Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services 32 (2016) 151–163

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Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/jretconser

Understanding Customer Engagement and Loyalty: A Case of Mobile

Devices for Shopping
Rakhi Thakur
S. P. Jain Institute of Management & Research, Inside Bhavans College Campus, Munshi Nagar, Dadabhai Road, Andheri West, Mumbai 400 058, India

art ic l e i nf o a b s t r a c t

Article history: This study aims at developing and validating a measurement model for customer engagement with
Received 16 February 2016 specific focus on mobile devices for shopping. Further, role of customer engagement in building customer
Received in revised form loyalty is explored. The research in this investigation used three studies for developing customer en-
4 June 2016
gagement scale and validating the proposed model. The study involved data collection from experts and
Accepted 6 June 2016
Available online 23 June 2016
users through varied methods including in-depth interviews, and surveys. Further structural equation
modeling was used to analyze the data. Findings of this study include development and validation of
Keywords: customer engagement as second order construct arising out of six different customer experiences - so-
Customer engagement cial-facilitation, self-connect, intrinsic enjoyment, time-filler, utilitarian and monetary evaluation experiences.
Customer experiences
Further, the study established significant role of customer engagement in predicting customer loyalty in
Customer loyalty
addition to existing constructs of satisfaction and convenience. This study contributes to evolving
Mobile devices
scholarly research on customer engagement. This study further provides a framework to retailers for
devising matrices to track experiences and engagement of customers on mobile devices for shopping.
Further, retailers may be able to use customer engagement to differentiate themselves from competition
in attracting merchants and advertisers.
& 2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction
Marketing landscapes are changing in last couple of decades
whereby customers are not mere passive receivers of company
messages but are actively involved in interactive relationships.
Customer interactions with companies are shifting from tradi-
tional one-way mass media like print, radio and television to in-
teractive online, social and mobile platforms. Practicing managers
are therefore increasingly looking for ways to engage customers
with their products through multiple online and mobile media.
The research too in this domain is now shifting from customary
construct of satisfaction to more active constructs of ‘involvement’,
‘experience’ and more recently ‘engagement’ in customer choice
models to predict loyalty. However, existing research on customer
engagement is largely conceptual (Brodie et al., 2011; Jaakkola and
Alexander, 2014; Verhoef et al., 2010) with limited literature on
operationalization, measurement and empirical validation of the
construct. Also, engagement through mobile device, which is the
first screen for a large customer base, remains to be unexplored.
The consumer ‘engagement’ concept has been conceptualized
to explain consumers’ interactive relationship with media chan-
nels or brands (Brodie et al., 2013; Calder, Malthouse and Schaedel,
E-mail address: rakhi.thakur@spjimr.org
2009; van Doorn et al., 2010; Hollebeek, Glynn and Brodie, 2014).
Brodie et al. (2011) define ‘customer engagement’ as “a psycholo-
gical state that occurs by virtue of interactive, co-creative custo-
mer experiences with a focal agent/object (e.g. a media).” In the
era where online and mobile media are gaining more and more
importance in the lives of customers, it is important to understand
how experiences on these media lead to high customer engage-
ment and in turn better business results for companies. The cus-
tomer engagement in this study is conceptualized as arising out of
customer experiences (Calder et al., 2013; Malthouse and Schae-
del, 2009) while browsing through the shopping applications on
mobile device. With mobile devices being first and most intimate
screens for customers, engagement on this media has high po-
tential for retailers to get desirable business outcomes from cus-
tomers in the form of purchases and advocacy. Further, they are
likely to get favorable view from merchants and advertisers by
virtue of better customer engagement. This study is aimed at ex-
ploring the role of customer engagement in building customer
loyalty. Towards this aim, this study has two objectives – a) to
develop and validate a measurement model for customer en-
gagement with specific focus on mobile devices for shopping, and
b) to explore the role of customer engagement in building custo-
mer loyalty. This paper achieves these objectives by a research
program involving series of studies employing mixed method
research.

