UNDERSTANDING COSMOPOLITAN CONSUMERS’ REPEAT PURCHASING IN THE eMARKETPLACE: CONTRIBUTION FROM A BRAND ORIENTATION THEORETICAL PERSPECTIVE

As this scientific paper is positioned under the relatively big umbrella of relationship marketing; it thus makes a fruitful attempt to bridge the gap between scholarship and practice. Our overriding objective of this study was to explore critically the contribution of customers’ brand orientation as well as other vital constructs such as social media engagement, (e)vendor reputation and (e)WoM on repeat purchasing intention amongst cosmopolitan consumers in eMarketplace context. Data were collected through a non-probabilistic sampling technique from cosmopolitan consumers in one of the EU-27 countries, Slovakia. Data was analysed using the Partial Least Squares structural equation modelling. This study modelled online consumers’ repeat purchasing decision using constructs such as brand orientation, vendor reputation, vendors’ social media site engagement. The study found that brand orientation leads to a higher perception of vendors’ reputation online. The findings showed that a positive and significant relationship exists between brand orientation and consumers engagement with vendors’ social media site. Furthermore, this studyfound that vendors’ reputation has a significant effect on (e)WoM. Importantly, this study confirmed the substantial effect of (e)WoM on repurchase intentions. These findings imply that online retail brands should ‘push’ their product offerings via some of the popular social networking sites (SNSs) and, importantly, endeavour to keep track of those online users in the social media community who most likely have affinity towards their brands and/or other similar brands. By and large, the paper has demonstrated that the studied constructs are key in consumers’ decision making online. Hopefully, the findings of the research will assist the online retail vendor in its execution of (robust) customer friendly policies.