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In today's world, retailers must embrace technological devices to provide fluid, convenient and complete customer experiences. Therefore, combining the offline and online spaces into a single strategy becomes essential, representing a significant opportunity for retailers to improve customer experience. Therefore, this study aims to explore and compare the importance of digital elements in an omnichannel experience by companies in the luxury and non-luxury segments.

The research offers a model to explore and compare the omnichannel strategies that brands use, considering six dimensions that cover recent technological advances, thus offering a complete experience to their customers. A multiple case study was selected based on a sample of six international companies from two different price segments (luxury and non-luxury).

The data collected allowed the authors to verify the presence of some dimensions, even though some had little evidence. Nevertheless, the dimensions connectivity, innovativeness and flexibility (only in luxury segment companies) were not present. Overall, and even though they present just little evidence, the results showed that retailers for the luxury segment invest more in delivering digital experiences within omnichannel strategies than the non-luxury ones.

This study improves the existing knowledge of omnichannel retailing. By analysing and comparing the omnichannel experiences, companies can identify areas for improvement and enhance the overall customer journey. Additionally, the model allows managers to compare and re-evaluate their omnichannel strategies with other competitors to gain competitiveness in an ever-evolving market.

Artificial intelligence (AI) is transforming consumers' experiences and how firms identify, create, nurture and manage interactive marketing relationships. However, most marketers do not have a clear understanding of what AI is and how it may mutually benefit consumers and firms. In this paper, the authors conduct an extensive review of the marketing literature, develop an AI framework for understanding value co-creation in interactive buyer–seller marketing relationships, identify research gaps and offer a future research agenda.

The authors first conduct an extensive literature review in 16 top marketing journals on AI. Based on this review, an AI framework for understanding value co-creation in interactive buyer–seller marketing relationships was conceptualized.

The literature review led to a number of key research findings and summary areas: (1) an historical perspective, (2) definitions and boundaries of AI, (3) AI and interactive marketing, (4) relevant theories in the domain of interactive marketing and (5) synthesizing AI research based on antecedents to AI usage, interactive AI usage contexts and AI-enabled value co-creation outcomes.

This is one of the most extensive reviews of AI literature in marketing, including an evaluation of in excess or 300 conceptual and empirical research. Based on the findings, the authors offer a future research agenda, including a visual titled “What is AI in Interactive Marketing? AI design factors, AI core elements & interactive marketing AI usage contexts.”

While regular price discount (RPD) promotions remain popular, marketers have also introduced gambled price discounts (GPDs) in recent years. There is a need to understand the performance and limitation of the relatively novel GPD, because the importance of pricing and the surprise element inherent in GPD could cause the promotions to backfire when inappropriately applied. This study compared the performance of GPD and RPD via consumers' perception of their attractiveness through quality cues of product types (experience and search goods) and word-of-mouth (WOM) content (affective and cognitive).

Analysis of variance (ANOVA) was applied on a 2 (product type: experience goods [hotel rooms] vs. search goods [printers]) × 2 (word-of-mouth type: affective vs. cognitive) × 2 (price promotion type: GPD vs. RPD) between-subjects scenario experimental design (resulting in eight conditions).

Analysis of the 600 returns revealed that RPD does well for both search and experience goods, but GPD is more attractive for the marketing of experience goods. GPD works better with cognitive than with affective WOM.

GPD is a relatively new domain in marketing research. This study contributes to GPD literature and behavioral pricing literature. The study also adds to a better understanding of the dynamics, usefulness and limitations of GPD by considering the roles played by surprise element inherent in GPD and comparing it with RPD.

The impact of frontline robots (FLRs) on customer orientation perceptions remains unclear. This is remarkable because customers may associate FLRs with standardization and cost-cutting, such that they may not fit firms that aim to be customer oriented.

In four experiments, data are collected from customers interacting with frontline employees (FLEs) and FLRs in different settings.

FLEs are perceived as more customer-oriented than FLRs due to higher competence and warmth evaluations. A relational interaction style attenuates the difference in perceived competence between FLRs and FLEs. These agents are also perceived as more similar in competence and warmth when FLRs participate in the customer journey's information and negotiation stages. Switching from FLE to FLR in the journey harms FLR evaluations.

The authors recommend firms to place FLRs only in the negotiation stage or in both the information and negotiation stages of the customer journey. Still then customers should not transition from employees to robots (vice versa does no harm). Firms should ensure that FLRs utilize a relational style when interacting with customers for optimal effects.

The authors bridge the FLR and sales/marketing literature by drawing on social cognition theory. The authors also identify the product categories for which customers are willing to negotiate with an FLR. Broadly speaking, this study’s findings underline that customers perceive robots as having agency (i.e. the mental capacity for acting with intentionality) and, just as humans, can be customer-oriented.

The purpose of this paper is to identify the themes that emerged from retail supply chain (RSC) literature during the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic that inform future mitigation and recovery strategies.

This study analyses contributions in the RSC literature using four databases: Emerald, Elsevier (Science Direct), Wiley and Taylor & Francis. The systematic review approach resulted in identifying 74 articles covering 2020 to 2022.

Four themes emerged from the RSC literature on COVID-19. The first theme highlighted the factors that exacerbated the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on the RSC. The second theme focussed on the types of disruptions that occurred in the RSC during the pandemic. The third theme demonstrated the recovery strategies used to reduce the impact of COVID-19 on the RSC. The fourth theme identified proposed mitigation strategies for the RSC post-COVID-19 outbreak.

The study provides a deeper understanding of how RSC managers could successfully reduce the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic by dealing with interruptions. Based on the reviewed studies and the four themes that evolved from RSC literature on COVID-19 throughout 2020–2022, 11 key RSC strategies and lessons have been recommended to decision-makers in the retail industry.

This is the first study to identify the themes that emerged from RSC literature during the COVID-19 pandemic to inform future mitigation and recovery strategies. The resulting themes add to the existing body of knowledge and establish the need for further research into other sectors that might be affected by future pandemics.