http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jretconser.2016.06.004
0969-6989/& 2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
152 R. Thakur / Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services 32 (2016) 151–163
The contribution of this paper is threefold. First, consumer
engagement construct is defined with reference to usage of mobile
devices especially for shopping and its relationship to customer
experiences. While researchers have explored distinct customer
experiences in-store and on-line settings, this study builds on
engagement as a second-order construct that is manifested with
various first-order “experience” constructs similar to (Calder et al.,
2013; Malthouse and Schaedel, 2009) with reference to usage of
mobile shopping applications. Second, this study identifies new
experience dimensions for mobile devices and generates measures
of engagement along with empirical validation of the measures.
This provides novel insights as consumer behaviour in using mo-
bile devices has several dimensions that have not been observed in
online media using traditional PC devices. Thirdly, role of customer
engagement in customer predisposition to shop more thereby
demonstrating loyalty towards retailer is examined. The discussion
on role of customer engagement is closed with how engagement
can help companies in getting commitment from customers and in
attracting as well as retaining merchants and advertisers.
2. Literature review
This section on review of relevant literature is divided into five
sub-sections to achieve these objectives. Relevant literature on
‘Customer Engagement’ and ‘Mobile Marketing’ is reviewed in first
two sections to build arguments for developing measurement
model for customer engagement with mobile devices for shop-
ping. Literature related to customer loyalty and its traditional
antecedents are reviewed in section three towards second objec-
tive of this study. In section four, literature relating customer en-
gagement and customer loyalty in similar environment is re-
viewed to build conceptual model for this study in final section.
2.1. Customer engagement
Customer engagement has been attracting considerable atten-
tion among practitioners as well as academicians in recent years.
Customer engagement is a concept that is being explored as a tool
to facilitate predictive power of customer behaviour including
loyalty and referrals (Roderick and Brodie, 2011; Brodie et al.,
2011; Calder et al., 2009; Pham and Avnet, 2009). This study be-
gins with an overview of different conceptualizations of customer
engagement from marketing literature. Scholars have con-
ceptualized engagement in varied forms including consumer and
customer engagement (Bolton, 2011; Verhoef et al., 2010), custo-
mer-brand engagement (Roderick J. Brodie et al., 2013; Hollebeek
et al., 2014), community engagement (Brodie et al., 2013), custo-
mer-medium engagement (Calder, Malthouse and Schaedel, 2009;
Kim et al., 2013), engagement for co-creation (Jaakkola and Alex-
ander, 2014; Sawhney et al., 2005) etc. Such varied con-
ceptualizations reflect evolving state of the construct. It also re-
flects on the growing interest among scholars from different
viewpoints.
Along with varied conceptualizations, there are diverse defi-
nitions of customer engagement proposed by marketing scholars.
Definitions of customer engagement vary from “a psychological
process” driving customer loyalty (Bowden, 2008) to “a consumer's
state of being occupied, fully-absorbed or engrossed,” (Pham and
Avnet, 2009). Hollebeek, 2011 defined “customer brand engage-
ment” as “the level of a customer's motivational, brand-related,
and context-dependent state of mind characterized by specific
levels of cognitive, emotional, and behavioral activity in brand
interactions”. Further, “online brand engagement” has been con-
ceptualized to comprise the dimensions of “sustained cognitive
processing,” “instrumental value” (i.e., utility and relevance), and
“experiential value” (i.e., emotional congruence with the narrative
schema encountered in computer-mediated entities) (Mollen and
Wilson, 2010). Calder, Malthouse and Schaedel (2009) focused on
the experiential aspects while defining “media engagement” as
“the sum of the motivational experiences consumers have with a
media product.”
Marketing scholars have essentially conceptualized engage-
ment as a multidimensional construct (Bowden, 2008; Calder,
Malthouse and Schaedel, 2009; Hollebeek, 2011; Mollen and
Wilson, 2010) covering cognitive, emotional and behavioral di-
mensions. With the exception of van Doorn et al. (2010) who have
proposed customer engagement behaviour as a uni-dimensional
construct focusing on behavioral aspect, existing literature has
strong inclination towards multidimensional form for customer
engagement construct. Calder et al. (2009) proposed that en-
gagement comes from experiencing a medium in a certain way.
They defined an experience as a consumer’s beliefs about how a
medium fits into his/her life. Customer experiences could be dri-
ven by customer motivations for interactions with the focal object
(medium, service/ brand). In the language of measurement mod-
els, experiences are first-order constructs while engagement is a
second-order construct. Following Calder et al. (2009), this study
focuses on customer-media engagement building on the relevant
customer experiences. This approach is appropriate as this study
focuses on mobile phones as a medium for online retailers for
building engagement with the customers.
2.2. Mobile marketing – users and shoppers
The mobile devices offer customers anytime, anywhere ability
to communicate without being connected by wires making them
ubiquitous. Additionally, the mobile device is personal which has
made it not just a technological gadget, but a cultural object that is
part of everyday traditions and practices (Shankar et al., 2010).
With mobile devices becoming an integral part of lives, research in
the field of customer adoption has explored drivers of adoption
through varied lenses. Consistent with the drivers of the adoption
of any technological innovation, researchers have used Innovation
Diffusion Theory (Rogers, 1983), Technology Adoption Model
(Davis, 1989), Unified Theory of Acceptance and Usage of Tech-
nology (Venkatesh et al., 2003) to explore adoption of mobile
devices and services. While these theories essentially focused on
utilitarian aspect, some of the recent work is exploring hedonic
aspects of adoption in case of mobile device based services. These
include Uses and Gratification theory (Leung and Wei, 2000;
Nysveen, 2005), which focuses on non-utilitarian benefits from
adoption such as expressiveness and enjoyment and Media Grat-
ification Theory (Atkin, 1973), adopted to mobile media (Tsang,
2004) that considers customers having different motives, utilitar-
ian or hedonic, when using mobile media. As demonstrated by
Nysveen et al., mobile devices usage intentions can be driven by
perceived expressiveness of the mobile device (i.e., its ability to
express fashion and style), enjoyment perceptions, usefulness and
usability, and social pressure. The classic Unified Theory of Ac-
ceptance and Usage of Technology has also incorporated hedonic
aspect as important adoption parameter while studying mobile
internet adoption in a recent study to develop UTAUT2 (Venkatesh
et al., 2012). While investigating customer engagement with mo-
bile devices, therefore it is appropriate to explore both utilitarian
and hedonic experiences.
Consumers often use mobile devices for several activities, in-
cluding communication, listening to music, information search,
conducting transactions, managing daily schedules, and socializ-
ing. Consumers also use the mobile devices for a variety of activ-
ities relating to shopping including creating shopping lists, pro-
duct and price search, product comparison, making purchases, and
 R. Thakur / Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services 32 (2016) 151–163
several post-purchase activities (Shankar et al., 2010). To satisfy
needs of such customers, increasingly retailers are adopting mo-
bile marketing activities that include creation of mobile website,
emailing and messaging on mobile platforms, mobile advertising,
mobile couponing, mobile customer service and in recent years
developing mobile shopping applications. These practices have
been found to result in higher customer engagement and better
return on investment (Dickinger and Kleijnen, 2008; Nysveen
et al., 2005). With mobile as the first screen for the customers,
there is an increasing focus among retailers towards promoting
mobile applications that are downloaded to reside on the mobile
device.
Internet retailing led to reduced search costs for the consumers,
an increase in variety of products and lower prices leading to
empowerment to make better choices for themselves. Mobile
services increased the value for consumers from being accessible
independent of time and place, and being customized based on
time, location and personal profile (Ström et al., 2014). The studies
reviewed by Ström et al. (2014) also observed that mobile service
offer values that may be utilitarian, emotional, social and mone-
tary to mobile device shoppers. Creating experiences that generate
value for customers can drive customer engagement. Customers
may use mobile device shopping to satisfy different motives and
perceive outcome values differently in different contexts, resulting
in different effects on retailers’ outcome value. Mobile channels
may be preferred by consumers in certain shopping situations that
create higher emotional values such as filling spare time (Peters
et al., 2008) while traveling, on coffee brakes. In some situations,
customers may perceive mobile channels delivering higher utili-
tarian values, such as efficiency (Kleijnen, de Ruyter, and Wetzels,
2007; Laukkanen and Lauronen, 2005) and time and location
convenience (Kleijnen, de Ruyter, and Wetzels, 2007). Social values
of mobile channels may be more important for emotional cate-
gories (Pihlström and Gregory, 2008), as consumers may feel a
need for social approval. Monetary value may be delivered
in situations where retailers offer special pricing or coupons for
mobile channel exclusively. Experiences generating out of these
varied values for customers are likely to form part of customer
engagement with mobile device shopping applications. In this
study, four experiences - utilitarian, emotional, social and mone-
tary forming dimensions of engagement with mobile shopping
applications are explored in accordance to the works of Calder
et al. (2013), (2009), Ström et al. (2014). Correspondingly, it is
hypothesized.
H1. Customer Engagement is a second-order construct reflected by
the first order dimensions of utilitarian, emotional, social and
monetary evaluation experiences.
2.3. Loyalty
Loyalty may be defined as a customer's intention or predis-
position to purchase from the same seller or the same brand again
(Edvardsson et al., 2000), and is an outcome of the conviction that
the value received from the said seller/ brand is higher than the
value available from other alternatives (Hallowell, 1996). Loyalty,
therefore has been considered to be a key factor in achieving
success and sustainability for a seller or brand over time (Flavián
et al., 2006; Keating et al., 2003).
Loyalty is measured through a psychological component that is
based on customer feelings that motivates a general attachment to
the people, products or services of an organization (Hallowell,
1996), and a behavioral component, based on aspects such as the
frequency of visits to a store or the percentage of expense (Nilsson
and Olsen 1995). This study focuses on attitudinal loyalty that
refers to the customers’ intentions to stay committed to the seller
153
or brand by making repeat purchases especially using same mobile
shopping platform in this case.
2.3.1. Antecedents of loyalty - Satisfaction, usability and convenience
Researchers have explored several antecedents of loyalty in
online environment with satisfaction, interface usability and con-
venience getting prime importance (Calder et al., 2013; Flavián
et al., 2006; Srinivasan et al., 2002; Szymanski and Hise, 2000).
2.3.1.1. Satisfaction. Satisfaction is defined as a post-choice eva-
luative judgment concerning a specific purpose decision (Oliver,
1979) and is often used in research on the confirmation/dis-
confirmation paradigm in consumer choice models (Swan and
Richard 1989). Marketing scholars have extensively analysed sa-
tisfaction in brick-and-mortar, service and online retail environ-
ments (Edvardsson et al., 2000; Gustafsson et al., 2005; Johnson
and Fornell, 1991). Satisfaction has been regularly characterized as
the final goal of marketing and its role in predicting loyalty has
been well established (Calder et al., 2013; Shankar et al., 2003).
With specific focus on services, satisfaction may be defined as
an affective customer condition that results from a global eva-
luation of all the aspects that make up the customer relationship
rather than evaluating specific transaction with the service pro-
vider (Anderson et al., 1994; Bayus, 1992; Homburg and Giering,
2001). Geyskens et al. (1999) proposed that satisfaction construct
can be divided into two distinct dimensions – a) affective predis-
position sustained by economic conditions, such as the volume of
sales or profit margins obtained and b) psychological factors, such
as a partner fulfilling promises or the ease of relationships with
the aforementioned partner. While affective satisfactions is an
appropriate dimension for a company satisfaction survey or macro
study on organizational satisfaction, in a study where researcher is
investigating customer intention at an individual level, psycholo-
gical dimension is an appropriate measure. This study therefore
uses psychological perspective of satisfaction as a predictor of
loyalty intentions.
2.3.1.2. Usability. Usability may be defined as the effort required to
use a computer system, specifically mobile phone interface for
shopping in this case. Usability concerns several aspects such as
the ease with which the user is capable of learning to manage the
system, the ease of memorizing the basic functions, the grade of
efficiency with which the interface has been designed, the degree
of error avoidance and the general satisfaction of the user in terms
of manageability (Nielsen and Hackos, 1993). Therefore, greater
levels of usability will be associated to lower levels of difficulty to
manage that functionality (Davis, 1989) and, as a result, usability
has been traditionally considered a key factor for predicting con-
tinuing intentions to use a system (Davis, 1989; Flavián et al.,
