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The study aims to propose a comprehensive overview of the Omnichannel phenomenon by identifying its theoretical foundations as well as future research directions.

In order to systematize Omnichannel-centered contributions and identify future research directions for post-Covid-19, this study adopted a mixed-method study, combining a systematic literature review, a bibliometric co-citation analysis and a panel discussion by field experts.

In Study 1, the authors traced extant literature on Omnichannel back to its theoretical foundations, which led to the identification of four research areas in which the concept of Omnichannel is rooted. Contributions pertaining to the aforesaid research areas were discussed and submitted to a panel of experts (Study 2) after the lockdown periods. The experts gave various insights into both the past and future of Omnichannel research. Finally, a framework synthesizing theoretical foundations of Omnichannel, literature gaps and opportunities for future research is provided.

To our knowledge, this is the first attempt to combine mixed methods study in Omnichannel research and to involve a panel of experts in order to discuss the findings of a literature review and evaluate future research directions. This choice allowed us to investigate both incumbent academic and managerial challenges raised by Omnichannel and to provide guidance for the post-pandemic recovery.

This paper analyses how the purchase channel and customer complaint goals affect the sequential choice of post–purchase complaint channels when customers experience a service failure followed by a service recovery failure (double deviation).

An online survey involving a scenario manipulation was conducted with 577 apparel shoppers. The study employs multi-group latent class analysis to estimate latent customer segments within both online and offline groups of shoppers and compare latent classes between the two groups.

The results show that the purchase channel has a lock-in effect on the complaint channel, which is stronger for offline buyers. Moreover, there is evidence of channel synergy effects in the case of having to complain twice: shoppers who complain in store in the first attempt turn to online channels in the second complaint attempt, and vice versa. Complaint goals shape the choice of complaint channels and define different shopper segments.

The present study is the first to adopt a cross-stage approach that analyses the dependencies between the purchase channel and the complaint channel used on two subsequent occasions: the first complaint after a service failure and the second following a service recovery failure.

The quality of the customer journey has become a critical determinant of successful service delivery in contemporary business. Extant journey research focuses on the customer path to purchase, but pays less attention to the touchpoints related to service delivery and consumption that are key for understanding customer experiences in service-intensive contexts. The purpose of this study is to conceptualize service journey quality (SJQ), develop measures for the construct and study its key outcomes.

The study uses a discovery-oriented research approach to conceptualize SJQ by synthesizing theory and field-based insights from customer focus group discussions. Next, using consumer survey data (N = 278) from the financial services context, the authors develop measures for the SJQ. Finally, based on an additional survey dataset (N = 239), the authors test the nomological validity and predictive relevance of the SJQ.

SJQ comprises of three dimensions: (1) journey seamlessness, (2) journey personalization and (3) journey coherence. This study demonstrates that SJQ is a critical driver of service quality and customer loyalty in contemporary business. This study finds that the loyalty link is partially mediated through service quality, indicating that SJQ explains loyalty above and beyond service quality.

Since service quality only partially mediates the link between service journey quality and customer loyalty, future studies should examine alternative mediators, such as customer experience, for a more comprehensive understanding of the performance effects.

The study offers concrete tools for service managers who wish to understand and develop the quality of service journeys.

This study advances the service journey concept, demonstrates that the quality of the service journey is a critical driver of customer performance and provides rigorous journey constructs for future service research.

Building upon the insights of the resource-based view and internationalization theories, the purpose of this paper is to examine the role networks play in SMEs' readiness for internationalization. By investigating three different types of knowledge sharing, namely economic-setting, market-specific and customer-specific, the study analyzes their effect on SMEs' readiness for internationalization.

The four research hypotheses derived by from the analysis of the literature have been investigated by applying the multiple regression technique. By means of an online survey, 300 valid questionnaires were collected and information from a sample of Italian SMEs belonging to 11 agro-food consortia have been analyzed.

The results suggest that SMEs' readiness for internationalization could be supported by sharing customer-specific, market-specific and economic-setting knowledge with other firms operating within the same agro-food consortium. Additionally, data analysis highlights a negative relation between the risk perception in the process and readiness for internationalization, suggesting the importance of knowledge sharing in reducing the criticality issues of being a newcomer entering international markets.

From a theoretical perspective, this study aims to fill the gap in knowledge management and international relationship marketing literature. Since proposes a combination of different kinds of knowledge that contribute to reducing the criticalities SMEs must face by identifying useful information to be conveyed within the network. From a managerial perspective, the study provides useful insights for the agro-food sector, highlighting how experiential and network knowledge constitutes a pre-condition for managing internationalization complexity and discovering opportunities on foreign markets.

