggested Citation

  • Baker, Jeff & Ashill, Nick & Amer, Noha & Diab, Ekram, 2018. "The internet dilemma: An exploratory study of luxury firms’ usage of internet-based technologies," Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, Elsevier, vol. 41(C), pages 37-47.
  • Handle: RePEc:eee:joreco:v:41:y:2018:i:c:p:37-47
    DOI: 10.1016/j.jretconser.2017.11.007
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0969698917300723
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.jretconser.2017.11.007?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Caniato, Federico & Caridi, Maria & Castelli, Cecilia & Golini, Ruggero, 2011. "Supply chain management in the luxury industry: A first classification of companies and their strategies," International Journal of Production Economics, Elsevier, vol. 133(2), pages 622-633, October.
    2. Angy Geerts & Nathalie Veg-Sala, 2011. "Evidence On Internet Communication Management Strategies For Luxury Brands," Post-Print hal-01532821, HAL.
    3. Caniato, Federico & Caridi, Maria & Castelli, Cecilia M. & Golini, Ruggero, 2009. "A contingency approach for SC strategy in the Italian luxury industry: Do consolidated models fit?," International Journal of Production Economics, Elsevier, vol. 120(1), pages 176-189, July.
    4. Keller, Kevin Lane, 2010. "Brand Equity Management in a Multichannel, Multimedia Retail Environment," Journal of Interactive Marketing, Elsevier, vol. 24(2), pages 58-70.
    5. Chandon, Jean-Louis & Laurent, Gilles & Valette-Florence, Pierre, 2016. "Pursuing the concept of luxury: Introduction to the JBR Special Issue on “Luxury Marketing from Tradition to Innovation”," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 69(1), pages 299-303.
    6. Richard L. Daft & Robert H. Lengel, 1986. "Organizational Information Requirements, Media Richness and Structural Design," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 32(5), pages 554-571, May.
    7. Angy Geerts & Nathalie Veg-Sala, 2011. "Evidence On Internet Communication Management Strategies For Luxury Brands," Global Journal of Business Research, The Institute for Business and Finance Research, vol. 5(5), pages 81-94.
    8. Vitaly Pruzhansky, 2014. "Luxury goods, vertical restraints and internet sales," European Journal of Law and Economics, Springer, vol. 38(2), pages 227-246, October.
    9. Nadine Hennigs & Klaus-Peter Wiedmann & Christiane Klarmann & Suzane Strehlau & Bruno Godey & Daniele Pederzoli & Agnes Neulinger & Kartik Dave & Gaetano Aiello & Raffaele Donvito & Koyama Taro & Jank, 2012. "What is the value of luxury? A cross-cultural consumer perspective," Post-Print hal-00779336, HAL.
    10. Angy Geerts, 2013. "Cluster Analysis Of Luxury Brands On The Internet," International Journal of Management and Marketing Research, The Institute for Business and Finance Research, vol. 6(2), pages 79-92.
    11. Kim, Angella J. & Ko, Eunju, 2012. "Do social media marketing activities enhance customer equity? An empirical study of luxury fashion brand," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 65(10), pages 1480-1486.
    12. Tynan, Caroline & McKechnie, Sally & Chhuon, Celine, 2010. "Co-creating value for luxury brands," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 63(11), pages 1156-1163, November.
    13. Brun, Alessandro & Castelli, Cecilia, 2008. "Supply chain strategy in the fashion industry: Developing a portfolio model depending on product, retail channel and brand," International Journal of Production Economics, Elsevier, vol. 116(2), pages 169-181, December.
    14. Beuckels, Emma & Hudders, Liselot, 2016. "An experimental study to investigate the impact of image interactivity on the perception of luxury in an online shopping context," Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, Elsevier, vol. 33(C), pages 135-142.
    15. Virginie de Barnier & Sandrine Falcy & Pierre Valette-Florence, 2012. "Do consumers perceive three levels of luxury? A comparison of accessible, intermediate and inaccessible luxury brands," Post-Print halshs-00786023, HAL.
    16. Grewal, Dhruv & Iyer, Gopalkrishnan R. & Levy, Michael, 2004. "Internet retailing: enablers, limiters and market consequences," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 57(7), pages 703-713, July.
    17. Brun, Alessandro & Caniato, Federico & Caridi, Maria & Castelli, Cecilia & Miragliotta, Giovanni & Ronchi, Stefano & Sianesi, Andrea & Spina, Gianluca, 2008. "Logistics and supply chain management in luxury fashion retail: Empirical investigation of Italian firms," International Journal of Production Economics, Elsevier, vol. 114(2), pages 554-570, August.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Holmqvist, Jonas & Wirtz, Jochen & Fritze, Martin P., 2020. "Luxury in the digital age: A multi-actor service encounter perspective," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 121(C), pages 747-756.
    2. Watanabe, Chihiro & Akhtar, Waleed & Tou, Yuji & Neittaanmäki, Pekka, 2021. "Amazon's New Supra-Omnichannel: Realizing Growing Seamless Switching for Apparel During COVID-19," Technology in Society, Elsevier, vol. 66(C).
    3. Farhad Aliyev & Taylan Urkmez & Ralf Wagner, 2019. "A comprehensive look at luxury brand marketing research from 2000 to 2016: a bibliometric study and content analysis," Management Review Quarterly, Springer, vol. 69(3), pages 233-264, September.
    4. Watanabe, Chihiro & Akhtar, Waleed & Tou, Yuji & Neittaanmäki, Pekka, 2022. "A new perspective of innovation toward a non-contact society - Amazon's initiative in pioneering growing seamless switching," Technology in Society, Elsevier, vol. 69(C).
    5. Taishoff, Marika & Mühlbacher, Hans & Kauppinen-Räisänen, Hannele, 2022. "Building and sustaining resilient luxury service ecosystems," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 146(C), pages 201-215.