2006; Teo, 2006). Focusing specific attention on the mobile in-
terface, usability reflects the perceived ease of navigation, ease of
conducting transaction, response time and interface simplicity. In
a recent study on role of usability in building satisfaction and
loyalty towards mobile banking, perceived usability was found to
have positive impact on the effective customer satisfaction and
company preference for future interactions (Thakur, 2014).
2.3.1.3. Convenience. Convenience seeking is the degree to which
consumers strive for time saving in their shopping. Convenience
offered by a retailers has been demonstrated to stimulate customer
loyalty even in traditional retail formats (Eastlick and Feinberg,
1999; Noble et al., 2006). Convenience is derived from a retailer
minimizing time costs and maximizing shopping opportunities for
the consumer. Narrow assortment of products at local merchants
leading to need for shopping at a number of retailers and restricted
operating hours decrease convenience for customers. Online
154 R. Thakur / Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services 32 (2016) 151–163
retailing offers convenience of shopping to customers round the
clock from their home (Szymanski and Hise, 2000) and mobile re-
tailing further increases the convenience by making it available
without the need to use a computer. Convenience seeking was
conceptualized as the motive in which consumers strive for effort
and time saving in their shopping.
2.4. Engagement and loyalty
‘Customer engagement’ has been viewed as a concept expected
to provide enhanced predictive and explanatory power of focal
consumer behaviour outcomes, including loyalty towards the focal
object (brand or medium) (Avnet and Tory Higgins, 2006; van
Doorn et al., 2010; Pham and Avnet, 2009). Researchers have de-
scribed CE as “a psychological process” that drives customer loyalty
(Bowden, 2008); and a form of connection that consumers make
with other consumers, companies, and specific brands that is
conducive to enhancement of brand loyalty (Brodie et al., 2011).
Customer engagement is considered as a potential antecedent to
repeated purchases (behavioral loyalty) prompted by a strong in-
ternal disposition over a given period of time (Bowden, 2008).
Therefore, it is proposed that.
H2. Customer Engagement will have significant positive effect on
customer loyalty.
There has been vast literature on customer repeat purchases
and usage of focal object in marketing domain as a consequence of
satisfaction, involvement and positive customer experience. In
relatively nascent customer engagement literature also, re-
searchers have found positive impact of engagement on repeat
usage (Bowden, 2008; Calder et al., 2013; van Doorn et al., 2010;
Hollebeek, Glynn, and Brodie, 2014). In a recent study it was ob-
served that engagement not only exerts a significant impact on
loyalty intentions, but also explains significantly more variation in
loyalty as compared to traditional measures including value,
quality and satisfaction (Dwivedi, 2015). Specific to mobile mar-
keting in retailing context, researchers have observed loyalty in
the form of repeat purchases (Pihlström and Gregory, 2008; Ström
et al., 2014). Customer Engagement therefore, has been suggested
to be a superior predictor of customer loyalty relative to traditional
relational constructs in interactive environments. As discussed in
the previous sections, there is strong literature on the role of sa-
tisfaction, convenience and usability in predicting customer loy-
alty. However, these aspects capture only cognitive aspects of
consumer decision-making. Customer engagement originating out
of varied experiences as conceptualized in this study captures not
only cognitive aspect but also affective component of consumer
decision-making. It is therefore likely to go beyond the traditional
constructs and provide additional predictive power to customer
loyalty in the chosen context. Therefore, it is hypothesized that.
H3. Consumer engagement will explain variance in loyalty intentions
that is additional to the variance explained cumulatively by consumer
satisfaction, customer convenience and media usability judgments.
2.5. Conceptual Model
Based on the relevant literature reviewed in this section, a
conceptual framework is proposed (Fig. 1). The framework pro-
poses that customer engagement is a latent second order construct
that is measured through customer experiences, which are utili-
tarian, emotional, social and monetary in nature. Further, custo-
mer engagement is proposed to be an antecedent to customer
loyalty and explains customer loyalty in addition to the traditional
relational constructs of satisfaction, usability and convenience in
interactive environments.
Fig. 1. Conceptual Model.
Correspondingly, following hypothesis are proposed:
H1. Customer Engagement is a second-order construct reflected by
the first order dimensions of utilitarian, emotional, social and
monetary evaluation experiences.
H2. Customer Engagement will have significant positive effect on
customer loyalty.
H3. Consumer engagement will explain variance in loyalty inten-
tions that is additional to the variance explained cumulatively by
consumer satisfaction, customer convenience and media usability
judgments.
3. Methods and results
The research program was designed to generate self-report
items to measure customer engagement, purify the scale, de-
monstrate its reliability and validity, and to validate significance of
the ‘customer engagement’ construct in predicting customer loy-
alty. The research methodology in this investigation used three
studies that are discussed in this section. The first study aimed at
‘Customer Engagement’ scale development involved measurement
item generation and selection. This involved development of items
based on literature and interviews with active users of mobile
devices for shopping followed by screening of items by a panel
(Eastman et al., 1999). The second study was designed to reduce
the items generated in first study and to examine the underlying
factor structure of customer engagement arising out of different
customer experiences. To achieve this objective, exploratory factor
analysis using principal component analysis with verimax rotation
was used (Gerbing and James, 1988). This was followed by con-
firmatory factor analysis to assess reliability and validity of re-
duced scale and factor structure as developed through exploratory
factor analysis (Fornell and David, 1981; Hair et al., 2006; Nunn-
ally, 1978). In the third study, customer engagement scale was
validated and conceptual relationship with customer loyalty was
explored. Towards that aim, data on customer engagement (using
scale validated in second study), customer continuance intention,
customer satisfaction, shopping convenience and application us-
ability was collected from a fresh set of respondents that were
recruited as per sampling plan. Data collected in this study was
first analysed using confirmatory factor analysis to ensure validity,
and reliability of the model. This was followed by path analysis to
test the relationship between various constructs as proposed in
the conceptual model (Fornell and David, 1981; Hair et al., 2006;
Kline, 2010). A snapshot of these three studies is provided in
 R. Thakur / Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services 32 (2016) 151–163
Table 1
Description of the studies in this research program.
Study Purpose Sample size Data collection method Data analysis method (s)
1 Customer Engagement (CE) measurement scale item generation and 10
selection
2 CE scale item reduction, factor structure discovery, validity and relia- 304
bility of measurement model
3 CE Scale Validation and Exploring CE – Loyalty Conceptual Relationships 433
Table 1.
3.1. Study 1: Measurement item generation and selection
A standard procedure in development of a scale involves gen-
eration of a number of items that are believed to capture the
conceptual and logical variance present in the construct (Eastman
et al., 1999). Since the literature on the focal construct of the study
is still in nascent stage, it was deemed to be necessary to conduct
an exploratory primary study to generate such items. To build on
the existing literature and to define Customer Engagement, qua-
litative research was conducted employing 10 consumer re-
spondents (4 male). The desired respondent profile for this phase
of the study was young working professionals (below 30 years of
age) who has used mobile phones for shopping atleast once in past
six months. This profiling was appropriate as these set of re-
spondents would be young enough to have comfort in using smart
phones for shopping, enough disposable income to shop lifestyle
products frequently and reasonable maturity to express different
types of experiences that may have business implications for on-
line retailers. The respondents for this study were chosen from a
group of executive students in a leading business school in
Mumbai with an average of 3 years professional experience in
corporates in India. Framework to screen respondents is provided
in Appendix A. The in-depth interviews are conducted by the re-
searcher in her office to provide a peaceful environment for the
discussion. For this phase, 10 consumer respondents (4 male) were
interviewed and each interview lasted for about 45–60 min. The
participants were instructed to select a retailer in a lifestyle ca-
tegory that they had shopped using mobile device and was ‘highly
engaging’ to them. They were asked to describe their ‘engagement’
and ‘experiences’ with the retailers using mobile channel to the
researcher in the in-depth interviews conducted. The discussion
was focused on lifestyle categories including fashion, electronics,
and home décor so as to get both utilitarian and hedonic experi-
ences that may not be possible in categories like grocery that
would yield only utilitarian experiences. The in-depth interviews
were structured in four phases: opening, questioning, probing and
closing (Kolb, 2008). During the ‘opening’ phase, participants were
explained the purpose of the research. This was followed by
‘questioning’ phase starting with questions on purpose and ex-
periences of participants. This was follwed by probing phase ask-
ing questions from a set of predetermined questions based on
responses in the previous phase. Further, additional probing
questions were asked to ensure that the information the partici-
pant has provided has been correctly understood. Finally, the in-
terview was closed by thanking the participant and asking if they
have any questions. A set of important questions is provided in the
Appendix A.
An overview of respondents’ key response quotes is provided in
Appendix B. Content analysis of the responses revealed the re-
spondents reported their ‘engagement’ with the chosen site not
only during interaction (‘Browsing a mobile application is a perso-
nal shopping trip’, ‘Mobile shopping applications give me good
product information’, ‘I browse the mobile device when have
nothing else to do’) but also in their lives at a later point of time
155
In-depth Interview Panel Review (8 reviewers)
Survey Questionnaire Exploratory Factor Analysis, Confirmatory Fac-
tor Analysis
Survey Questionnaire Confirmatory Factor Analysis, Path Analysis
(‘This site often gives me something to talk about’, ‘I compare the
prices that I have seen on the site when I shop in the store at a later
time’).Based on the review of literature (Calder et al., 2013; Malt-
house and Schaedel, 2009; Hollebeek, Glynn and Brodie, 2014;
Sprott et al., 2009) and the content analysis of respondents state-
ments, a customer engagement scale categorized in four customer
experience groups – utilitarian, social, emotional and monetary was
developed. From this study, a set of 74 initial items were generated
to reflect customer engagement including 20 items representing
‘utilitarian’ experiences, 14 items representing ‘social’ experiences,
32 items representing ‘emotional’ experiences and 8 items re-
presenting ‘monetary’ experiences. The chosen sets of items were
worded to create linguistic style consistency for the scale giving
reference to ‘mobile shopping application’ in each item. Initial face
validity check indicated the potential suitability of the 74 items to
measure customer engagement.
The chosen items were then screened by using a CE stakeholder
panel comprising of 8 consumers (3 male), 2 managers (1 male)
and 3 academic experts (1 male) (Brakus et al., 2009) using con-
venience sampling. The respondents were asked to self-select a
lifestyle retailer offering mobile device shopping with which they
felt to be ‘highly engaged,’ which generated online retailers in-
cluding Flipkart.com, Myntra.com and Amazon.com. Employing an
in-depth interviewing format, the customer engagement and
customer experiences concepts were explained to the screening
participants. The respondents were asked to evaluate the extent to
which the 74 items described their ‘engagement’ with their self-
selected retailer. All items were positively worded. Panelists’ re-
commendations were used to further assess the preliminary item
pool, guide specific item additions/deletions, and to improve the
item wording, as required (Churchill Jr., 1979) thus contributing to
the establishment of content validity for the preliminary Customer
Engagement scale.
The item screening generated a reduced pool of 42 CE items.
The item deletions were based on - (i) Duplication in item scope or
content, and (ii) Sub-optimal capturing of the conceptual domain
of CE.
3.2. Study 2: Measurement assessment and dimensionality
The next step in the research program required the researcher
to check if the items generated in the first study measure the
evolving construct of ‘customer engagement’ as conceptualized in
this study. A broad-base quantitative study was deemed to be
appropriate for achieving this purpose. A survey questionnaire
with the remaining 42 items was designed to conduct a quanti-
tative study. The questionnaire had an introductory section ex-
plaining the purpose of the study and an overview of mobile de-
vice shopping with reference to popular e-commerce sites offering
mobile shopping applications (including Myntra.com, Flipkart.com
and Amazon.com). Three different versions of questionnaire em-
ploying a distinct, randomly assigned sequence of the CE items
rated on seven-point Likert scales anchored in ‘strongly disagree’
(1) through to ‘strongly agree’ (7) were designed. This was done to
reduce the occurrence of primacy and recency effects. The ques-
tionnaire was administered to masters’ students from a large
156 R. Thakur / Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services 32 (2016) 151–163

