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As competition has been rising tremendously in the emergence and realization of globalization, some business models with regard to retailing have changed. In this sense, there has been a huge introduction to new terms and concepts related to omnichannel operations, mainly focusing on new trends in multichannel strategies. With the aid of recent technologies and changing lifestyles of customers, there exists an obvious change in shopper behavior. In this globe, multichannel operations have been detected as a means to differentiate products and services which might in return add a potential value to the success of omnichannel management strategies thereby bringing a huge value to customers. This chapter discusses main terms and terminologies, along with common practices, on how customer preferences of multichannel operations have evolved throughout the years of competition and globalization while putting the main focus of concern in multichannel marketing attempts, changes in customer preferences in this trend, and the emergence of effective strategies that enhance the best fit of marketing management theories and practices in multichannel operations. Finally, the overall initiative of this chapter is to come up with some concrete strategies that might enrich the overall standing of omnichannel management operations and practices.

This research aims to investigate the moderating influence of both multichannel and multicompany usage on the impact that customer satisfaction has on share of wallet (SOW).

The data used in the analyses were collected as part of both survey and transactional data of 802 households of a large financial services provider. Within class regression models were employed to test the moderating effects of different segments that were identified based on multichannel‐multicompany customer differences.

The findings confirm that using multiple channels has an overall positive moderating impact on the satisfaction‐SOW link and that customer satisfaction matters more when the customer adopts multiple channels; online channel usage in addition to offline usage. Furthermore, this effect is even more pronounced for customers that transact with multiple providers. That is, the group of customers that use both the company's and competitors' offline and online channels reveal a higher satisfaction‐SOW association than the group of customers that only adopted the offline channel with the company and competitor.

This study broadens the understanding of multichannel behavior by comparing single (offline) and multiple channels (offline and online) for customers of multiple companies (two competitors).

The purpose of this paper is to explore how multichannel customers evaluate overall satisfaction across distribution channels and what the antecedents are of such satisfaction.

A survey of bank customers in Taiwan was conducted. The total number of valid questionnaires was 479. Reliability and validity were tested. Maximum likelihood procedure of LISREL 8.8 was used to test the hypothesized structural equation model.

The findings indicate that the overall satisfaction in the multichannel environment is a critical determinant of customer retention and participation. The present study also develops the antecedents of multichannel satisfaction. In the multichannel environment, perceived multichannel service quality is positively related to satisfaction, while perceived channel switching difficulty is negatively related to satisfaction.

The present study employs the stimulus‐organism‐response (S‐O‐R) paradigm and the channel loyalty framework to better model customers' response to marketing activities in the multichannel distribution system.

This study aims to identify, within the context of the French fashion industry, the characteristics of multichannel shoppers, that is, consumers who use more than one channel in a single shopping trip. We especially investigate whether consumers' focus on quality versus price affects their multichannel shopping tendency and their flexibilities in their shopping lists (basket flexibility).

We surveyed a representative sample of 400 French shoppers regarding fashion apparel purchasing. We use a logistic regression framework to measure the probability of a shopper becoming a multichannel shopper based on the key constructs and a battery of control variables.

The analysis shows that, in fashion buying, shoppers focused on quality and those with high basket flexibility have a higher probability of becoming multichannel shoppers. The probability becomes even greater when a shopper is both quality oriented and has basket flexibility.

We focus on the fashion apparel market for a deeper understanding of multichannel usage of products with both experience and search features. Future research can investigate other industries for higher generalizability.

Our research provides insights into multichannel fashion companies whose managements aim to effectively manage high-value customers who tend to use more channels when shopping. Specifically, an omnichannel marketing strategy should focus on capturing the quality-oriented and highly basket-flexible segment of consumers.

Our study provides evidence that for products having high experiential as well as search features, quality-oriented and highly flexible shoppers engage more in multichannel shopping. Because these characteristics are related to the long-term value of customers, we provide the link between multichannel marketing and firm profitability in the context of the fashion industry.

The purpose of this paper is to understand the role of multichannel integration quality in enhancing online perceived value and online purchase intention via the online store operated by a land-based retailer.

This paper develops a research model based on the “quality-value-purchase” chain, with four dimensions of multichannel integration quality as antecedents and three dimensions of online perceived value as mediators of online purchase intention. Empirical data were collected from 390 multichannel shoppers and structured equation modeling was used to test the research hypotheses.

Among the four multichannel integration quality dimensions, transparency of service configuration, process consistency and business ties positively affect online purchase intention through online perceived value, whereas the effects of information consistency are not significant; process consistency exerts a stronger influence on online perceived value than business ties; the effect of online convenience on online purchase intention is weaker than that of online monetary savings and online hedonic value.

The study identifies the theoretical principles of the relationships among multichannel integration quality, online perceived value and online perceived value in multichannel context. Based on these theoretical principles, this study will help researchers to better understand consumers’ online purchase intention and the creation of online perceived value in the integrated multichannel context.

The findings of this study can provide retailers with useful strategies to increase online purchase intention depending on improvement of multichannel integration quality and online perceived value.

This study provides a first study to empirically assess various types of online perceived value attached to multidimensional properties of multichannel integration quality and the corresponding effects on online purchase intention. Overall, the results offer insights of how land-based retailers could manage their online performance by integrating multiple channels and improving online perceived value.

This paper studies how multichannel retailers choose the product quality level and decide which attribute to make prominent in their physical store in a competitive environment.