    6. Shankar, Amit & Jain, Sheetal, 2021. "Factors affecting luxury consumers’ webrooming intention: A moderated-mediation approach," Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, Elsevier, vol. 58(C).
    7. Pantano, Eleonora & Pedeliento, Giuseppe & Christodoulides, George, 2022. "A strategic framework for technological innovations in support of the customer experience: A focus on luxury retailers," Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, Elsevier, vol. 66(C).
    8. Behera, Rajat Kumar & Gunasekaran, Angappa & Gupta, Shivam & Kamboj, Shampy & Bala, Pradip Kumar, 2020. "Personalized digital marketing recommender engine," Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, Elsevier, vol. 53(C).
    9. Lama Halwani, 2021. "The Online Experience of Luxury Consumers: Insight into Motives and Reservations," International Journal of Business and Management, Canadian Center of Science and Education, vol. 15(11), pages 157-157, July.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Macchion, Laura & Moretto, Antonella & Caniato, Federico & Caridi, Maria & Danese, Pamela & Vinelli, Andrea, 2015. "Production and supply network strategies within the fashion industry," International Journal of Production Economics, Elsevier, vol. 163(C), pages 173-188.
    2. Bachmann, Frank & Walsh, Gianfranco & Hammes, Eva K., 2019. "Consumer perceptions of luxury brands: An owner-based perspective," European Management Journal, Elsevier, vol. 37(3), pages 287-298.
    3. Pengji Wang & Adrian T. H. Kuah & Qinye Lu & Caroline Wong & K. Thirumaran & Emmanuel Adegbite & Wesley Kendall, 2021. "The impact of value perceptions on purchase intention of sustainable luxury brands in China and the UK," Journal of Brand Management, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 28(3), pages 325-346, May.
    4. Sindy Liu & Patsy Perry & Gregory Gadzinski, 2019. "The implications of digital marketing on WeChat for luxury fashion brands in China," Journal of Brand Management, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 26(4), pages 395-409, July.
    5. Francisco J. Conejo & Lawrence F. Cunningham & Clifford E. Young, 2020. "Revisiting the Brand Luxury Index: new empirical evidence and future directions," Journal of Brand Management, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 27(1), pages 108-122, January.
    6. Gurzki, Hannes & Woisetschläger, David M., 2017. "Mapping the luxury research landscape: A bibliometric citation analysis," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 77(C), pages 147-166.
    7. Beuckels, Emma & Hudders, Liselot, 2016. "An experimental study to investigate the impact of image interactivity on the perception of luxury in an online shopping context," Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, Elsevier, vol. 33(C), pages 135-142.
    8. Quach, Sara & Thaichon, Park, 2017. "From connoisseur luxury to mass luxury: Value co-creation and co-destruction in the online environment," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 81(C), pages 163-172.
    9. Klaus, Philipp ‘Phil’, 2020. "The end of the world as we know it? The influence of online channels on the luxury customer experience," Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, Elsevier, vol. 57(C).
    10. Nobre, Helena & Simões, Cláudia, 2019. "NewLux Brand Relationship Scale: Capturing the scope of mass-consumed luxury brand relationships," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 102(C), pages 328-338.
    11. Hsieh, Yi-Ching & Chiu, Hung-Chang & Tang, Yun-Chia & Lee, Monle, 2018. "Do Colors Change Realities in Online Shopping?," Journal of Interactive Marketing, Elsevier, vol. 41(C), pages 14-27.
    12. Shen, Bin & Minner, Stefan & Chan, Hau-Ling & Brun, Alessandro, 2020. "Logistics and supply chain management in the luxury industry," Transportation Research Part E: Logistics and Transportation Review, Elsevier, vol. 143(C).
    13. Yefei Yang & Han Han & Peter K. C. Lee, 2017. "An Exploratory Study of the Mechanism of Sustainable Value Creation in the Luxury Fashion Industry," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 9(4), pages 1-16, March.
    14. Pantano, Eleonora & Passavanti, Rosanna & Priporas, Constantinos-Vasilios & Verteramo, Saverino, 2018. "To what extent luxury retailing can be smart?," Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, Elsevier, vol. 43(C), pages 94-100.
    15. Elodie Deprince & Angy Geerts, 2019. "Evidence On Expectations Of Luxury Vs Nonluxury Consumers On Facebook Luxury Brand Pages," Global Journal of Business Research, The Institute for Business and Finance Research, vol. 13(2), pages 81-94.
    16. Gornostaeva, Galina, 2023. "The development of digital commerce in the fashion industry: The typology of emerging designers in London," Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Elsevier, vol. 186(PA).
    17. Pillai, Kishore Gopalakrishna & Nair, Smitha R., 2021. "The effect of social comparison orientation on luxury purchase intentions," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 134(C), pages 89-100.
    18. Mbaye Fall Diallo & Norchène Ben Dahmane Mouelhi & Mahesh Gadekar & Marie Schill, 2021. "CSR Actions, Brand Value, and Willingness to Pay a Premium Price for Luxury Brands: Does Long-Term Orientation Matter?," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 169(2), pages 241-260, March.
    19. Chung, Yerim & Kim, Alex Jiyoung, 2020. "Effects of mergers and acquisitions on brand loyalty in luxury Brands: The moderating roles of luxury tier difference and social media," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 120(C), pages 434-442.
    20. Pamela K. Robinson & Linda Hsieh, 2016. "Reshoring: a strategic renewal of luxury clothing supply chains," Operations Management Research, Springer, vol. 9(3), pages 89-101, December.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:joreco:v:41:y:2018:i:c:p:37-47. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.journals.elsevier.com/journal-of-retailing-and-consumer-services .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.