Tricks of the trade: Understanding and utilizing influencer tactics to improve retailer performance

Sara Rosengren, Colin Campbell and Justine Rapp Farrell

Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, 2024, vol. 79, issue C

Abstract: Despite their impact on contemporary purchase decisions, academic research has given little attention to how social media influencers are impacting the retail ecosystem. This paper sets out to change this by contributing a better understanding of the impact of influencers on retailing activities. Using an explanatory sequential mixed method, we first conduct a survey of consumers’ use of influencers in their purchase decisions. Specifically, we map and compare consumer perceptions of how influencers and retailers perform on different retailing activities. To better understand the differences found, we then conduct focus groups that explore how consumers use and derive value from influencers in their purchase decisions. Our findings highlight how influencers create retail value, and that, in many cases, they are doing so better than retailers themselves. We summarize our findings in terms of learnings for retailers and discuss how influencers may even challenge our notion of retail. We provide strategies that retailers can employ to both work with and mitigate the effect of influencers and call for more research on influencers from a retail perspective.

Keywords: Influencers; Retailing; Retail business models; Retail activities; Social media (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2024
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:joreco:v:79:y:2024:i:c:s096969892400153x

DOI: 10.1016/j.jretconser.2024.103857

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