business school in a Mumbai area in 2013. The chosen sample was Table 3
appropriate representation of the population, as young customers Discriminant validity for dimensions of customer engagement.

are known to be avid users of smart phones and have high pro- 1 2 3 4 5 6
pensity to shop using online and mobile devices. A total of 304
usable responses were collected from the participants in the study 1. Monetary_Experience 0.60
2. Social_Facilitation 0.10 0.51
(85% under the age of 25; 65% male; 60% with professional ex-
3. Intrinsic_Enjoyment 0.12 0.11 0.49
perience of more than 1 year). Each of the participants reported 4. Utilitarian 0.04 0.38 0.17 0.62
using mobile device for shopping, and took approximately ten 5. Self_Connect 0.07 0.24 0.21 0.43 0.63
minutes to complete the questionnaire. 6. Time_Filler 0.25 0.46 0.35 0.62 0.46 0.52
To analyze the data, exploratory factor analysis (EFA) procedure
Note - Values below the diagonal are squared correlations between the constructs,
was employed using principal axis factoring with direct oblimin bold diagonal elements represent the Average Variance Extracted (AVEs) for the
rotation, to extract the CE factors (Conway and Huffcut 2003; By- relevant construct.
rne, 2013) using SPSS 23 software. KMO statistics of 0.844 con-
firmed a factor structure underling the data. Bartlett's test of 3.3. Study 3: CE scale validation and exploring CE – Loyalty con-
spherity for the correlation matrix: χ2 (171) ¼2566.232 ceptual relationships
(p ¼0.000); indicating the existence of large correlations amongst
the variables. Based on Cattell (1966), six factors were observed as The third and final study in this research program was designed
against proposed four dimensions. Further, several items were based on existing literature and findings from the first two studies.
dropped due to low loadings and cross loadings following stan- Findings of previous studies led to refinement in operationaliza-
dard statistical procedures (Hair et al., 2010) resulting in a six- tion of ‘Customer Engagement’ construct. Further, the proposed
factor, 19-item CE scale for further analysis. Each of the 19 items conceptual model (Fig. 1) too was modified to reflect the revised
loaded onto one of the six factors that were analysed to be named operationalization based on findings of first two studies.
as social-facilitation, self-connect, intrinsic enjoyment, time-filler, A general definition of customer engagement in this paper
utilitarian and monetary evaluation experiences. based on existing literature and findings of previous two studies is
To assess measurement reliability and validity of the revised proposed as.
19-item scale measurement model, exploratory factor analysis
“Customer Engagement is a psychological state that occurs by
followed by confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) using maximum virtue of interactive customer experiences with a focal object (e.g.,
likelihood method was carried out (Hair et al., 2010). Software mobile medium). Further, customer engagement goes beyond
package IBM AMOS 20 was used to conduct CFA and subsequent specific purchase transactions resulting from emotional and uti-
path analysis in this study. The fit indices (χ2 (57) ¼376.433, litarian motivational drivers.”
GFI¼ 0.819, RMSEA ¼0.07, NFI ¼0.88, CFI ¼0.913) suggest that the
model with the six latent variables represents a good fit to the data Buildings on the revised model to be tested in the third study,
Tables 2 and 3. The final model with six constructs measured with the hypothesis proposed in conceptual model (Fig. 1) were mod-
19-items demonstrates evidence convergent validity (significant ified. The modified hypotheses are presented below.
critical ratios, AVE 40.50 for all the constructs) and discriminant Customer engagement was conceptualized as a second order
validity (AVE of each construct greater than the squared correla- construct reflected by four first order constructs. However, as
tions with other constructs) (Fornell and David, 1981). observed in Study 2, customer engagement can be measured

