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The purpose of this paper is to explore the drivers and barriers to omni-channel retailing in China, and attempts to understand how companies formulate their business strategies during their transformations to omni-channel retailing.

This study adopts an exploratory case study approach to investigate the omni-channel retailing transformations of two well-established Chinese fashion apparel retailers. The study draws on multiple sources of evidence, comprising: interviews with eight business executives from three major operational departments; on-site observations in firm’s retail stores, factories and distribution centres; and secondary data review of firm business reports, news, whitepapers and archival records. The findings are established through a consistent within-case data analysis and cross-case comparison.

The study reveals that the two retailers formulated different strategies in developing their omni-channels, and exhibited different degrees of success. The similarities and differences in the drivers, as well as the barriers, were analyzed and compared in this study. Operational variations (i.e. enablers and inhibitors) due to the unique context of the Chinese market were also explored. The findings reveal that coherent leveraging firm resources and capabilities from the three perspectives – marketing, logistics and supply chain, and organizational management – is critical to the full implementation of omni-channel retailing. They provide relevant managerial insights that can assist firms in formulating appropriate strategic action plans during the transformations.

As a theoretical contribution, this paper identifies a set of drivers and barriers for omni-channel retailing in the developed market, and classifies them into three categories: marketing; logistics and supply chain; and organizational management. The empirical-based qualitative analysis reveals the key factors impacting on omni-channel retailing within the Chinese market, and suggests a series of practical implications for local retailers planning to embark on omni-channel retailing.

The purpose of this paper is twofold: to identify, evaluate and structure the research that focusses on omni-channel retailing from the perspective of logistics and supply chain management; and to reveal the intellectual foundation of omni-channel retailing research.

The paper applies a multi-method approach by conducting a content-analysis-based literature review of 70 academic papers. Based on the reference lists of these papers, the authors performed a citation and co-citation analysis based on the 34 most frequently cited papers. This analysis included multidimensional scaling, a cluster analysis and factor analysis.

The study reveals the limited consideration of logistics and supply chain management literature in the foundation of the omni-channel retailing research. Further, the authors see a dominance of empirical research as compared to conceptual and analytical research. Overall, there is a focus on the Western retail context in this research field. The intellectual foundation is embedded in the marketing discipline and can be characterised as lacking a robust theoretical foundation.

The contribution of this research is identifying, evaluating and structuring the literature of omni-channel research and providing an overview of the state of the art of this research area considering its interdisciplinary nature. This paper thus supports researchers looking to holistically comprehend, prioritise and use the underpinning literature central to the phenomena of omni-channel retailing. For practitioners and academics alike, the findings can trigger and support future research and an evolving understanding of omni-channel retailing.

Digitalisation has been identified as a driving force behind retail sector transformation. The purpose of this paper is to provide a deeper understanding of how omni-channel strategies link to the digitalisation phenomenon. The study is explorative in nature and aims to expand existing knowledge by using a business model (BM) perspective.

The study uses a qualitative approach. Data collection involved a questionnaire answered by 13 firms from three retail segments (i.e. fashion, consumer electronics and bookstores and media) and a group discussion with senior managers. The data were complemented with information from websites, applications and available online reports.

The findings present empirical insights about different strategic and BM approaches to omni-channel retailing and highlight examples of pioneering retailers from the Italian market. The proposed framework consolidates earlier studies and puts forward three dimensions for a successful transition to omni-channel retailing BMs: a seamless customer experience, an integrated analytics system and an effective supply chain and logistics.

Managers can employ an overview of mobile commerce usage to manage the process of integrating channels, within their BMs, alongside the customer journey. Particular attention should be paid to development and the use of data analytics tools as one of the dimensions with a significant impact on omni-channel management.

First, this paper applies a BM perspective as a novel approach for analysing a transition to omni-channel retailing. Second, it is based on empirical analysis of three retail segments, which provide new insights into omni-channel strategies in the retailing literature.

This study considers perceived enjoyment and attitude consistency as internal states of consumers in an omni-channel environment. This study aims to investigate the mediating role of perceived enjoyment and attitude consistency to reveal how omni-channel environment factors of interaction fluency, convenience, price advantage and personalization contribute to omni-channel shopping intention.

Consumers who had shopped at Uniqlo's online and offline stores were surveyed through an online questionnaire, and 566 data were collected for analysis through partial least squares structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM).

The results find that interaction fluency, price advantage and personalization positively affect perceived enjoyment, interaction fluency and convenience positively affect attitude consistency and perceived enjoyment and attitude consistency in turn facilitate omni-channel shopping intention. The mediating role of perceived enjoyment and attitude consistency was confirmed.

The original finding of this study is that factors such as interaction fluency, convenience, price advantage and personalization in omni-channel retailing require momentary and continuous affective states of consumers to facilitate omni-channel shopping intention, respectively. Therefore, this study considers the necessity of capturing different affective states of consumers in omni-channel shopping.

Brick-and-mortar store is an essential channel to deliver a seamless shopping experience and meet customer's dynamic needs in omni-channel retailing. This paper aims to understand customers' expectations of the integrated stores and develop a measurement scale to assess in-store service quality in omni-channel retailing.

