The Consumer Behaviour, Digital Marketing and E-commerce Journal List We Give Our Own Clients

A call for papers for a marketing conference lands in your inbox: accepted papers will be published in an indexed journal, indexed in Google Scholar, Crossref, DOAJ and ResearchGate. Every word of that can be true, and none of it means what your promotion committee means by indexed.

So when an email lists five "indexes" and none of them is Scopus or Web of Science, read that as a statement that the journal is in neither. This page lists only journals that are, grouped by what you pay, starting with those that charge no APC at all.

How to read a quartile before you read the list

Three systems matter in marketing. The Scopus quartile comes from Scimago, inside a Scopus subject category. The JCR quartile comes from Clarivate, inside a Web of Science category, using the impact factor. And the ABDC list, covered in the questions below, often decides internal credit in business schools regardless of either.

The index tier matters more than any quartile. An ESCI journal shows an impact factor and a quartile that look exactly like an SSCI one on screen, so an ESCI Q1 will not satisfy a rule asking for SSCI. Where the tier is not recorded, the tables say so rather than guess. Settling this before the cover letter is the first step in Journal Submission Preparation.

Diamond open access: marketing journals with no APC

Led by one ESCI Q1 journal with an impact factor above 5, which is unusual for a title that charges nothing. Below it the tier falls quickly, and three rows carry no quartile at all.

Swipe the table sideways to see every column.

Web of Science options: SSCI, AHCI and ESCI

The marketing flagships, every one a subscription title with no APC. These are also the journals whose review cycles run longest, which the revision section below explains. The AI Journal Finder matches an abstract against them in seconds.

Scopus-indexed options

Scopus Q1 titles here carry a Web of Science Q3 or Q4, which is the gap described above. Every one charges no APC except Management and Marketing. Planning a sequence of papers is the Mentorship Program.

No EI Compendex journal in the source data matched this subject, which is expected for a behavioural field, so there is no EI table on this page.

Gold open access: marketing journals with an APC

Charges from 75 to about 1,400 US dollars, lower than in most fields in this series. Several carry an impact factor at the lowest band and no Scopus quartile, so read both columns before paying.

Indexed conference routes in consumer research

This is where the word "consumer" misleads. Most indexed series that match it are consumer electronics conferences, which have nothing to do with consumer behaviour. Two business series are genuinely relevant.

What a major revision looks like in consumer behaviour research

A major revision in this field rarely means rewording. At the SSCI titles above it usually means new data. These are the requests we see most often.

1. Run another study. The most common request at the flagships. A single experiment is treated as a pilot, and reviewers ask for a replication, a boundary condition or a field study with real purchase behaviour.
2. Show the mechanism properly. A mediation model estimated on the same survey is no longer enough. Expect a request to manipulate the mediator directly, or to add a moderation-of-process study.
3. Clean the online panel. Prolific and MTurk samples draw questions about attention checks, bots, repeat participants and exclusion rules, which must be stated before the analysis rather than after.
4. Pre-register or explain why not. Several journals here now expect pre-registration for experiments, and reviewers will ask about any hypothesis that looks written after the result.
5. Report effect sizes and power. A significant result on 120 participants invites a power analysis and a question about whether the effect will hold.
6. Defend the measures. For survey papers, expect requests for discriminant validity using HTMT, a common method bias test beyond Harman's single factor, and a marker variable.

Budget three to six months for a major revision here, because new data takes time. The response letter itself is Review & Response Support, and building the first submission so it survives is Manuscript Preparation Support.

What gets accepted in this field, and what gets rejected

Is ABDC A the same as Scopus Q1 for consumer behaviour research?

No. They are different systems measuring different things. ABDC is a grading of business journals by the Australian Business Deans Council, using expert panels, while Scopus Q1 is a citation ranking inside a Scopus subject category. A journal can be Scopus Q1 and graded B on ABDC, or ABDC A and Scopus Q2.

Business schools that use ABDC usually treat it as the deciding list, so check which one your rule names before choosing a venue. The two are not interchangeable in either direction.

Which consumer behaviour journals are on the ABDC list?

ABDC grades are not part of the Scopus and Web of Science data behind this page, so we do not print them rather than risk a wrong grade. Search each title on the current ABDC Journal Quality List at abdc.edu.au, which is free and searchable by title or ISSN.

As a working rule, the long-established marketing journals in the Web of Science table are almost all ABDC listed, while many of the Diamond and Gold titles with no quartile recorded are not. Confirm each one before you submit.

Does my business school accept a Scopus Q1 that is not ABDC ranked?

