(An) investigation of consumer behavior in multichannel and omnichannel environments

Abstract

This dissertation aims to provide an in-depth understanding of the changes in consumer behaviors against the shifts in the retail industry caused by the development of ICT, with a focus on multi-channel and omni-channel environments.

The first study focuses on webrooming behavior, which most frequently occurs in the multi-channel environment, to examine the consumers’ preferences for information search channels and devices. The findings showed that the probability of webrooming behavior as well as the preferred device for webrooming shopping depends on their motives for shopping (price-consciousness orientation, shopping enjoyment orientation, convenience orientation). Also, these relationships were found to be more pronounced when consumers are shopping for search goods than experience goods. This study contributes to existing literature by expanding the stream of research which has so far concentrated on the study of purchase channels to the choice of search channels. Furthermore, this study connects the shopping behavior of webrooming, which newly emerged under the multi-channel environment, with the devices for information search to provide important academic and practical implications. The second study investigates Buy Online, Pick-up at Store (BOPS), which is the most basic business model in the omnichannel strategy. Using Innovation Diffusion Theory, the factors behind consumers’ intention to use BOPS are analyzed, including the moderating roles of situational factors and product types. The main finding of this study is that consumers had greater intentions to use BOPS if they more highly perceived the convenience of BOPS over traditional online only or offline only business models and of the risks involved in online shopping. This study takes the position as one of the early studies on omni-channel strategies, and as such, provides new possibilities for future studies in this field as well as useful academic implications. Also, the findings of this study present practical and helpful guidelines on consumers’ psychological mechanisms for managers who are preparing to incorporate omni-channel strategies into their businesses. It is anticipated that the findings and implications of this dissertation will contribute to the academic research in the fields of information systems and marketing as well as to the practical applications in developing business models that integrate the online and offline.