The influence of marketing communications on the consumer path to purchase for both online and in-store purchases

This thesis examines the way online browsing and online or in-store purchasing behaviours evolve across the purchases customers make from a brand, and how this is influenced by the marketing communications that customers receive from that brand and its competitors. A sample of customers of three different retail brands are tracked over a two year period, and changes to browsing and purchase behaviour are observed. A model is developed which predicts the way customers are most likely to evolve from one purchase to the next, and demonstrates the way these changes to behaviour are influenced by marketing communications including emails and catalogues.