Business School Jillian Dawes Farquhar, Professor of Marketing Strategy, Business School, University of Bedfordshire. Professor Jenny Rowley, Manchester Metropolitan University Published in Marketing Theory 9, 4, 1-14

To explore ‘convenience’ in a multichannel setting To consider how existing work contributes to understanding consumer service consumption To propose a theoretical model of convenience in service consumption Business School

 Familiar with the term ‘convenience goods’, particularly convenience meals?  What do these goods and services seek to achieve? Whose time, whose effort?  Convenience is related to the time and effort that consumers spend in purchasing (Brown 1990; Brown & McEnally 1993) or consuming a product.  Convenience is an attribute that reduces the non-monetary price of a good/service (Kotler & Zaltman 1971).  Effort or energy expenditure is a distinct type of non-monetary cost that influences satisfaction, where effort can be physical, cognitive or emotional.  Two ways of thinking about convenience:  product attribute level  consumer behaviour level (Yale & Venkatesh 1986). Business School

 Consumer-decision-making model begins to appear (see Table 1).  Idea of a convenience inclination appears frequently – refers to a person’s general preference for convenient good and services (Anderson 1972, Yale and Venkatesh 1986).  Convenience-oriented consumer seeks “to accomplish a task in the shortest time with least expenditure of human energy” (Morganosky 1986:37).  Who doesn’t? Depends on the nature of the convenience and..?  Convenience orientation or consumption influenced by income, age, occupation, time pressure, role etc.  People vary in their perceptions of time scarcity which influences the way that they use their time hence impacting on notions of convenience (Kaufmann-Scarborough and Lindquist 2003).  But consumers may not be convenience-oriented as such and orientation will vary according to influencing factors (Brown & McEnally 1993). Business School

 Convenience a multi-dimensional construct of time and effort (at least)  Five dimensions: time, place, acquisition (transaction?), use and execution (Brown 1990)  Five dimensions: decision, access, transaction, benefit, post purchase derived from stages in decision-making (Berry et al, 2002, Seiders et al 2007)  Three dimensions: time, place and execution (Yoon & Kim 2007) Business School

 Empirical model (Seiders et al. 2007) relating to consumer decision-making model SERVCON. 17-item scale.  Partial support from Colwell et al (2008) but access not supported (might be choice of research context)  Personal and situational goals proposed as being related to decisions about convenience (Brown and McEnally 1993, Ratneshwar et al 2001) ongoing Business School

Table 1 Mapping the dimensions of convenience Stages in decision-making Brown (1990) Brown and McEnally (1993) Yoon and Kim (2007) Berry et al 2002, Seiders et al 2007 problem recognition time decision information search placeacquisitionplaceaccess* evaluation of alternatives acquisition-transaction* selectionuse-benefit outcomesexecutionconsumptionexecution post-purchase-disposal-post purchase

 Multi-channel research recent but extensive. Includes goods retailing (Berman & Thelen 2004, Nunes & Cespedes 2003), competition between direct and conventional retailers (Balabsubramanian 1998) and customer profitability across channels in catalogue business (Thomas & Sullivan, Venkatesan et al 2007).  Customer multi-channel service evaluations have had complementary effects on overall satisfaction with service provider (Montoya-Weiss et al 2003) implying that convenience may play a role therein.  Channel usage research indicates importance of grouping customers by demographics, lifestyle and attitudes where again convenience or perceptions of time/effort expenditure may be considered (Black et al 2002, Thornton & White 2001, Wan et al 2005). Business School

 Need for convenience is included as a lifestyle variable in buying from a particular channel (Schoenbachler & Gordon 2002)  Instrumental shopping motives increase likelihood of using most convenient (?) channel. Consumers with busy lifestyles will prefer more accessible and convenient channels (Black et al 2002)  Internet and catalogue shopping perceived as time saving but respondents rarely purchased via this channel to save time (Alreck & Settle 2002  Grocery shoppers found internet channel convenient providing 24 hour access, extensive choice, ease of use and time saving (Ramus & Nielsen 2005). Business School

 Convenience is widely used in multichannel literature without really agreeing what it is.  Measured with other items such as trust and efficacy (Choudhury & Karahanna 2008)  Measures tend the word ‘convenience’ in the items (e.g. Choudhury & Karahanna 2008)  Danger of confusing the product attribute level with the consumer choice criteria.  Goals appear important in channel choice selection (Balasubramanian et al.2005) eg economic, symbolic Business School

 Exploring further with goals (situational/personal)  Exploring convenience within context of value creation  Empirical work – research Business School