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Despite the increasing relevance of seamless shopping experience in an omnichannel context, research on how seamless shopping experience affects customers’ word of mouth on social media (sWOM) remains scant. Based on the attribution theory, this study aims to investigate the effects of seamless shopping experience types on customers’ sWOM intentions from the perspective of smart-shopping feelings and validated the moderation role of shopping orientation.

Using a data set of 301 omnichannel customers, three scenario-based experiments were conducted to address the research questions.

An efficient and interconnected experience is more likely to positively affect sWOM intentions than an inefficient but interconnected experience. Furthermore, smart-shopping feelings were found to have a significant mediating effect. For experiential-oriented shoppers, the positive relationship between an efficient and interconnected experience, smart-shopping feelings and sWOM intentions was significantly strengthened.

This research contributes to the sWOM and omnichannel service experience literature by investigating the influences of seamless shopping experience types on customers’ sWOM intentions. This research also provides recommendations for designing and delivering a superior, seamless shopping experience for omnichannel shoppers.

This study employed the commitment–trust theory in social psychology and relationship marketing to explore female customers' perception of channel integration quality in omnichannel retailing and its influence on their relationship commitment to and trust in the relationship with retailers, and thus on their stickiness. Channel integration quality consists of two dimensions: channel service configuration (channel choice breadth and channel service transparency) and integrated interactions (content consistency, process consistency and perceived fluency).

The study was carried out via a questionnaire survey, to which 868 valid responses were collected. The partial least squares technique was used to test the hypotheses.

Channel service transparency and perceived fluency influence relationship commitment; content consistency, process consistency and perceived fluency all have significant effects on trust. Interestingly, although less influential than integrated interactions, channel service configuration is the foundation of channel integration quality, testifying to its significant role.

This study provides strong evidence on how channel integration quality affects customer stickiness. Moreover, this study replicates the finding of significant relationships among relationship commitment, trust and stickiness in omnichannel retailing.

Marketplaces are changing, and customers are demanding improved experiences where they want, how they want, and when they want. The omnichannel concept is perceived as an evolution of multichannel retailing, which implies a blurring division between the physical and online stores. In the omnichannel environment, customers move freely among physical and online stores expecting seamless shopping experiences between channels. Among different generational consumer groups, Gen Z deserves marketers’ particular attention, which is the new rising segment for omnichannel experiences. The purpose of this chapter is first to verify the essence of generational differences in consumer’s omnichannel buying behavior by giving a special focus on the Gen Z segment. Secondly, this chapter discusses how retailers should integrate their online and offline store channels to provide the best retail brand experience to these distinctive Gen Z consumers.

The purpose of the paper is to create a well-integrated and unified customer experience anytime, anywhere, through any channel is the leading objective of omnichannel retailers. Scholars advocate the crucial role of channel integration quality (CIQ)–specifically its components of channel-service configuration and integrated interactions–in formulating the customer experience, which in turn determines their patronage intention. However, a dearth of research exists on the dynamic nature of this particular mechanism. The potential mediating and moderating effects of customer empowerment and Internet usage have hardly been considered at all in the context of omnichannel retailing. These research gaps will be addressed in this study.

Based on a data set of 312 omnichannel customers, the partial least square–structural equation model (PLS-SEM) was employed to test the hypothesised relationships.

The results reveal the dynamic mechanism in which channel-service configuration and integrated interactions are the key factors that not only directly enable omnichannel retailers to deliver customers with a seamless shopping experience but also empower customers to shape their own consumption experiences. The findings also demonstrate the contingency role of consumers' Internet usage in such a dynamic mechanism. Finally, the notion that a strong customer experience increases their intention for patronage is supported by the empirical evidence.

This study contributes to the existing literature by quantitatively examining the moderated mediating mechanism of forming customer experience and its subsequent patronage behaviour in the context of omnichannel retailers.

The online brand advocacy behaviors of omnichannel shoppers, who mainly rely on integrated brick-and-mortar stores (recognized as a vital channel for delivering a seamless shopping experience and meeting the dynamic needs of the shoppers), are still understudied. This study aims to investigate how integrated store service quality (ISSQ) may elicit both positive and negative emotions that contribute to a memorable omnichannel shopping experience and have an impact on shoppers' attachment to the store, leading to their exhibition of online brand advocacy behaviors (brand defense, brand positivity, brand knowledge sharing and virtual positive expression).

