Volume 9 Issue 1

The main focus of our article is initial trust. Our aim is to highlight the importance of initial trust in international online transactions and to explore its explanatory factors and consequences in the context of cross-border e-commerce. Our article begins with a literature review defining the study variables and the links between them, which leads to the presentation of our conceptual model. After developing our model, we completed an exploratory qualitative research study to examine the identified variables and determine their significance within the context of cross-border e-commerce. Our study reveals the centrality of the constructs of feedback and third parties to initial trust. Other concepts also emerged, including perceived seller responsiveness, international delivery, and price. The factor of national integrity was eliminated. At the theoretical level, our study underlines the importance of certain factors in the formation of initial trust as well as the impact of initial trust on consumer behavior intentions within the context of cross-border e-commerce. At the managerial level, our study can help managers to manipulate relevant elements that inspire trust in foreign consumers, thereby significantly increasing sales. Given that few studies have investigated the concept of initial trust in cross-border e-commerce, our study fills a research gap. In addition, our study was conducted in the particular context of the rapid spread of the COVID-19 pandemic. As a next step, a confirmatory quantitative study should be carried out to statistically test the model.

Digital transformation of marketing in the public institutions of higher education in Greece, has a key role in the context of the digital revolution. The study aimed at investigating the perceptions and views explicitly or implicitly, of the representatives of the administration of Greek public universities about the relationship between the application of digital marketing and the attraction of students. The study adopted a qualitative research method conducting in-depth interviews with rectors and vice-rectors of 10 representative Greek Universities. Results indicated that administrators believe that digital marketing has a great impact in attracting students, especially young people preparing to graduate from high school. The adoption of digital marketing by the Greek public university is of high priority due to the fact that it influences prospective students in terms of their university choice.

This study aims to clarify how personal characteristics influence the intention to visit Expo 2025 in Osaka, Japan. Specifically, this study focuses on the concepts of consumer innovativeness and market mavenism, which are related to cutting-edge consumers, as the world Expo is an event where people can expect to experience new technologies, products, and services. Multiple regression analysis using data from a web-based questionnaire survey of consumers in urban areas around Tokyo and Osaka confirms that consumer innovativeness and market mavenism had a positive effect on the intention to visit Expo 2025. This study also analyzes the daily information search behavior of consumers with high consumer innovativeness and market mavenism. They were tended to use television and portal sites the most. These results can provide useful insights for marketers worldwide involved in Expo events.

Trading in the informal sector has seen a rapid growth in the developing as well as the developed economies in the last few decades. Consequently, the concept ‘flea market' has gained renewed attention. The study aimed at identifying the preferred advertising and promotional strategies used by traders and how these strategies influence buying decisions in a flea market context. The study adopted a quantitative method using a non-probability convenience sample of 105 consumers attending the Car Boot Flea Market in the City of Durban, South Africa. Results indicated that as there is a need to save money, pricing of items was found to have a strong influence on the buying decision but consumers also look for a good offer, a clean attractive display of the products, an opportunity to test the product before buying and finding a product that the consumer has been seeking for a long time. Traditional marketing activities like calling out prices, issuing pamphlets and using other tactics to attract consumers have little effect on the consumers' decision to buy at the market. Traders must develop a good reputation and the skills to demonstrate to consumers that an attractive offer is being made while still making a profit and be prepared to tailor their promotional messages to specific segments and thus make it easy for consumers to find goods of interest.

The rapid changes seen in retailing practices and consumer behavior models could be attributed to the extensive number of new technology applications. Therefore, these interesting change mechanisms should be explored from different viewpoints using various methods. This study synthesizes the findings of earlier studies in a literature review and provides some implications for future research and practice regarding retailing evolution, especially focusing on the shift from multichannel to omnichannel retailing. It is found that interdisciplinary research methods have been employed in marketing and electronic/mobile commerce to explore current business and consumer practices. This literature review reveals a time-series consistency between multichannel and omnichannel concepts to offer an integrated viewpoint of the available research insights. More specifically, this study attempts to explore and highlight relevant terminology definitions and concepts to underline the crucial issues in this topic derived from different disciplines and to discuss practical implications for future research.