Journal of Interactive Marketing

For over 25 years the idea of consumers using computers to shop electronically, and to receive all types of information directly into their homes, has been put forth as the wave of the future. During the early 1980s a number of such services were tested and brought to the marketplace. But consumers showed little interest in the electronic information services and the ability to shop via such services. Today there seems to be a renewed interest in such computer information services and the potential they offer for direct marketing. A few online consumer information services (OLCISs) have shown slow but steady growth during the past few years, and a number of new services have been introduced with some market acceptance more recently. Several such systems are mentioned as part of Business Week's cover story articles on interactive media (20) and retailing's new frontier (27). We believe that a critical mass of OLCISs is beginning to form and that it is time for marketers and academics to give more attention to these emerging technologies. Our comments toward that end are organized in several major areas. At the outset it is important to look at the beginnings of OLCISs to help achieve an appreciation of how these services have developed. Then we want to examine some of the relevant literature on the retailing status and potential of OLCISs. To provide a more current perspective on OLCISs and where they are likely to lead in the coming years, we present survey results concerning the opinions and attitudes of 100 key informants about OLCISs in general, and their use for retailing in particular. We conclude with implications and challenges for direct marketers and academics.

This article examines an innovative international marketing tool for understanding multicountry consumer decision making. Two personal interview studies of consumers, one from the United States and the other from Germany, are subjected to a content analysis and statistical routines to examine need recognition, prepurchase search, evaluation of alternatives, and purchase decisions, in the women's apparel catalog market. The findings show that consumers follow decision-making paths with definable characteristics, and that these paths differ within countries but not across countries, except by the proportion traversing particular paths.

This article describes a practicable framework for research directed toward understanding and improving direct marketing relationships. Rhetorical theory is used to describe the vocabularies of motive underlying the formation of buyer–seller relationships. The perspectives and adaptive strategies revealed in buyers’ language form the basis for understanding the demands and requirements of direct marketing strategies intended to improve buyer–seller relationships. The use of the framework is illustrated by identifying and comparing language in a business-to-business direct marketing context. We conclude the article with a discussion of managerial implications and directions for future research.

Most direct marketers have invested in complaint programs designed to handle individual complaints. However, an increasing number of direct marketing customers are filing third-party complaints. This article is designed to help in reversing that trend by forwarding a proactive approach to managing complaints. It presents a method to aggregate, analyze, and manage third-party complaints. This is a necessary part of a total complaint management program.

Building customer relationships has become a focus for companies in the 1990s. One of the ways companies are doing this is by providing 800 numbers so customers can have easy access for conducting business or to register problems or complaints. Companies are examining the acceptance of 900 numbers by consumers for similar activities. The following are the results of an exploratory study of consumer usage and satisfaction with 800/900 numbers. The results indicate that although usage is high for 800 numbers, it varies across demographic variables and usage: 900 number usage lags far behind. The results also demonstrate that, in general, consumers have been satisfied with the service they get from 800 numbers as opposed to 900 numbers.

Whereas many profit and nonprofit organizations have successfully utilized direct mail as a means to communicate with their target market, one particular type of nonprofit organization—religious organizations—has been reluctant to consider utilizing this technique. Although many religious organizations are slow in becoming more marketing oriented, others are searching for effective ways to reach their desired constituencies better. Direct mail provides religious organizations with a proven, effective tool for church marketing. This article assesses the current status of church marketing, discusses the advantages of direct mail for use by religious organizations as well as its limitations, and offers appropriate strategies for a direct mail program for churches.