Purpose: This paper analyses three strategies in customers’ use to afford consumption in a developed and an emerging market for different product groups. The strategies are: (1) usage of loyalty cards, (2) usage of credit cards and (3) usage of long-term credits. Design/methodology/approach:...

Purpose: This paper aims to investigate the influence of individual customer characteristics on frontline employees’ (FLEs) customer need knowledge (CNK), a construct that objectively measures FLEs’ ability to accurately identify a given customer’s hierarchy of needs....