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Purpose – This study aims to examine empirically how consumers' attitude towards retail stores gets affected by situational, consumer, store and product characteristic variables when they face out‐of‐stock situations. Design/methodology/approach – Survey method for data collection was used. Data were collected from a sample of 1,207 retail customers in India's unorganized retail sector across five product categories in Varanasi, India. Findings – Results showed that six of the independent variables considered, namely, shopping attitude of respondent, store loyalty (SL), perceived store prices, store distance, shopping frequency, and brand loyalty (in order of importance of impact) significantly influenced consumers' attitude towards retail store in out‐of‐stock. Research limitations/implications – Data were collected only for five product categories and for unorganized retail setting because of which results and findings are not generalizeable to beyond these boundaries. Practical implications – Implications of this for retailers and future research are discussed. Originality/value – Since attitudes towards retail outlets are very important in determining future SL and subsequent profitability, understanding of consumer store attitudes in negative events like stockout is importantly for retailers. The paper provides crucial insights to retailers by identifying independent variables that must be considered while designing their operations.

The purpose of the paper is to systematically review and summarize the literature addressing various sources of online brand equity. The evolution of social media, online forums and virtual communities drive the diversity in nomenclature of online marketing variables. Different researchers have used different marketing variables to indicate the same source of online brand equity. The definitions of the marketing variables change with the change in context, due to the complex e-commerce environment. The marketing variables used in different studies have lead to a conceptual overlap and repetitiveness.

This confusion is sought to be classified by the proposed classificatory scheme that used content analysis of 42 previous studies. The definitions of the antecedents of sources of the online brand equity used by the authors are analyzed with the help of content analysis to summarize the marketing variables in a meaningful way.

The paper identifies 15 major marketing variables by authors in their studies related to various sources of online brand equity. The final list contains 13 frequently used variables which also comprises variables which are evolving due to the dynamic e-commerce environment like the feeling of “virtual-real”.

The variables identified can be used by the businesses as a check list to their marketing activities.

This is the first paper which identifies and clarifies the ambiguity present in the application of the various online marketing variables.

The Internet has existed in India for about 18 months. An attempt has been made here to give information about India's Internet service providers and information infrastructure, and to group the Internet information sources originating from India into various categories: viz. art, business, campus wide information systems, companies and organisations, data and software, directories, discussion lists/forums, electronic journals, e‐mail based infoservers, entertainment, investment, medical, multimedia, multipurpose, online information, religion and tourism. The paper also discusses the Internet in the social and commercial context of India and concludes with India's rapid response in providing its resources over the Net to establish its presence, the growth of Web sites, privatisation of access, and PC penetration in the SOHO and home segment.