The study aims to investigate whether and how digital transformation, in terms of digital collaboration, joint efforts with internal/external partners to achieve common goals and the adoption of digital tools supporting this practice, affect social innovation capital in the context of small innovative enterprises (SIEs).

The research hypotheses derived from the analysis of the literature, evaluating how sharing resources, sharing intensity and digital patterns affect the collective capacity of SIEs to innovate, were investigated by applying multiple regression analysis. Data were retrieved from a sample of Italian SIEs through an online survey.

The main findings suggest that the propensity to spread resources and the sharing intensity positively affect the collective capacity of SIEs to innovate. Also, the effect of resources sharing on collective innovation increases as more digital patterns are used as tools. The connection is weaker for the intensity of resources sharing.

The study is conducted on Italian SIEs, a particular cluster of small and medium enterprises (SMEs). It would be interesting to compare and contrast the results of an analysis of a large sample of international companies, of different sizes and belonging to digital and non-digital sectors.

The results enrich the existing literature on social innovation capital, by clarifying its competitive benefits on the characteristic context of the SIEs and underlining the mediating role of the digital patterns.

The purpose of this paper is to look into the mechanism in which customers involve themselves in omni-channel retail setting and use its advantages.

Via an empirical analysis through surveying customers, this paper assesses and confirms the drivers of omni-channel shopping intention within the context of fashion retailing sector in Danang.

The findings highlight the significance of customer perception of research shopping (including showrooming and webrooming) behaviours, compatibility and risk to their intention towards omni-channel shopping, implying profound understanding of designing effective omni-channel retailing strategy.

From a theoretical perspective, comprehending customer perception of the omni-channel concept has emerged as an important theme in recent literature as well as in practitioners' reports. Hence, the meaningful contribution of this study is the involvement in the attractive steam of study. From a managerial perspective, this study could offer guidance to retailers or managers about developing a successful omni-channel strategy from a customer point of view.

This study aims to investigate the effects of open innovation (OI) and big data analytics (BDA) on reflective knowledge exchange (RKE) within the context of complex collaborative networks. Specifically, it considers the relationships between sourcing knowledge from an external environment, transferring knowledge to an external environment and adopting solutions that are useful to appropriate returns from innovation.

This study analyzes the connection between the number of patent applications and the amount of OI, as well as the association between the number of patent applications and the use of BDA. Data from firms in the 27 European Union countries were retrieved from the Eurostat database for the period 2014–2019 and were investigated using an ordinary least squares regression analysis.

Because of its twofold lens based on both knowledge management and OI, this study sheds light on OI collaboration modes and highlights the crucial role they could play in innovation. In particular, the results suggest that OI collaboration modes have a strong effect on innovation performance, stimulating the search for RKE.

This study furthers a deeper understanding of RKE, which is shown to be an important mechanism that incentivizes firms to increase their efforts in the innovation process. Further, RKE supports firms in taking full advantage of the innovative knowledge they generate within their inter-organizational network.

The new omnichannel strategy aims to offer a holistic shopping experience through the integration of online and offline channels. The introduction of technology in the physical store is an essential factor to this end. The purpose of this study is twofold: first, to analyze how the intention to use different interactive technologies in a clothing store affects purchase intention and second, to test the moderating effect of gender on this relationship.

An original model is developed and tested with 628 omnichannel customers. A multi-group analysis is performed to compare the results between two groups: men and women.

The results show that the incorporation of new technologies in the physical store positively affects purchase intention, but no significant differences were found between the two groups.

This study furthers the understanding of the importance of the new connected retail system and offers new insights for both the theoretical framework and businesses.

La nueva estrategia omnicanal busca ofrecer una experiencia de compra holística a través de la integración de los canales físico y online. Para ello, la introducción de nuevas tecnologías en el establecimiento es un factor esencial. Este estudio tiene un doble objetivo: primero, analizar como la intención de usar diferentes tecnologías interactivas en una tienda de moda afecta a la intención de compra; y segundo, comprobar el efecto moderador del género en esta relación.

Se ha desarrollado un modelo original que fue testado en 628 consumidores omnicanal. Asimismo, se desarrolló un análisis multigrupo para comparar los resultados en dos grupos: hombres y mujeres.

Los resultados muestran que la incorporación de nuevas tecnologías en la tienda física afecta positivamente en la intención de compra, sin embargo, no se han encontrado diferencias significativas entre los dos grupos estudiados.

Este estudio mejora la comprensión de la importancia del nuevo comercio conectado y ofrece nuevas perspectivas tanto a nivel teórico como para los negocios.

