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Purpose This study aims to develop and test a process model of the effect of social media use by business-to-business (B2B) salespeople on their value cocreation and cross/upselling performance. Adopting a research acquisition perspective, the authors claim that salesperson’s social media use is critical for generating social capital – an operant resource characterized by superior market knowledge, reputation and networking – which, in turn, directly and synergistically enhances value cocreation and cross/upselling outcomes. Design/methodology/approach A model is developed based on extant sales research on salesperson’s social media use and social capital theory. Data from B2B salespeople is analyzed using structural equation modeling to test the proposed hypotheses. Findings The results demonstrate that salespeople’s social media use enhances their social capital with support for direct effects on market knowledge and reputation, and indirect effect on networking. The results also show that the three aspects of social capital drive value cocreation, which enhances cross/upselling performance. Post hoc analysis shows the indirect effects of salesperson’s social media use as well as the interconnected effects of the aspects of social capital on value cocreation. Practical implications The study indicates that salespeople should be encouraged to use social media as a means for enhancing market knowledge and reputation, which can then be leveraged to build networking skills. Providing training to salespeople and coaching them on how to build their social capital is essential if organizations need to capitalize on novel ways to improve the value cocreation performance of their sales teams. Originality/value This study demonstrates how salespeople’s social media use can enhance their social capital, which, in turn, is critical for value cocreation and cross/upselling performance. The proposed framework opens opportunities for future studies to examine the role of salesperson social capital and value cocreation in B2B exchanges.

This article leverages a unique data set, recently developed regression methods, and qualitative interviews to investigate the multiple ways real estate agents produce housing inequality. We find that the clustering of agents in and around certain neighborhoods correlates positively with house prices. Our results also show a significant relationship between agent concentration and racial segregation. Our qualitative data reveal how agents engage in steering and upselling. The findings enhance our understanding of mechanisms in the housing market, and provide more empirical clarity on the role real estate agents play in asset and place inequality.

•Three experiments investigate luxury–charity collaboration at the point of sale.•We show that CM communication enhances preference for luxury brands.•This influence is mediated by guilt reduction.•Dependent variables include purchase intent and actual choice. If luxury retail strategy aims to generate awe rather than community, while charities convey community rather than awe, should luxury and charity partner at the point of sale? This research suggests that an association with charity at the point of sale can increase choice of (Study 1) and purchase intent toward (Study 2) a luxury brand and can facilitate upselling to a luxury (vs. value) store brand (Study 3). Further, it implicates guilt reduction as the underlying process mechanism (Studies 2 and 3). Managerial and retailing implications for cause-related marketing of luxury (vs. value) brands are discussed.

Suggestive selling is used as an in-store promotional tool by many retailers and some research has examined the effectiveness of this promotional tool. However, extant literature on this topic suffers from limitations of design and data. We discuss and overcome some of these limitations by examining the effectiveness of suggestive selling using store data collected from a large retail chain. We also account for many other in-store promotions implemented during a 146-week period for 6 confectionery products. We find that suggestive selling is effective in increasing sales and shopper penetration in the presence of a variety of in-store promotions. Using a rich, balanced panel dataset, we develop robust models to demonstrate the positive impact of suggestive selling. Theoretical, managerial, and methodological implications of this research are discussed.

Purpose In many industries, customers are offered the opportunity to revise their initial decision in return for a superior but more expensive service option, a selling technique that is typically referred to as upselling. Drawing on the research on customers’ service experience, cognitive effort, decision justification, and goal framing, the purpose of this paper is to conceptualize upselling as a two-stage decision process where the process of making the first decision (i.e. deciding on an initial service option) affects the final decision (i.e. the decision for or against the upsell offer). Design/methodology/approach First, qualitative interviews were conducted both with customers as well as managers. Moreover, in two experimental studies, different scenarios depicted an upsell situation that is common in many service encounters. After choosing a hotel room or rental car for reservation, participants were confronted with differently framed arguments to induce a shift toward an enhanced but more costly version of the initially chosen service option. Findings The qualitative interviews reveal that upselling is a common practice in many companies and that the manner in which the upsell is communicated has a considerable influence on its effectiveness. The first experimental study finds that the cognitive effort that customers expend in the initial choice moderates the effect of upsell messages using different goal frames. The second experimental study shows that customers are only affected by different goal frames when they feel responsible for the outcome of the final decision. Practical implications The findings provide a number of useful guidelines for designing upselling strategies and may also be used to segment a firm’s customer base. On a more general level, this research also raises managers’ awareness of the sequential nature of upselling decisions and the customer’s intrinsic need to justify an upsell choice. Originality/value The studies contribute to the literature on customers’ service experience and upselling strategies. Upselling is conceptualized as a two-stage process in which customers’ experience in one phase influences their behavior in later stages. The underlying psychological mechanisms of this effect are also highlighted by referring to customers’ need to justify service choices to themselves.

We study upselling in markets where the seller observes consumer need but the consumer herself may not (e.g., medical care, durable repairs, financial and legal services). The seller may recommend excessive product features to uninformed consumers. In a monopoly with two types of consumer (one with a basic need and the other an advanced need) and two types of service (a basic service which fulfills only the basic need and an advanced service which fulfills both needs), we investigate the firm’s honesty and product-line pricing. We reach several results. First, the firm is honest if the basic service is superior (in that it generates higher per-capita social surplus than the advanced service under the efficient allocation) or if the consumers with the basic need are sufficiently many. Second, when there exist informed consumers who neglect seller recommendation, the presence of informed consumers may cause consumer welfare to decrease, and a larger informed population may cause firm profits and social welfare to increase or decrease. Lastly, when the informed consumers boycott a dishonest firm and withhold purchase, firm profits may increase because the threat of boycotting makes the firm more credible and allows a higher price of the advanced service.