The study is a cross-sectional, descriptive and quantitative investigation. The research participants were chosen using a purposive sampling technique. Using a validated self-administered questionnaire, data were gathered from 886 Indian omnichannel shoppers who often purchase at the integrated brick-and-mortar store. The proposed conceptual model was tested using Smart PLS software for partial least squares-structural equation modeling.

The results indicate that positive and negative emotions mediate the relationship between ISSQ and memorable omnichannel shopping experiences, subsequently impacting omnichannel shoppers' attachment to the store and leading to online brand advocacy behaviors. The relationship strength perceived by shoppers significantly positively moderated the relationship between store attachment and different online brand advocacy behaviors (brand defense, brand positivity, brand knowledge sharing and virtual positive expression).

The study relied upon single cross-sectional data from the Indian population, where omnichannel retailing is still nascent.

This study addresses the need to investigate the different emotions that arise while evaluating service quality in omnichannel retail purchase journeys leading to memorable shopping experiences. Emphasizing post-purchase behaviors like different online brand advocacy behaviors (brand defense, brand positivity, brand knowledge sharing and virtual positive expression), this study is the first to show that ISSQ might affect four different OBAs through memorable omnichannel shopping experience and the shopper's sense of attachment to the store. The moderating effect of relationship strength perceived by shoppers with the retailer on a few proposed hypotheses was also tested to give managerial recommendations.

The transition from multichannel to omnichannel retailing requires a better conceptualisation, especially for customer experience in smart shopping malls. Therefore, this study aims to propose a theoretical model that captures customers’ omnichannel experiences in smart shopping malls in terms of personal interaction, physical environment and virtual environment encounters. It examines the mediating role of flow experience on the relationship between the three types of encounters and customers’ intention to revisit smart shopping malls.

The study draws on four key theories: the service encounter model, trust-commitment theory, flow theory and experiential value theory. A total of 553 completed questionnaires were collected from customers (millennials) in the United Kingdom (UK). The data was analysed using partial least squares-structural equation modelling.

The findings show that physical environment encounters and personal interaction encounters play a significant role in customers’ omnichannel experiences in smart malls. Also, of significance are the following aspects of virtual environment encounters: interface design, personalisation, trust, privacy, consumer–peer interaction and relationship commitment. The findings highlight the significant mediating role of flow on the relationships between these three types of encounters and intention, and the effect of flow on omnichannel service usage in smart shopping malls.

The research contributes to the existing literature by proposing a conceptual model: the smart shopping mall omnichannel customer experience (SSMCE) model. The findings offer practical guidance to shopping malls and retailers who wish to enhance the customer omnichannel experience.

This study considers perceived enjoyment and attitude consistency as internal states of consumers in an omni-channel environment. This study aims to investigate the mediating role of perceived enjoyment and attitude consistency to reveal how omni-channel environment factors of interaction fluency, convenience, price advantage and personalization contribute to omni-channel shopping intention.

Consumers who had shopped at Uniqlo's online and offline stores were surveyed through an online questionnaire, and 566 data were collected for analysis through partial least squares structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM).

The results find that interaction fluency, price advantage and personalization positively affect perceived enjoyment, interaction fluency and convenience positively affect attitude consistency and perceived enjoyment and attitude consistency in turn facilitate omni-channel shopping intention. The mediating role of perceived enjoyment and attitude consistency was confirmed.

The original finding of this study is that factors such as interaction fluency, convenience, price advantage and personalization in omni-channel retailing require momentary and continuous affective states of consumers to facilitate omni-channel shopping intention, respectively. Therefore, this study considers the necessity of capturing different affective states of consumers in omni-channel shopping.

While e-commerce has been widely cited as the new marketing frontier, thus necessitating the need to deliver seamless shopping experiences across various online channels to achieve success, very few firms have the well withal to clearly tie customer experience investments to marketing outcomes. Theoretically speaking, the understanding of the drivers and outcomes of online shopping experience especially group behavior is imprecise. Therefore, this paper aims to investigate the drivers and outcomes of online shopping experience (OSE).

A combination of netnography and conversation analysis was used on a pool of qualitative data generated from the Facebook page of a leading online retailer that has online presence in 11 African countries.

Two broad categories of OSE under seven drivers and five distinct behavioral outcomes of OSE emerged from the study. The two categories of OSE drivers, though unique, widely fit into the existing frameworks of OSE. The study also indicates that shoppers seize other shoppers’ reviews as a suitable platform to engage in a wide range of behaviors.

