Impact of Brand Experience on Brand Equity of Online Shopping Portals A Study of Select eCommerce Sites in the State of Jammu and Kashmir

Abstract

The increasing competition in the business environment, commoditization of products and rise of informed customers in contemporary times has compelled businesses to focus on hedonic attributes in their product offerings. Delivering pleasing experiences rather than only functional attributes through their offerings has become the objective of most modern day business organizations. The concept of experience has been of special interest to both marketers and academicians over the last decade. The scope of experiential marketing goes beyond the traditional marketing as it adds an emotional character to the marketing activity. There are many concepts in the marketing literature related to experience such as product experience, service experience, consumption experience, shopping experience and some others. But, the concept of brand experience is broader and comprehensive as compared to other experience constructs. Brand experience comprises of sensory, affective (emotional), behavioural and intellectual experiences formed due to different brand stimuli such as products, marketing communications, packaging, design, logo, customer-employee interactions etc. Brand experience becomes important for companies to manage as the research has shown its influence on brand equity. Brand equity is without any doubt the most important and strategic asset for most of the business organizations. Recent research on brand equity has been on its antecedents rather than its consequences. Companies are focusing on novel and innovative ways in order to build brand equity. Brand experience is one such construct which can be used by marketing managers in building and managing brand equity. newlineOnline shopping is one of the fastest growing businesses worldwide and revolution in the communication technologies has made it easier and economical for businesses to transact their business online...