Examining relational benefits and costs in an online non-transactional context

Georgios Tsimonis, Sergios Dimitriadis and Christos Koritos

International Journal of Internet Marketing and Advertising, 2018, vol. 12, issue 2, 122-137

Abstract: The paper explores which relational benefits and costs are appropriate for capturing relationship-building efforts within the context of informational, non-transactional, websites and assesses their effect on behavioural outcomes. Firstly, a preliminary study consisting of two focus groups was organised in order to identify what relational benefits and costs users perceive. At the second stage, quantitative data were collected with the use of an e-questionnaire from 444 users/members of a well-known FMCG company's informational website. Results, based on Structured Equation Modelling, indicate that users perceive functional, social and special treatment benefits. Functional benefits have the strongest effect on relational outcomes followed by relational costs and social benefits. Special treatment benefits have no significant effect on behavioural outcomes. From a managerial perspective, findings provide initial evidence on how the development of informational websites can be used as a relationship-building tool.

Keywords: relational benefits; relational costs; consumer-brand relationships; relationship marketing; relationship building; online brand communities; informational websites. (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2018
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.inderscience.com/link.php?id=90951 (text/html)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:ids:ijimad:v:12:y:2018:i:2:p:122-137

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in International Journal of Internet Marketing and Advertising from Inderscience Enterprises Ltd
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sarah Parker ().