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No other research analyzes the formation of overall satisfaction across channels, including the reciprocal interactions between store and website satisfaction and the factors that moderate them. Therefore, the aim of the present study is to examine how overall customer satisfaction is formed from the image and perceived congruence of the two main existing channels and the satisfaction induced by each.

The online study covers 909 customers of a French mortar-to-click retailer specializing in women's and children's clothing. The conceptual model incorporates reciprocal interdependence between store satisfaction and website satisfaction. This model is tested using the procedure specific to non-recursive structural equation model.

Overall satisfaction with the retailer is not only generated by satisfaction with the store and the website, but also directly and indirectly by the image of each channel. The contribution of the variables depends on the personal and situational characteristics of the customer. Not only is the relationship confirmed from store satisfaction to website satisfaction, but for the first time, in rarer cases the reverse is also observed. On the other hand, while the perceived congruence of channels can improve satisfaction with the channel for certain types of customers, in other cases the congruence can also worsen customers' overall satisfaction.

The detailed analysis of the formation of this satisfaction shows the pre-eminence of the customer over the retailer's initiatives. A retailer may facilitate or encourage virtuous interaction between retailer's channels by making the transfer of information and products more fluid (click and collect for example); but in the end, the customer is the one who decides whether or not to bring the channels closer together.

Contrary to what the literature assumes, in some cases, the retailer's attempt to integrate the channels may even reduce overall satisfaction if customers do not want this integration, just as a high level of satisfaction on the website can reduce in-store satisfaction.

This research studies what full channel integration means for customers, how channels should be combined so that this integration is perceived by customers and whether a retailer under study can act on the same channel attributes regardless of the type of customer.

The research design uses an online survey of a full sample of 1,015 multichannel buyers, extracted from the behavioral databases of a French specialized retailer. This full sample is segmented into four sub-samples. The data are treated with backward multiple linear regressions.

Based on research in marketing and psychology, this study conceptually demonstrates that integrated interactions perceived by consumers are the outcome of a judgment of congruence that seek to build relationships between them in order to combine them better. Testing three hypotheses, the empirical study shows that channel integration is a psychological process: cumulative (individuals incorporate the information provided by the different channels rather than comparing them), selective (customers never take into account all the attributes of the channels) and subjective (the channel image attributes taken into account differ in number and quality from one type of customer to another).

Contrary to what the literature assumes, without ever demonstrating it, full integration does not imply that the retailer in question homogenizes or even matches up all the attributes of its channels. The retailer is thus able to act on attributes that promote this integration, while being relatively free to cultivate the incongruence of other attributes more likely to smoothly guide customers to a particular channel – in other words, a path midway between cross-channel and omnichannel.

This study analyzes how small French retailers are adapting their front-office to the digitalization of their business environment.

The qualitative study focuses on dynamic capabilities of 27 independent French retailers, in a wide variety of sectors.

The digitalization of small retailers does not date from the pandemic health crisis. Small retailers are willing, agile and organized to make controlled progress, ranging from the visibility on social networks to online sales with its specific logistical constraints. Even if their presence on marketplaces is trickier to implement, it represents the culmination of the digitalization process, once their online store has been launched. The digital transformation of independent retailers should be less radical than for large retailers.

By distinguishing between the concepts of adaptive, absorptive and innovative capabilities, this research highlights strong differences between small retailers, that is SMEs, and larger companies. In terms of adaptive capabilities, it confirms that small retailers are not embracing digitalization as a fad, but because of real changes in the market, and particularly in demand. In contrast to large companies, small retailers drive it more around external objectives linked to their intimate knowledge of changing customer behavior (customer centricity). In terms of absorptive capabilities, the success or failure of digital transformation weighs directly on the entrepreneur's shoulders, but is less hampered by technological legacy. Despite interviews only conducted in the Paris region, it converges with professional studies carried out on a larger scale in France. Its widespread use is certainly easier in countries at the same stage of commercial development.

In terms of innovative capabilities, independent retailers need to focus on four key areas: reinventing the in-store experience; increasing visibility on social networks; creating an online store; being present in one or two marketplaces or creating a common platform with other local merchants.

This research is one of the first to analyze the digital transformation experienced by small structures. It draws on the concept of dynamic capabilities, well-suited to technologically and commercially dynamic markets. It puts into perspective studies carried out in other countries on less diversified types of shops. Unlike other studies examining the front office, it does not exclude stores and SEO in marketplaces.

This paper compares empirically the nature, level and influence of perceived risks involved in a retailer’s website and stores, as multichannel shoppers will do when deciding which distribution channel to buy in.

The research design uses an online survey of 1,015 multichannel customers that was drawn from the behavioural databases of a French multichannel retailer.

Overall risk as well as risks associated with logistics, psychological and performance are higher and more dissuasive for an online purchase; however, financial, time and transaction risks tend predominantly or exclusively to discourage in-store purchasing. Customers’ familiarity with the channel seems to make them more vigilant.

The concept of risk, and especially financial risk, is variable among researchers, making it more difficult to undertake comparative studies on e-commerce than on stores or products.

Retailers should not look merely to the salience of an isolated risk factor but rather should consider its actual impact on their customers’ final decision. Nonetheless, retailers will find it more difficult to reduce perceived risk on-line than in-store.

By focussing on a multichannel retailer’s website and stores and comparing the effects of six types of risk on the purchase attitudes of its multichannel shoppers, this study is distinct from most single-channel studies, which have examined risk inherent in Internet purchasing, handled risk on an experimental website and explored in-store risk. Moreover, the study focuses on the risks entailed by the purchase channel rather than those related to particular products or brands.

The purpose of this paper is to assess whether the image of a retailer – beyond the distinct contributions of the website and the stores ‐ is improved by the perceived congruence of its channels, and for what types of customers.

An online survey was conducted on 1,478 customers taken from the behavioural databases of a major French multichannel retailer. Structural modelling and one‐way ANOVA were used to test the working hypotheses.

Congruent channels improve retailer image even when these channels have a less good image. However, channel congruence cannot be elevated to a universal guiding principle as it only affects multichannel and online buyers, with no detrimental impact on retailer image.

The study is mainly limited by the type of retailer studied, and the choice of an online questionnaire, limiting the representativeness of the offline purchasers.

In order to improve its image, a multichannel retailer must seek maximum congruence of its website and stores. Congruent channels lead to benefits for the retailer even when they are poorly valued by consumers.

Despite a broad theoretical consensus, this is the first study to demonstrate empirically that website and store congruence improves retailer image, and not only online purchase intentions. It is also one of the first published researches that uses congruence as a mediating variable.