Table 2
Measures and statistics for customer engagement dimensions.

Dimension Item Std. loading Mean Std. deviation

Monetary experience (α¼ 0.78; C.R. ¼ 0.82) Mobile shopping applications help me save money 0.814 4.00 1.46
Mobile shopping applications give me better deals 0.916 3.90 1.53
Mobile Shopping applications give exclusive time-bound offers 0.537 3.90 1.55

Social_Facilitation (α¼ 0.69; C.R. ¼0.72 ) I bring up things I have seen on this application in conversations with other people 0.775 4.64 1.46
Mobile shopping applications often gives me something to talk about. 0.666 4.30 1.42
I use things from mobile shopping applications in discussions or arguments with 0.506 4.55 1.74
people I know.

Intrinsic_Enjoyment (α ¼0.71; C.R. ¼0.76 ) Browsing a mobile shopping applications is like a treat for me 0.769 4.53 1.67
Browsing a mobile shopping application improves my mood 0.629 3.79 1.67
I like to kick back and wind down with it 0.633 4.93 1.43

Utilitarian (α¼ 0.87; C.R. ¼0.85 ) Mobile shopping applications give me good product information 0.755 4.77 1.49
Mobile shopping applications help me make good purchase decisions 0.82 4.83 1.63
Mobile shopping applications provides information from other users that help me 0.787 5.39 1.53
make good purchases

Self_Connect (α ¼ 0.82; C.R. ¼0.86) Browsing a mobile application is a personal shopping trip 0.737 5.03 1.56
Mobile shopping applications provide intimate shopping experience 0.867 5.24 1.49
Nobody is watching me to comment on my shopping when I am using mobile device 0.779 4.92 1.54

Time_Filler (α¼ 0.83; C.R. ¼ 0.80 ) I like to browse the mobile device when I am eating or taking a break 0.767 4.16 1.62
I like to browse the mobile device when I am traveling 0.67 4.20 1.54
I browse the mobile device when have nothing else to do 0.763 4.50 1.58
I browse the mobile device for entertainment when I am bored 0.693 5.23 1.57

χ2 (57) ¼ 376.433, GFI ¼0.819, RMSEA ¼ 0.07, NFI¼ 0.88, CFI¼ 0.913

Notes - n ¼ 304; α: Cronbach's alpha; CR: Construct reliability;

 R. Thakur / Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services 32 (2016) 151–163 157

through six first order constructs. Therefore the modified first Table 4
hypothesis is: Measures statistics for model constructs.

Construct Std. Loading Mean Std. Deviation

H1. Customer Engagement is a second-order construct reflected by
the first order dimensions of social-facilitation, self-connect, in- Monetary Experience (a¼ 0.78; C.R. 0.91 4.64 1.64
trinsic enjoyment, time-filler, utilitarian and monetary evaluation ¼0.82)
experiences. 0.90 4.55 1.71
0.50 4.43 1.67