This paper develops a game theoretic model, in which multichannel retailers' decisions are made in three stages. Using prominent experiential attributes (e.g. functionality) in their offline store and product quality decisions, multichannel retailers are capable of transferring the sales between different channels.

This analysis shows that making different attributes prominent in their physical store may be an equilibrium, and each multichannel retailer chooses the highest quality level for the prominent attribute. However, the prominent attribute of the highest quality level is not always optimal. Under certain conditions, multichannel retailers may make the experiential attribute prominent in their respective physical stores, which can result in equilibrium.

The results indicate that multichannel retailers should avoid blindly highlighting high-quality attributes in a competitive environment, or falling into price completion.

From the perspective of prominent attributes, this study designs the optimal product line based on channel characteristics. The results of the research can provide practical implications for multichannel retailers to increase sales.

To examine shopping orientation, information search, and demographics of multichannel customers in comparison to traditional single channel customers.

A questionnaire was used to assess research variables and mailed out to 10,000 individuals in South Korea who were randomly selected from a purchased national database. A total of 2,926 usable questionnaires were returned for a 29 percent response rate.

Shopping orientation, information search, and demographics differentiated shopper groups: single‐channel offline users, single‐channel online users, multichannel offline users, and multichannel online users.

A lack of theoretical approaches, a direct self‐assessment for store choice behavior, and duplicated measures for independent and dependent variables perhaps limit its usefulness.

Provides guidance to global retailers who plan to pioneer new markets with multichannel retailing strategies. Shopping orientations, perceived usefulness of information sources, and demographics can be effectively used to identify target markets in Korea.

This study first explored Korean consumer profiles in the context of multi‐shopping channels and added valuable empirical findings to the current limited literature in multichannel retailing in the international market and to help global retailers identify consumer segments based on channel choice behavior.

Consumer purchasing behaviour has changed substantially in the light of recent developments in E-commerce. So-called “multichannel customers” tend to switch retail channels during the purchasing process. In order to address changing consumer behaviour, multichannel fashion retailing companies must continue to learn how to provide excellent service to such customers. The purpose of this paper is to contribute to the interpretation of multichannel service quality by explaining it from the perspective of the so-called “multichannel customers”.

Drawing on social influence theory, this paper aims to investigate these issues from the perspective of multichannel customers. In contrast with dualist and objectivist studies, this paper uses a constructivist epistemology and ethnographic methodology. Such an approach is associated with an interpretivist ontological worldview, which postulates the existence of “multiple realities”. The sample size for this research consisted of 34 in-depth interviews and 2 focus groups comprising 10 focus group participants.

The data analysis fundamentally found that multichannel customers tended to continually adjust choices regarding retailer and retail ckhannel when making purchases. The perspective of this paper is different from mainstream positivist service quality research which sees service quality as static, objectively measurable and dualistic. As an alternative, this paper acknowledges service quality as a dynamic, subjective and pluralistic phenomenon.

This paper contributes to the interpretation of multichannel service quality with a new concept that explains the phenomenon from the perspective of customers and thus considers it necessary for multichannel retailers to adopt strategies relating to customers’ changing behaviour.

The purpose of this paper is to present a multichannel segmentation approach to identifying customer segments based on actual customer channel usage in the post-purchase phase in the health insurance industry.

A multinomial regression model and count regression models were estimated to describe the profiles of customer segments and the frequency of channel usage based on generations and sociodemographic variables.

This study identified generational differences in channel usage. Single female customers from the Pre-Boomer or Baby Boomer generation and customers living in states with lower incomes are more likely to use call centres. Website users tend to live in regions with higher per capita income. Multichannel users are, on average, more frequent users of both the website and call centres. In terms of sociodemographics, they display a more heterogeneous profile.

The proposed segmentation needs to be enriched with additional variables such as customers’ health status or channel usage motivations.

Customers, who are male, married and from Generations Y and X, are more likely to use the website. Their propensity to switch to a digital channel could be investigated further to develop targeted migration strategies. Multichannel users are, on average, more frequent users of all channels. To avoid increased channel costs, segments should be analysed in terms of their size and profit potential to help allocate marketing investment more efficiently.

As opposed to existing research, the proposed segmentation approach is based on transactional data of channel usage from a real company, combined with analyses using generations and sociodemographic variables.

This paper aims to investigate customers’ motivations and the decision-making process when choosing a channel in a “social” multichannel environment that includes social media channels, and the complementary and competitive effects compared to traditional channels within the multichannel strategy of a major European telecoms provider. A conceptual framework of multichannel customer behaviour in a “social” multichannel environment is proposed.

The study adopts an exploratory approach through 74 semi-structured interviews with customers of a major European telecoms provider who have also used social media channels to contact the company (customer-initiated contact, CIC).

Users of distinct social media channels are driven by different motivations. For instance, the social motivation for using social media is evident for Facebook users, while Twitter users are mainly driven by utilitarian considerations. Although users of different social media channels represent distinct segments in terms of behaviours and motivations, complementary effects among channels (new and traditional) are generally detected in the sense that a better customer experience is driven by the presence of multiple channels.

Data collection was performed for only one company in one industry and should be extended to other industries, although our results were confirmed by discussions with social media managers of other companies.

The research offers suggestions to develop multichannel strategies in a “social” multichannel environment.

This study advances knowledge in the multichannel management field by investigating why and how customers utilize channels in a multichannel environment that includes social media channels. The authors develop a conceptual framework of multichannel customer behaviour for CIC in a “social” multichannel environment.