Paper Info
Title
Consumer Choice Of Multichannel Shopping The Effects Of Relationship Investment And Online Store Preference
Abstract
Purpose - Consumers display complex shopping behaviors in the multichannel environment, which includes traditional retail stores and the internet. The purpose of this paper is to examine the effects of the customer-sales associate relationship, customers' receptiveness to online store shopping, and their interaction effects on the customer's attitude toward multichannel shopping behavior when the firm decides to establish an online store as the online channel. The authors also examine how customers' multichannel shopping behavior affects their future spending intentions.Design/methodology/approach - Survey data were collected by soliciting 231 customers who purchased cosmetics in department stores within the past three months. Subjects were asked to give their overall evaluation of their offline and online shopping experiences in the last three months.Findings - Results show that the customer-sales associate relationship significantly reduces customers' attitude toward searching offline but purchasing online. Receptiveness to online store shopping has significant effects on customers' attitude toward multichannel shopping behaviors regardless of whether they search or purchase via the online channel. The customer-sales associate relationship also moderates the relationship between customers' receptiveness to online store shopping and multichannel shopping behaviors. Finally, unlike other types of online and offline multichannel shoppers who display higher future spending intentions when the physical store decides to open an online store, those who prefer physical stores for both information searching and product purchasing display lower spending intentions.Originality/value - To the best of the authors' knowledge, this paper is the first to use customer-sales associate relationships to investigate consumers' attitude toward multichannel shopping behavior. The findings provide meaningful implications for service providers that use sales associates to increase consumers' value via face-to-face service, but find it challenging to go online.
Year
DOI
Venue
2017
10.1108/IntR-08-2013-0173
INTERNET RESEARCH
Keywords
Field
DocType
Customer-sales associate relationship, Multichannel customer management, Multichannel shopping attitude, Receptiveness to online store shopping
Survey data collection,Associate - relationship,Advertising,Computer science,Consumer choice,Service provider,Originality,Purchasing,Online and offline,Marketing,The Internet
Journal
Volume
Issue
ISSN
27
1
1066-2243
Citations 
PageRank 
References 
5
0.42
6
Authors
3
Name
Order
Citations
PageRank
Jyh-Shen Chiou121012.22
Szu-Yu Chou2496.82
George Chung-Chi Shen350.42