Consumers are increasingly combining distribution channels, thus displaying so-called omni-channel behavior, both to complete a given purchase and between purchases. The authors make a distinction between omni-channel customers, who make use of distribution services in both channels and omni-channel users, who make partial use of the distribution services of one channel to support purchases in another. This paper aims to identify the omni-channel behavior among the customers of a global fast fashion retailer dealing in a wide range of apparel and clothing accessories.

Using a multinomial logit model, the authors perform a customer segmentation based on observed omni-channel behavior, considering the explanatory roles of demographics, distribution service features and customer service policies across the different retail channels.

The authors observe that the key retail channel features for explaining omni-channel customer behavior are product accessibility, both in store and online; the assurance that goods purchased online will satisfy the customer’s needs and expectations; and the option to return goods found unsatisfactory.

The results clearly show that the nature of the visits and purchases made by customers is determined by various components of the companýs customer service policy, which can, therefore, be used to guide the retailer’s segmentation strategy.

Future lines of research should explore the economic implications of this customer segmentation. The price perception data emerging from our findings suggest a greater sensitivity to prices in the mono-channel segment, which might be worth exploring in future research.

Future lines of research should explore the economic implications of this customer segmentation. The price perception data emerging from our findings suggest a greater sensitivity to prices in the mono-channel segment which might be worth exploring in future research.

Los consumidores combinan canales de distribución en el denominado comportamiento omni-canal cada vez en mayor medida, tanto para completar una misma compra como entre distintas compras. Distinguimos entre clientes omni-canal, que hacen uso de los servicios de distribución de ambos canales, y usuarios omni-canal, que hacen solo un uso parcial de los servicios de distribución de un canal para apoyar las compras en el otro canal. En este trabajo identificamos este comportamiento omni-canal entre los clientes de una empresa global del sector de la moda que vende un amplio rango de productos de ropa y complementos.

Mediante un modelo logit multinomial, realizamos una segmentación de los clientes en base a su comportamiento omnicanal. En esta segmentación, consideramos el papel explicativo, no solo de las características de los individuos, sino también el de los servicios de distribución y las políticas en cada canal.

Obtenemos cómo el acceso al producto, tanto en el establecimiento como a la página web, la garantía de que el producto comprado online tendrá las características esperadas y las facilidades para devolver el producto adquirido online si no cumple las expectativas, son rasgos clave de los canales que explican el comportamiento omnicanal de los clientes.

Nuestros resultados muestran claramente que diferentes aspectos de la oferta de servicios y de políticas de la empresa determinan las compras y las visitas y estos aspectos pueden ser utilizados para guiar la estrategia de segmentación del detallista.

En este trabajo contribuimos a la literatura sobre el marketing omnicanal presentando un modelo de segmentación, basado en los servicios de distribución ofertados por los minoristas, para las empresas que comercializan productos a través de distintos canales. Aportamos una distinción conceptual entre usuarios de un canal y compradores que tiene un amplio rango de aplicación.

Es necesario proseguir con las líneas futuras de investigación para investigar las implicaciones financieras de esta segmentación. La percepción de los precios que se detecta en nuestros resultados puede sugerir una sensibilidad mayor a los precios en el segmento mono-canal lo que puede ser una línea interesante a contrastar en investigaciones futuras.

Omni-canal, Moda rápida, Trabajo de investigación, Segmentación, Servicios de distribución, Comercio electrónico

Trabajo de investigación

This paper aims to investigate whether customer satisfaction varies when presented with different types of omnichannel promotions (shopping goal-congruent vs shopping goal-incongruent and monetary vs non-monetary promotions) and if the effect on satisfaction is mediated by service excellence. In addition, this paper examines whether consumers respond differently to these promotions when shopping for utilitarian or hedonic products or when they have an inherent utilitarian or hedonic shopping motivation.

Two online shopping scenario experiments are conducted. Study 1 (n = 1,034) differentiates effects of omnichannel promotions between hedonic and utilitarian product categories. Study 2 (n = 345) contrasts hedonic and utilitarian shopping motivation in the same product category.

The findings in this paper demonstrate positive effects from both presenting a shopping goal congruent and a monetary promotion in an omnichannel setting on customer satisfaction. The positive effects are explained by service excellence and are demonstrated to be attenuated in the hedonic product category and for consumers with a hedonic shopping motivation.

The effect of omnichannel promotions was demonstrated using a scenario-based experimental approach, future research should use field experiments.

The findings in this paper demonstrate practical implications for a retailer who wishes to optimize its omnichannel promotion strategy across channels and touchpoints.

To date there is little directions for retailers on how to optimize their omnichannel promotion strategy. This paper contributes to research and practice by demonstrating that shopping goal-congruent promotions (vs in-congruent) and monetary promotions (vs non-monetary) increase customer satisfaction more in an omnichannel context. The effects are enhanced for utilitarian (vs hedonic) products/shopping motivation.