Search results

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.

The purpose of this study is to gain a better conceptualization and measurement of smart shopping. The specific objectives are to: investigate consumers' perceptions of the term smart shopping; develop a measure of smart shopping; and validate the measure of smart shopping.

The research includes a comprehensive literature review, focus group interviews, and in‐depth interviews for initial item generation and instrument development. Scale development consists of a pilot test (n=100), a pretest (n=237), and main study (n=1,474).

The findings indicate that smart shopping includes consumers seeking to minimize the expenditure of time, money, or energy to gain hedonic or utilitarian value from the experience.

In‐store shopping was examined based on shopping for clothing, grocery, or electronics; therefore caution must be used when applying the smart shopping scale to other shopping contexts or product categories.

Gaining a better understanding of the smart shopper will enable retailers to more accurately target this consumer group. Focus could be placed on saving time or saving energy in addition to the traditional emphasis on saving money. Retailers could also provide a combination of utilitarian and hedonic experiences for consumers.

This study conceptualizes and tests the term smart shopping from a broader perspective than previous studies that primarily focused on monetary savings in the grocery shopping context. Smart shopping includes the desire for efficient shopping but emphases on the components of an efficient trip may differ from traditional theories.

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.

Numerous companies have launched brand pages (BPs) on social networking sites to enhance customer-brand communication, cultivate the customer-brand relationship and promote brand loyalty. This study aims to investigate how BP affordances support social commerce.

The study devises a theoretical model linking the proposed BP affordances (visibility, selectivity, persistence and interactivity) to three customer values (relationship quality, brand experience and smart shopping feeling [SSF]) to encourage brand loyalty and BP endorsement on the part of the customer.

Data collected from 591 respondents support all proposed hypotheses. The model explains high variances in brand loyalty and BP endorsement, indicating that relationship quality plays a more salient role in producing brand loyalty, while SSF plays a more important role in eliciting BP endorsement.

The study is unique in four ways. First, drawing on the lens of affordance, it proposes specific affordances for BPs and offers empirical results for their applicability. Second, by incorporating CDL into the research model, it illuminates the high explanatory power of these proposed BP affordances on the three customer values. Integrating the S-O-R model with the affordance perspective and CDL provides a more complete picture of the BP phenomenon. Third, it extends the reach of existing work by examining BP endorsement in social media as a dependent variable beyond brand loyalty, with SSF included as another source of values to shed more light on the relationships depicted in the model. Fourth, by taking trait competitiveness into account, it sheds further light on relationships between customer values and BP endorsement.

This study analyzes how omnichannel integration influences customer patronage intention, highlighting the moderation effect of consumer service experience consciousness. Additionally, it also examines the sequential mediating role of consumer empowerment and satisfaction.

This study uses a survey method to collect data from 336 young Indian consumers, having experienced omnichannel retailing. Data were analyzed using SPSS PROCESS macro to examine both the mediating and moderated relationships.

The results confirm that a customers' perceived online–offline channel integration increases their patronage intention directly and through the mediating role of consumer empowerment and satisfaction. Additionally, as a moderator, consumer service experience consciousness does not necessarily impact consumer patronage interest through the mediating role of consumer empowerment. Nevertheless, it does have a negative impact through the mediating role of consumer satisfaction.

This study provides insights into designing online–offline retailing integration, based upon which, proposes several recommendations for increasing customer satisfaction and patronage intention.

To the best of the authors' knowledge, this is among the first studies to highlight the theory of consumer empowerment in the context of omnichannel retailing. Thus, it contributes to the extant literature on omnichannel retailing while investigating the moderating role of consumer service experience consciousness.

Grounded on the concept of a value trade-off, the authors of this study seek to address the question of why some people visit an offline store before purchasing online. The authors offer a novel perspective by identifying and describing the perceived value drivers (benefits and sacrifices) associated with showrooming in the context of the branded apparel segment.

Data collected from 318 showrooming customers were analysed in the context of the proposed perceived value framework using the structural equation modelling method.

The results showed that enhanced product evaluation, monetary savings, smart shopper feelings and perceived enjoyment (positively) and search costs and online risk (negatively) influenced consumers' showrooming value perceptions as benefits and sacrifices associated with showrooming. Only perceived consumption delay emerged as insignificant. As expected, perceived showrooming value was identified as an important driver of showrooming intentions.