The next two hypothesis proposed in conceptual model cor- Social_Facilitation (a¼ 0.67; C.R. ¼0.71) 0.78 4.63 1.51
0.62 4.23 1.55
respondingly test the role of customer engagement with new
0.62 4.63 1.57
structure in predicting customer loyalty. That is,
Intrinsic_Enjoyment (a ¼0.7; C.R. 0.81 5.05 1.57
¼0.76)
H2. Customer Engagement will have significant positive effect on 0.65 4.39 1.68
customer loyalty. 0.70 5.14 1.49
H3. Consumer engagement will explain variance in loyalty inten-
Utilitarian(a ¼ 0.87; C.R. ¼ 0.87) 0.87 5.20 1.57
tions that is additional to the variance explained cumulatively by 0.89 5.22 1.62
consumer satisfaction, customer convenience and media usability 0.76 5.73 1.50
judgments. Self_Connect(a ¼0.82; C.R. ¼ 0.86) 0.81 5.55 1.49
0.86 5.61 1.47
The proposed model was empirically tested by administering 0.81 5.32 1.45
the research instrument developed for the study using survey Time_Filler(a ¼ 0.82; C.R. ¼0) 0.81 5.07 1.69
method to a fresh set of respondents. The items of the research 0.67 4.58 1.57
instrument and the source are provided in the Appendix C. For 0.71 4.84 1.53
0.74 5.63 1.54
data collection, a total of 1500 paper questionnaires were dis-
tributed and 433 usable responses of people who were users of Satisfaction(a ¼0.81; C.R. ¼ 0.86) 0.74 5.35 1.45
mobile devices for shopping were received (69% male; 66% under 0.89 5.32 1.47
0.85 5.16 1.52
the age of 30; 82% with professional experience of more than
5 years). This provided a sample size that exceeds the re- Continuance Intention (a ¼0.9; C.R. 0.84 5.26 1.53
¼0.9)
commended minimum (Bentler and Chou, 1987; Hair et al., 2010).
0.87 5.33 1.46
0.91 5.25 1.54
3.3.1. Validity and reliability check
Usability (a¼ 0.71; C.R. ¼ 0) 0.83 5.34 1.56
For customer engagement construct structure and complete 0.78 5.21 1.53
model, reliability and validity of the proposed measurement
Convenience (a ¼ 0.74; C.R. ¼ 0.82) 0.73 4.15 1.89
model were established using confirmatory factor analysis (CFA).
0.90 4.04 1.76
The CFA results for the six-factor, 19-item CE scale indicated the 0.71 3.92 1.76
model provided excellent fit to the data (χ2 (53) ¼ 433.49; χ2/
χ2 (224)¼ 716.7, GFI ¼ 0.93, RMSEA ¼0.053, NFI ¼0.94, CFI ¼0.96
df ¼3.164; GFI¼ 0.873; CFI ¼ 0.894; RMSEA¼ 0.08; NFI ¼0.85) thus
providing support for the results of study 2. This was followed by Notes - n ¼ 433; α: Cronbach's alpha; CR: Construct reliability;
CFA of complete measurement model. The fit indices (χ2 (105) ¼
1196.49; χ2/df ¼3.323; GFI¼0.839; CFI ¼0.896; RMSEA ¼0.07;
NFI ¼0.858) suggest that the model with the nine latent variables thereby establishing that the proposed second-order model pro-
represents a good fit to the data Tables 4 and 5. The complete vided a good explanation for the correlations among the first-or-
model demonstrates evidence convergent validity (significant der factors. This result therefore supports hypothesis H1.
critical ratios, AVE 40.50 for all the constructs) and discriminant
validity (AVE of each construct greater than the squared correla- 3.3.3. Path analysis
tions with other constructs) (Fornell and David, 1981). The next step in the analysis involved testing of the structural
model and corresponding theoretical relationships. Structural
3.3.2. Measurement model equation modeling and path analysis are standard tools for esti-
CE. CE was conceptualized as a second order latent construct mating the strength of relationships between multiple constructs
with six dimensions measured through first order latent con- especially while dealing with latent constructs (Hair et al., 2006;
structs in the proposed research model. To validate the proposed Kline, 2010). As depicted in Fig. 2, the study looked at the role of
structure statistically, first-order and second-order confirmatory customer engagement in predicting customer loyalty. To test the
factor analysis was performed (Marsh and Hocevar, 1988; Milfont hypothesis 2 and 3, two models were tested using structural
and Duckitt, 2004). Based on first-order CFA, 19 items were re- equation modeling (SEM). Firstly, the complete model (Fig. 2) was
tained for further analysis. These six latent constructs measured investigated to evaluate the variance explained by the model in
with 19 indicator items converged into the second order construct predicting customer loyalty and to establish the strength of the
CE explaining 81 per cent of variance explained by the six con- customer engagement – customer loyalty relationship. Secondly, a
structs. The fit indices (χ2 (44) ¼470.71, χ2/df ¼3.22, GFI.0.86, base model of customer loyalty without customer engagement
RMSEA.0.09, NFI.0.79, CFI.0.9) suggest that the proposed model construct (Fig. 3) was evaluated to understand the variance ex-
represents a good fit to the data. plained by this model vis-à-vis complete model. The differential in
Each of the customer experience first-order factors loaded variance explained between two models was attributed to custo-
significantly on the second-order factor customer engagement mer engagement.
thereby providing empirical validity to accept the proposed second For the complete model (Fig. 2), the overall fit measures (χ2
order factor model (Brown, 2006) (Table 6). The correlations ran- (73) ¼1760.05, χ2/df ¼4.43, GFI.0.79, RMSEA.0.09, NFI.0.79,
ged from 0.28 to 0.80 between the first order constructs. There CFI.0.9) indicate that the hypothesized model, while not an ex-
was no significant reduction in model fit by second-order solution, cellent fit but is a reasonable representation of the structures
158 R. Thakur / Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services 32 (2016) 151–163

Table 5
Discriminant validity for complete model.

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10

1) Monetary 0.62
2) Social_Facilitation 0.30 0.53
3) Intrinsic_Enjoyment 0.22 0.19 0.52
4) Utilitarian 0.15 0.17 0.13 0.71
5) Self_Connect 0.14 0.17 0.29 0.46 0.68
6) Time_Filler 0.34 0.27 0.24 0.66 0.49 0.54
7) Satisfaction 0.26 0.18 0.34 0.35 0.43 0.52 0.68
8) Continuance Intention 0.23 0.18 0.43 0.43 0.46 0.51 0.46 0.76
9) Conveneince 0.37 0.14 0.36 0.14 0.34 0.22 0.36 0.36 0.65
10) Usability 0.01 0.02 0.02 0.02 0.01 0.02 0.07 0.04 0.04 0.61

Note - Values below the diagonal are squared correlations between the constructs; bold diagonal elements represent the Average Variance Extracted (AVEs) for the relevant
construct.

Table 6
Customer
Second Order Model. Satisfaction
0.67**
Second Order Factor First Order Factors Loadings Variance Explained

Customer Engagement Social Facilitation 0.696** 34

Time Filler 0.921** 89 R2 = 0.67
Self Connect 0.683** 58
Intrinsic Enjoyment 0.606** 32 0.17** Continuance
Shopping Intention
Utilitarian 0.714** 67 Convenience
Monetary Evaluation 0.457** 34

Note:
*Significant at po 0.1 -0.04
**
Significant at p o 0.01,
χ2 (28) = 52.05, χ2/df = 1.37,
GFI.0.97, RMSEA.0.035,
NFI.0.96, CFI.0.99
Application
Usability
Social- **Significant at p<0.01, *Significant at p<0.05
facilitation

Fig. 3. Base Model - Continuance Intention without Customer Engagement.