The main theoretical implications include the following: complaint handling is not only a behavioral construct but also a stimulator/driver of online shopping experience; consumer behavior is stimulated more by cognitive drivers; trust is an outcome of OSE which leads to not only electronic word of mouth but also external response to service failure; and shoppers perceive external response to service failure as the last resort and this last resort can be activated by regrets and poor internal response to service failure. The major limitation of this study is that the proposed conceptual model was not empirically tested. Future research is required to validate the model.

The managerial implications of the findings are that in addition to providing superior shopping experience through enhancing the drivers of OSE identified in this study, online retailers must work assiduously to reduce incidents leading to service failures and promptly undertake service recovery actions whenever service failure occurs. Online retailers especially those operating in emerging markets will therefore benefit from their service recovery investments if they proactively install processes that enable them to promptly and satisfactorily recover failed services.

This paper contributes to service science research by proposing a unique belief-attitude-intention model of the drivers and outcomes of OSE on a relatively underexplored field. The proposed conceptual model advances the stimulus-organism-response framework, theory of planned behavior, satisfaction theories and shopping behavior literature in several directions.

This study aims to investigate customers' personal innovativeness (PI) as an influencing factor of omni-channel customer experience throughout pre-purchase, purchase and post–purchase stages of the customer journey, and their subsequent influences on customers' reuse intention.

Data were collected from customers who had experience with omni-channel shopping in South Korea through a questionnaire made with Naver Forms, both online and offline from 15 June to 15 July 2022. Out of the received responses, only valid and consistent questionnaires were considered for statistical analysis. In total, 272 valid samples were utilised for the final analysis. Analyses included reliability, validity, path, structural equation modelling and mediation effects, using SPSS and AMOS software.

The results revealed a significant influence of personal innovativeness on the omni-channel customer experience across all purchase stages. Personal innovativeness was found to influence the customer experience in the pre- and post–purchase stages, thus affecting reuse intention. However, it did not have the same effect in the purchase stage. The omni-channel experience customer experience also played an indirect mediating role in the relationship between personal innovativeness and reuse intention.

First, personal innovativeness in the IT domain may be very prominent in studies examining innovative behaviours related to computing technology. Second, this study provides further understanding of customers' intentions to reuse omni-channel shopping. Third, the path analysis showed that personal innovativeness significantly affects customer experience at all pre-purchase, purchase and post–purchase stages of the customer journey. However, except for the purchase experience, both pre- and post–purchase experiences significantly impact customers' intention to reuse omni-channels and play a mediating role.

First, omni-channel retailers should launch new products, innovative promotional activities and explore new channels or new service modes to stimulate the need recognition of customers with high personal innovativeness. Second, omni-channel retailers should pay attention to the users' reviews of each channel because they play a key role in potential customers' purchase decisions. Third, offering customers a seamless shopping experience is essential as a marketing strategy for omni-channel retailing.

This study elucidates the causal relationship between personal characteristics and behaviour by dividing the omni-channel customer journey. In particular, personal innovativeness is identified as an important predictor of the intention to reuse omni-channels during the pre- and post–purchase stages. This suggests that omni-channel retailers need to strategically manage these stages to boost customers' reuse intention.

This study aims to present the path-to-purchase of omni micro-resellers in affordable fashion shopping centers and differentiates them from the existing knowledge of end-user’s purchase journey. Furthermore, the study aims to explore the omnichannel readiness for Micro and Small Enterprises (MSEs) merchants to provide a seamless experience for the micro-resellers.

This study adopted an ethnographic approach to gain deep insights into the unexplored omni journey of micro-resellers, using multiple techniques and respondent types in various locations.

Findings reveal that the journey of omni micro-reseller is not the same as the end-user's purchase journey. The new value needed in every path-to-purchase is an essential knowledge that helps MSE merchants in serving micro-resellers. MSE merchants' readiness is assessed by their ability to provide the best customer experience for their buyers, consisting of six omnichannel experience dimensions: researching, purchase-payment, shipping, omnichannel testing, return goods experience and relationship building.

Using the Engel-Kollat-Blackwell (EKB) decision-making model, this study develops the path-to-purchase of omnichannel micro-resellers. The new readiness dimensions developed in this study are set as a potential measurement tool.

It provides new insights to benefit MSE merchants and the institutions responsible for enhancing merchant quality.

This study focuses on micro-resellers in the MSEs environment, the prominent buyers of affordable fashion in developing countries, which is a novelty of the study. Moreover, unlike previous studies that have focused on large and medium merchants, this study concentrates on MSE merchants. To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this study is one of the first studies to highlight ways to measure MSE merchants omnichannel readiness.