Only your own school's written rule answers that, and practice splits sharply. Schools that adopted ABDC as their benchmark often give no credit at all to an unranked journal, whatever its Scopus quartile, while others accept Scopus Q1 as an alternative route.

The trap is common in marketing: several Scopus Q1 titles on this page carry a Web of Science Q3 or Q4 and may not appear on ABDC. Ask for the rule in writing before submitting, not after acceptance.

What counts as an A star journal in consumer behaviour research?

A star is the top grade on the ABDC list, reserved for a small group of journals the panels judge to be the best in each discipline. Grades are revised when the list is reviewed, so the only reliable answer is the current ABDC list itself.

In marketing, the titles most often discussed as the A star group are the senior SSCI journals at the top of the Web of Science table. Treat that as a starting point and confirm each grade on abdc.edu.au, because we do not print grades we have not verified.

What happens to my paper if the journal is delisted after acceptance?

If your article was published while the journal was still covered, it stays in Scopus or Web of Science and remains an indexed paper. Coverage ends from the delisting date forward, so articles published after that are not indexed.

If you have been accepted but not yet published, the article may fall on the wrong side of the date. Withdrawing formally before publication is usually cleaner than defending it to a committee later. Keep a dated screenshot of the journal's index record from the day you submitted.

What is the difference between ESCI and SSCI when my university asks for a Web of Science paper?

Both belong to the Web of Science Core Collection but are separate indexes with different bars. SSCI is the established social science citation index, while ESCI covers journals that passed quality screening but not the full citation criteria.

Both now show impact factors and quartiles, so they look identical on screen. A rule naming Web of Science usually accepts ESCI. A rule naming SSCI does not, whatever the impact factor, which matters here because several ESCI marketing titles carry impact factors above 5.

How much does it cost to publish a consumer behaviour paper in an indexed journal?

Usually nothing. Every journal in the Web of Science table is subscription with no APC, as are all but one of the Scopus titles, and the Diamond table includes an ESCI Q1 journal with an impact factor of 5.3.

Where an APC applies, the range here runs from 75 to about 1,990 US dollars, the lowest ceiling of any field in this series. Paying buys speed and open access, not standing.

Is a Scopus Q3 paper in consumer behaviour research enough for a PhD submission?

For most universities yes, because the requirement usually names the index rather than the quartile, and a Q3 article is a Scopus-indexed article. Some programmes, especially in business schools, specify Q1, Q2 or an ABDC grade, in which case it is not.

Get the requirement in writing at the start of your final year. In a field where the flagships take a year or more across revision rounds, the difference between Q3 and Q1 is often a year of your life.

What editors screen before a reviewer sees your paper

The editorial office checks whether the English is clear enough to review, whether the structure and reference style match the journal, and what the similarity report says. Marketing papers often score high innocently, because established scales are quoted item by item. Run your own check first with the Plagiarism & AI Similarity Checker, and settle language and formatting through Manuscript Editing.

Where Research Ramp comes in

We match a finished abstract against live indexing, tell you plainly when a design will not survive the first screen, and prepare the submission so the editorial office has no reason to bounce it on formatting. Subject-matched PhD editors, milestone payments, and the author stays the author throughout. Where a study needs a second country sample or a co-author with panel access, that is Collaboration Matching, and past work is on our Case Studies page.

Questions we are asked about conference papers

Send us the abstract, we will send back the shortlist

Send us your abstract and we will return a shortlist that separates SCIE, SSCI, AHCI, Scopus and EI options, with the access model marked against each. Tap the WhatsApp icon, or scan the WeChat code. To hand over the whole route from venue choice to acceptance, that is the Full Publication Package.

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发送摘要，即可获得按检索类型分层的期刊清单。

Disclaimer. Every table on this page is correct as on October 2026 and no later. Article charges shown in US dollars are approximate conversions at October 2026 rates, and journals bill in their own currency. Indexing, quartile, access model and charges change through the year, and journals can be added to or removed from Scopus and Web of Science at any time. This page is general information only. Research Ramp Private Limited accepts no responsibility or liability for any decision made on the basis of it, including the choice of journal, any charge paid, or the outcome of any submission. Every detail must be independently verified by the author with the journal's own website and the live Scopus source list and Web of Science Master Journal List before submitting. If you would like an informal second check, send us the title and we will look at it for you.

本页所有列表数据截至 2026 年 10 月，仅供一般参考。Research Ramp 不对任何依据本页作出的选刊、付费或投稿结果承担责任。投稿前请务必通过期刊官网及 Scopus、Web of Science 实时数据自行核实收录情况与费用。