Self- 0.56**
connect

0.76** variance in the dependent variable i.e., customer loyalty. The next
step was to examine the hypothesized explanatory paths (Hair
Intrinsic 0.58**
Enjoyment et al., 2006). As expected, customer engagement had a significant
Customer
0.93**
Engagement impact on customer loyalty intentions (b ¼0.517, C.R. ¼ 10.66,
Time Filler po 0.01) thereby supporting hypothesis H2. Regarding the impact
0.52** of satisfaction, convenience and usability, while satisfaction
0.82**
(b ¼0.563, C.R. ¼9.084, p o0.01) and convenience (b ¼ 0.108, C.R.
Utilitarian R2 = 0.67
¼1.967, p o0.05) had statistically significant impacts on loyalty
0.57** Continuance intentions. The effect of usability on loyalty intention was non-
Intention
Monetary significant.
Evaluation
The next step in this study was to examine the added value of
0.56**
customer engagement in explaining loyalty intentions (hypothesis
H3) by testing the base model specifying the effects of satisfaction,
Customer convenience, and usability in the absence of customer engagement
0.12*
(Fig. 3). The base model fitted the data well (χ2 (28) ¼52.05, χ2/df
Satisfaction

χ2 (73) = 1760.05, χ2/df = 4.43,

¼1.37, GFI.0.97, RMSEA.0.035, NFI.0.96, CFI.0.99). Satisfaction
Shopping -0.02 GFI.0.79, RMSEA.0.09, (β ¼ 0.735, C.R. ¼7.76, p o0.01) and convenience (β ¼ 0.169, C.
Convenience NFI.0.79, CFI.0.9
R.¼7.76, p o0.01) exerted a significant impact on loyalty inten-
tions at 1% level of significance while usability did not have a
Application **Significant at p<0.01, *Significant at p<0.05
Usability significant impact on the same. The base model explained 48%
variance in the outcome.
The drop in explained variance from 67% to 48% between the
Fig. 2. Complete Model - Continuance Intention with Customer Engagement
Relationship. complete model (Fig. 2) and the base model (Fig. 3) provides
evidence of the contribution of customer engagement in predict-
underlying the observed data considering small sample vis-à-vis ing customer loyalty. Customer engagement, therefore, explained
the number of observed variables (Sharma et al., 2005). The results variance in loyalty intentions that is additional to the variance
of the analysis produced a satisfactory picture regarding the sig- explained cumulatively by satisfaction and convenience. This result
nificance of estimated coefficients. The model explained 67% supports hypothesis H3.
 R. Thakur / Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services 32 (2016) 151–163
4. Discussion, Conclusion, Contributions, and Limitations
4.1. Discussion and Conclusion
There is a growing body of literature on customer engage-
ment, however, research in this domain is still in its infancy. This
study had two objectives. The first objective was to develop and
validate a measurement model for customer engagement with a
specific focus on mobile devices for shopping. To achieve that,
this study developed and validated customer engagement as
second order construct arising out of six different customer ex-
periences - social-facilitation, self-connect, intrinsic enjoyment,
time-filler, utilitarian and monetary evaluation experiences. Based
on the findings of this study time-filler, an emotional component
emerged as the strongest component of customer engagement.
This depicted that customers may be checking out mobile ap-
plications during their leisure time for entertainment and not
necessarily for planned purchase. This presents retailers with a
strong opportunity to promote impulse purchases. Utilitarian
experience oriented towards getting product information is the
second strongest dimension of customer engagement where
during purchase decision making process customers use mobile
shopping platforms to evaluate various information. A crisp
product information, in this case, would help sellers to get their
products in the consideration set for the customers. Social facil-
itation, the next strongest dimension depicts the social im-
portance of mobile application for customers which gives them a
talking point among their peers. This may be useful for compa-
nies to build word of mouth promotions by influencing opinion
leaders. Self connect and intrinsic enjoyment, give a depiction of
customer usage of mobile shopping platforms as a mode of en-
tertainment. These components demonstrate that customers
have high connect while using mobile devices for product ex-
ploration which may not be direct during purchase decision
making and can be used to promote impulse purchase. The last
component, monetary evaluation enables customers to check
prices of products of interest at various portals before coming to a
final decision. Often considered as the prime motive for using
online and mobile shopping sites, monetary evaluation has re-
latively low importance (while significant) in building customer
engagement as compared to some of the emotional dimensions.
These results support the emerging literature that suggests
multi-dimensional nature of customer engagement construct
(Brodie et al., 2011;Dwivedi, 2015; Hollebeek et al., 2014). Further
the results highlights relatively stronger role of emotional ex-
periences (time-filler, self-connect and intrinsic enjoyment) in
building customer engagement.
The second objective of this research was to examine the im-
pact of customer engagement on loyalty intention. While the
construct structure in first two studies demonstrated strong
emotional dimensions of the construct, the third study provided
empirical evidence of a strong influence of customer engagement
on loyalty intentions. By explaining variance in addition to sa-
tisfaction and convenience, the results of this study positioned
customer engagement as a strong predictor of loyalty intentions
which validates the conceptual work by van Doorn et al. (2010)
where loyalty was proposed as a consequence of customer en-
gagement behaviour.
4.2. Contribution
This research study indicated that Customer Engagement is a
promising, under-explored construct with high relevance in
159
interactive media including mobile device usage for shopping.
Further, Customer Engagement has a significant role in predicting
various consumer behaviour outcomes of repeat purchase. The
study therefore also contributes to relationship marketing litera-
ture. This research also provides a catalyst for the future inquiry to
validate proposed Customer Engagement conceptualization and
measurement scale in different cultures and applications.
The insights from this study are likely to have relevance for
retailers, merchants and advertisers. Managing mobile device ap-
plications for retailing involves designing and subsequently mea-
suring the effectiveness of delivery of a set of experiences for its
customers. This study provides a framework for devising matrices
to track experiences and engagement of customers on mobile
devices for shopping. This may be useful to retailers in tracking
their performance on mobile commerce channel for building
customer loyalty.
Online (and mobile) retail is a multi-sided market (Eisenmann
et al., 2006) where retailers generate revenue not only from cus-
tomers but also from merchants that sell their products and ad-
vertisers who advertise to promote their merchandise. Retailers
can use customer engagement to differentiate themselves from
competition in attracting merchants in the marketplace, as highly
engaged customers are likely to make more purchases. A de-
monstrated engagement can be used as a tool for charging higher
prices for advertisements and in retaining the advertisers as en-
gaged customers would pay more attention to the content and
click on the same including advertorial content.
Further, based on the insights from customer engagement
evaluations, retailers may be able to device strategies on prior-
itizing experiences for customers. It may also help them in seg-
menting customers based on relational outcomes from dimensions
of loyalty. Moreover, the framework is likely to help them generate
desirable outcomes in relationships with merchants and
advertisers.
An added contribution of this study is the mobile device usage
for shopping context for building customer engagement given
the ubiquity of mobile devices. These findings highlight that
mobile shopping experiences have very strong emotional sig-
nificance for customers. These findings are manifestations of
consumer culture in a developing country like India where a
mobile phone is an intimate companion for customers. As against
the developed countries, where customers have access to su-
perior screens for entertainment and shopping, in developing
countries mobile devices are a source of entertainment for people
who may not have access to television and computers at work or
while traveling using public transport. Therefore, mobile shop-
ping sites are a source of entertainment for customers in addition
to active search during the purchase process. Marketers can,
therefore, use mobile shopping sites as a mode for advertise-
ments for promoting their products effectively. The ability to
communicate with the customers at all points of time, therefore,
is likely to generate a call to action for both – planned purchases
as well as impulse purchases.
4.3. Limitations and future research
Despite these contributions, this research has several limita-
tions that offer scope for future research. First, this research was
limited to lifestyle products. This offers scope for future scale va-
lidation across other categories like travel, gaming or other service
mobile applications. Secondly, the research in studies 1–3 has been
limited to a specific geography, i.e., India. Future research may look
at validating the scales and framework in different countries and
160 R. Thakur / Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services 32 (2016) 151–163

contexts. Also, the cross-sectional nature of this investigation po- recruited panel) may contribute to engagement framework by
ses the limitation of insights arising out of a snapshot of custo- demonstrating changing effect of customer experiences and per-
mers’ engagement at a point of time. A longitudinal study (by a ceptions on a focal framework over a period of time.