The application of this paper's findings is limited to the branded apparel segment. The model can be tested in other sectors with a larger sample size to gain deeper insights.

The findings can be utilized by brick-and-mortar retailers to retain showrooming customers.

The authors of the current research work contribute to a better understanding of showrooming by adopting a perceived-value-based perspective, which offers an alternative yet effective route for understanding showrooming.

The concepts of showrooming and webrooming have been well researched but majorly from the marketing/economic perspectives. The present study explores the socio-psychological motivations and different types of satisfaction derived from “cross-shopping” behaviour namely, showrooming and webrooming in a developing nation.

The study is exploratory and is conducted using an interpretive approach. The researchers conducted 52 in-depth interviews and the collected data were subjected to open and axial coding to generate the conceptual model.

The findings indicate various motivations of cross-shopping such a habit and the joy of discovery while novel aspects of satisfaction emerge such as process satisfaction and social satisfaction. The findings also revealed contextual moderators of the cross-shopping process.

The present study contributes to the domain of cross shopping behaviour by illustrating the social motivators behind the same and novel satisfaction outcomes because of the cross-shopping process.

The present study has multiple implications that would enable managers to effectively utilize cross shopping behaviour such understanding of satisfaction beyond those derived from the product only.

This is one of the first studies to investigate consumer behaviour related to cross shopping based on psycho-social dimensions.

This article undertakes a literature review on showrooming, offering an exhaustive overview of research publications and future research objectives that will contribute to extending the understanding of the phenomenon.

The showrooming literature has been collected from journals indexed by SCOPUS and ranked by ABDC. This was later analysed with the SPAR-4-SLR framework and the TCCM methodology (theories, contexts, characteristics, and methodologies) proposed by Paul et al. (2021) and Paul and Rosado-Serrano (2019).

The insights of this review include bibliometrics of showrooming research and the number of explored showrooming theories, methodologies, and contexts from which the phenomenon has been studied. It also highlights the various aspects that might be considered while building an optimal approach.

Articles published in SCOPUS-indexed and ABDC-ranked journals between 2012 and August 2022 were considered. Some articles published in conference proceedings and journals, not fulfilling the aforementioned criteria, might have been missed.

SPAR-4-SLR and TCCM methodologies would aid the researchers in further exploration of this phenomenon and suggest options for enhancing customer experience (CX) eventually leading to customer retention. Retail channel managers will find this knowledge handy in “encouraging loyal showrooming” and ensuring business sustainability.

This study uses the novel SPAR-4-SLR framework to structure the review, while TCCM methodology sheds light on the showrooming from the perspective of various theories, contexts, characteristics, and methodologies. The scope for further research identified through the above-mentioned framework and methodology would be of high value to the researchers and practitioners alike.

The advent of digitalization and the trend of social distancing coincide with the individualized lifestyle that is emerging among contemporary shoppers. This study explores the unique market of “smart solo shoppers”. Two empirical studies are conducted, which aim to identify the major dimensions of multi-channel shopping activities that are engaged by the shoppers (Study 1, n = 64) and to differentiate the shoppers' valuation of time invested in the distinct dimensions under different cultural influences (Study 2, n = 519).

A survey questionnaire is used for data collection, and data are analyzed using structural equation modeling.

Results reveal that the shopping activities converge into four principal dimensions: offline shopping, online shopping, post-shopping delivery and product return activities. Shoppers who perceive offline shopping activities as a time burden and online shopping and delivery activities as venues of value creation are more strongly self-identified as smart solo shoppers. Furthermore, smart solo shoppers who are under a strong influence of individualistic culture are found to spend time on multi-channel shopping to make the right purchase the first time, whereas shoppers perceiving being in a weak individualistic culture prefer to engage online channels while being prepared to return the unwanted purchases.

This study highlights an emerging research field in the nexus of solo consumption and smart shopping. Emphasizing the utility-driven and ego-expressive nature of smart solo shoppers, the authors provide an initial profile of these shoppers based on their time-valuation patterns and the contextual impacts of individualistic culture.