 Exploring the resources associated with consumer vulnerability: Designing nuanced retail hardship programsCharmaine Glavas, Kate Letheren, Rebekah Russell-Bennett, Ryan McAndrew and Rowan E. Bedggood Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, 2020, vol. 57, issue C Abstract: Retailers across a variety of sectors offer hardship programs to assist consumers who are experiencing vulnerability. Hardship programs are typically designed as a ‘one-size-fits-all’ approach, viewing consumer recipients as one homogenous group. To investigate the resources associated with consumer vulnerability, we thematically analyzed reports from 20 government-funded projects in Australia which directly assisted 32,498 low-income households in the energy retail sector. Our findings reveal three resource ‘bundles’: connections-resource-bundle, convenience-resource-bundle and security-resource-bundle. We then provide recommendations for retailers and service providers on what they can do to alleviate hardship for consumers within each resource-bundle. Keywords: Consumer vulnerability; Hardship; Retail; Resource-based view; Motivation–opportunity–ability; Consumer services (search for similar items in EconPapers) Downloads: (external link) Related works: Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:joreco:v:57:y:2020:i:c:s0969698920301570 DOI: 10.1016/j.jretconser.2020.102212 Access Statistics for this article Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services is currently edited by Harry Timmermans More articles in Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services from Elsevier |
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