Appendix A

Screening Questions

Type Description

Usage Status Do you use your mobile phone for making purchases from online lifestyle retailers like Amazon, Flipkart,
Snapdeal, Fashion and You etc.?
Demographic Gender, age, occupation (The data was available to the researcher and hence not asked)
Information
Psychographic  How often do you use your phone to browse these sites?
 How many times have you made a purchase on these sites in last six months?

In-depth Interview Structure.

Phase Description/ Questions

Opening This research is aimed to understand ‘customer engagement’ while shopping on a mobile device based on the ‘cus-
tomer experiences’. The research is exploring lifestyle category where customer experiences could be functional
(utilitarian), monetary, emotional or social.
 Which all lifestyle online sites do you browse on your mobile phone?
 Which all products do you check on these sites on your mobile phone?
 Select one such site (or sites) in lifestyle category that you find ‘highly engaging’ and answer the next few question
keeping that in mind.
Questioning  Describe your purposes of browsing these sites. (Predetermined)
Phase  Describe your experiences while browsing these sites. (Predetermined)
Probing  Do you look at the experience beyond the utility of convenience and price benefit? (Predetermined)
 What do you mean by ‘personal shopping trip’. (Unstructured based on respondents answer)
 What do you mean by ‘a talking point’. (Unstructured based on respondents answer)
 What are the usual times of the day, occasions or places that you browse these sites? (Predetermined)
Psychographic  Thanks for your participation
 Do you have any questions?

Appendix B

Participant (Gender, Illustrative Quote

Age)

P1 (M, 28) I get good product information on these sites. Also, the company and not a salesperson give the information on this site.
While traveling in a bus, I check the site as I have nothing else to do. During long travel to work, browsing on the
site is like personal shopping trip for me.
P2 (M, 27) This portal increases my knowledge about the product. Also, it helps me compare prices of different brands in the
same product category.
P3 (M, 29) I get periodic alerts on time-bound offers. That helps me in getting better deals. Also, as I can place the order
anywhere, I don’t miss those deals.
P4 (M, 24) When I am taking a break or having lunch, there is nothing much to do. I browse the mobile shopping app
downloaded on my phone for entertainment and to kill boredom.
P5 (F, 25) On the lunch table, new products and trends information on the site gives me a talking point to others. It makes
me feel good as it helps me build discussion and arguments in my social circle.
I get better deals from the retailer on mobile app as compared to their online portal on the desktop
P6 (F, 28) I get exclusive products that may not be available at a store nearby.
P7 (F, 29) I don’t like others to keep an eye on me when I am shopping. Mobile phone is my personal intimate device and
nobody is watching when I am shopping.
 R. Thakur / Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services 32 (2016) 151–163 161

P8 (F, 26) When I am bored or taking a break, I like to check out this site just to kick back and wind down. I may not have
any plan to buy stuff but it helps me relax and feel good. And sometimes I find something nice to buy also.
P9 (F, 23) If you go to a shop and look at ten things, you feel pressurized to buy even if you don’t like anything. I don’t have
to listen to comments of the salesmen while checking out products. Also, there is no pressure – its like a personal
shopping trip with no one to interfere.
P10 (F, 25) I get better deals. Not only that, I can compare several products as this site provides lot of product information. I
browse through a lot of products and develop good knowledge. Not only it helps me in making good purchase
decisions for myself, it also helps me in advising others. In-fact, my friends now ask for my opinion on brands in
kitchen appliances.

Appendix C

Item Item Description Source

Label

Social-facilitation
SOC1 I bring up things I have seen on this application in conversations with Adapted from Calder, Malthouse and Schaedel (2009)
other people
SOC2 Mobile shopping applications often gives me something to talk about.
SOC3 I use things from mobile shopping applications in discussions or ar-
guments with people I know.
Self-connect
SCY1 Browsing a mobile application is a personal shopping trip New
SCY2 Mobile shopping applications provide intimate shopping experience
SCY3 Nobody is watching me to comment on my shopping when I am using
mobile device
Intrinsic Enjoyment
IE1 Browsing a mobile shopping applications is like a treat for me Adapted from Calder, Malthouse and Schaedel (2009)
IE2 Browsing a mobile shopping application improves my mood
IE3 I like to sit back and unwind with mobile shopping applications New
Time Filler
TF1 I like to browse the mobile device when I am taking a break New
TF2 I like to browse the mobile device when I am traveling
TF3 I browse the mobile device when have nothing else to do
TF4 I browse the mobile device for entertainment when I am bored
Utilitarian
UT1 Mobile shopping applications give me good product information Adapted from Calder, Malthouse and Schaedel (2009)
UT2 Mobile shopping applications help me make good purchase decisions
UT3 Mobile shopping applications provides information from other users
that help me make good purchases
Monetary Evaluation
MON1 Mobile shopping applications help me save money New
MON2 Mobile shopping applications give me better deals
MON3 Mobile Shopping applications give exclusive time-bound offers
Continuance Intention
CI1 I will use/continue using mobile shopping applications in the future Adapted from Algesheimer, Dholakia, & Herrmann
CI2 Given the chance, I predict I will use/continue using mobile shopping (2005); Teo, Chan, Wei, & Zhang (2003)
applications in the future
CI3 It is likely that I will use/continue using mobile shopping applications
in the future
Convenience
CON1 While shopping through mobile shopping applications I find what I’m Adapted from Szymanski & Hise (2000)
looking for in the least amount of time
CON2 While shopping through mobile shopping applications, I expend little
effort as compared to other channels of shopping
CON3 While shopping through mobile shopping applications, I manage to
shop in the least amount of time
162 R. Thakur / Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services 32 (2016) 151–163
Usability
US1 Mobile shopping application is easy to understand
US2 Mobile shopping application is simple to use, even when using it for
the first time
US3 It is easy to find the information I need using Mobile shopping
applications
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Rakhi Thakur is Assistant Professor at S. P. Jain Institute of Management and Re-
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search, Mumbai, India. She holds a Ph.D. in management from the NMIMS Uni-
Retailing 76 (3), 309–322.
versity, Mumbai. Her papers have appeared in Internet Research; International
Teo, H.H., Chan, H.C., Wei, K.K., Zhang, Z., 2003. Evaluating information accessibility
Journal of Bank Marketing; International Journal of Retail and Distribution Manage-
and community adaptivity features for sustaining virtual learning communities.
ment, Journal of Business Strategy (Forthcoming) and Journal of Indian Business Re-
International Journal of Human Computer Studies 59 (5), 671–697.
search. She has held management positions in ICICI Prudential Life Insurance
Teo, Thompson S.H., 2006. To buy or not to buy online: adopters and non-adopters
Company, Tata Consultancy Services and Shoppers Stop Limited before moving to
of online shopping in Singapore. Behav. Inf. Technol. 25 (6), 497–509.
academics. Her research interests include consumer behaviour, e-commerce, retail
Thakur, Rakhi, 2014. What keeps mobile banking customers loyal? Int. J. Bank Mark.
marketing and global marketing.
32 (7), 628–646.
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