Website selection is pivotal to virtual shopping. Consumers evaluate online retailers' websites on the basis of identified criteria and sub-criteria before undergoing shopping. Among all product categories, the lifestyle segment occupies a sumptuous pie of online retail. The present study attempts to rank shopping websites for fashion and lifestyle segments in the fuzzy environment using an assessment for the analytic hierarchy process model and fuzzy TOPSIS. A case analysis has been performed to exhibit the feasibility and effectiveness of the proposed model. Marketers may arrive at strategic insights and use them to augment their existing policies to cater to the customers' requirements as discussed in this study.

The rapid growth of technology has given rise to a form of communication unknown to the business world i.e. “electronic word of mouth” (e-WOM), which is considered to be an ideal and the most effective way of communicating. However, as e-WOM progresses online, the factors contributing may differ from those of traditional WOM. The current study attempts to analyze the effect of e-WOM on consumer's purchase intention towards private label brands (PLB) offered by the e-tailers in India. A self-executed questionnaire was the tool to survey and extract data from 437 respondents on platforms of social media. The study brings forth a new framework integrating the models- ELM (Elaborative Likelihood Model) and IAM (Information Adoption Model) along with store image to assess the consumer's PLB purchase intention. The data was analyzed with the help of Structural Equation modeling (SEM). The outcome of the research will help the managers, marketers, e-tailers on the significance of e-WOM in making appropriate strategies to attract more and more e-shoppers. Theoretical and practical implications as well as the limitations of the study are further discussed.

The confluence of economic liberalisation, globalisation, and rapid technological change during recent past has driven the industries to capitalise on possession of unique and inimitable resources so as to gain the competitive edge in the fiercely competitive landscape. Needless to say, it is the human resource which is responsible for effective utilisation of all the physical resources. The study is an attempt to compare and evaluate the relative significance of myriad HR issues leading to a better management of the employee turnover problem. To attain the objective analytical hierarchy process was used. The factors in the decreasing order of their importance were: compensation and reward mechanism, nature of work, career growth, camaraderie and communication. The study opens up new outlooks for research related to employee retention in retail and another related sector.

Despite an evolutionary growth in PLBV in the recent past, the study on PLBV is scarce. The present study is a novel attempt to gauge underlying purchase intention of consumers towards PLBV in developing nation like India. A PLBV purchase intention framework incorporating the online store image and consumers' technology acceptance along with other pertinent factors has been designed and empirically validated. An online questionnaire was framed and administered to the identified survey pool followed by analysis of data using confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) and structural equation modelling (SEM) to validate the proposed framework. The findings unveil store image, technology acceptance, consumer innovativeness and shoppers' value consciousness as the building blocks of attitude towards PLBV. Additionally, the result unfolds that price consciousness does not influence shoppers' attitude towards PLBV individually. However, when other factors act in unison, the purchase intention towards PLBV increases which is remarkable in contrast to the PLB purchase intention in offline mode.

Private label brands (PLB) unlike generic offerings of the past are now viewed as brands in their own right. Mounting evidences suggest the growing acceptance of PLB among the aspiring consumers in the current milieu. The diminishing gap between national brands vis-à-vis their PLB counterparts call for new imperatives for retailers to sharpen the focus on store brands and garner loyalty both on offline and on online mode. However, PLB in the virtual retail environment is a novel concept entailing new insights on unexplored dimensions of markets and consumer behaviour. The present study attempts to develop a profile of consumers of PLB in the virtual retail environment, especially the emerging markets like India. Using an extended understanding of socio-demographic and psychographic factors constituting consumer shopping behaviour, a cluster analysis on a national sample of Indian online shoppers was performed. Three distinct market segment possessing unique socio-demographics and psychographic characteristics emerged viz. classical, economical and innovative consumers. The size and structure of each identified segment have significant implications for marketing theory and making strategic choices for marketers.

The current study aims to predict consumer's green hotel visit intention by measuring the effect of values (biospheric, egoistic and altruistic) and ascribed responsibility on attitude towards the green hotel and general environmental concern in India. A self-administered structured questionnaire was used to collect data from 311 consumers' purposively and analyzed by using covariance-based structural equation modeling (CB-SEM). Results reveal that biospheric values rank high in influencing attitude whereas consumers with higher altruistic values portray the higher environmental concern. Environmental concern was appeared as a significant contributor in shaping of Indian consumers' attitude towards green hotels. Further, consumers with a higher level of ascribed responsibility feel that they are mutually responsible for environmental degradation, thus forming a positive attitude towards green hotels in order to form green hotel visit intention. Further, attitude towards green hotel appears to be the strongest predictor of green hotel visit intention than general environmental concern.