Grounded theory methodology (GTM) is employed to obtain a clear picture of consumer expectations and preferences regarding the omni-channel brick-and-mortar integrated stores. Then, an integrated store service quality scale is proposed, refined and validated using a questionnaire survey and structural equation model (SEM).

The measurement scale is set to include seven dimensions: in-store environment, in-store technology, product information consistency, employee assistance, personalization, channel availability and instant gratification and return. The relationships among these seven dimensions and customer satisfaction and loyalty are also verified. According to SEM, product information consistency is more important for customer satisfaction while personalization contributes more to customer loyalty. The results demonstrate that by analysing the seven dimensions, retailers can better understand customers and further improve service quality.

This paper proposes a sufficient measurement scale for in-store service quality and fills the gap in omni-channel retailing by capturing its integration attribute.

The purpose of this paper is to evaluate how retailing companies use social media, local and mobile commerce in their omni-channel management strategy. This approach, also known as SO-LO-MO, encompasses customer touchpoints that offer numerous available channels to consumers. The paper provides insights from 16 retailers in two countries, thus showing geographical differences in the SO-LO-MO as well as differences depending on product segments.

In order to analyse how retailing companies implement SO-LO-MO, a conceptual framework including 48 SO-LO-MO activities was derived from literature. The empirical validation was built upon qualitative and quantitative data collection by retrieving information from the websites, social media channels and mobile applications (apps). Analyses included triangulated content analysis as well as non-parametric statistical tests.

The research findings enable a comparison of the SO-LO-MO concept between retailers operating in the two countries. The authors were able to reveal similarities and differences in the SO-LO-MO-based omni-channel management strategies. The identified SO-LO-MO practices vary according to different product segments. The authors identified slightly more SO-LO-MO implementation and integration within the German sample. Differences in local commerce between the two samples appear to be statistically significant. Although the differences in mobile and social commerce are not of statistical significance, there are variations in practical usage.

The research focusses on a small sample of retailers from different product segments in two markets.

The findings present the current state of the SO-LO-MO concept from the omni-channel perspective in Germany and Turkey.

In view of a limited theoretical understanding and empirical grounding on the SO-LO-MO concept, the findings provide empirical evidence by assessing innovative omni-channel management practices of leading retailers in various industry segments. Furthermore, the paper proposes a frame of reference for measuring the level of SO-LO-MO implementation from an omni-channel perspective.

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.

With the rapid growth of consumer sales being fulfilled through omni-channel retailing, the purpose of this paper is to explore the subsequent impact on the levels of consumer retail returns experienced through online sales and the emergent returns management strategies being affected by retailers in relation to network configuration and returns management processes.

The authors uses a mixed methods approach from an interpretive perspective. It is appropriate to describe the approach in terms of convergent design, since the authors have collected both qualitative and quantitative data.

Return rates for online retailing can be double those for stores, while return levels for “considered purchases” remain similar. The findings suggest that omni-channel returns management has yet to fully mature and the authors find challenges for network design and returns processes in offering a seamless solution.

For practitioners the authors identify a number of challenges and offer insights to improve performance in returns management process, while for academic colleagues the authors propose a number of avenues for further research both in the qualitative and quantitative fields.

While a significant body of extant literature exists, in researching the generalized retail returns management process this paper make a contribution by addressing the emergent managerial implications of omni-channel retail returns.

This paper aims to explore how omni-channel data flows should be integrated by specifying what data, omni-channel agents and information and digital technologies (IDTs) should be considered and connected.

A multiple case study method is used with 17 British companies. The studies are supported by 68 interviews with the case companies and their consumers, 5 site visits, 4 focus group meetings and the companies’ archival data and documentations.

This paper provides novel frameworks for omni-channel data flow integration from consumer and business perspectives. The frameworks consist of omni-channel agents, their data transactions and their supporting IDTs. Relatedly, this paper formalizes the omni-channel data flow integration in the forms of horizontal, vertical and total integrations and explores their contributions to the adaptability of omni-channel, as a complex adaptive system (CAS). It also discusses that how inter-organizational governance mechanisms can support data flow integration and their relevant IDT implementations.

The breadth and depth of the required IDTs for omni-channel integration prove the necessity for omni-channel systems to move toward total integration. Therefore, supported by CAS and inter-organizational governance theories, this research indicates how data flow integration and IDT can transform the omni-channel through self-organization and autonomy capability enhancement.

This research’s recommended frameworks provide a robust platform to formalize data flow integration as the omni-channel's core driver. Accordingly, it moves the literature from a basic description of “what omni-channel is” and provides a novel and significant debate on what specific data should be shared at what levels between which agents of the omni-channel, and with what type of relationship governance mechanism, to assure omni-channel horizontal, vertical and total integrations.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the impact of logistics service quality (LSQ) on consumer satisfaction and loyalty in an omni-channel retail environment.

An empirical, survey-based approach is used to collect data from consumers about experiences with two different omni-channel retail scenarios: buy-online-pickup-in-store (BOPS), and buy-in-store-ship-direct (BSSD). Participants responded to questions regarding the LSQ, consumer satisfaction, and consumer loyalty relative to their actual experience in one of these situations.

Results suggest that omni-channel consumers are truly unique, and all three dimensions of LSQ (condition, availability, and timeliness) are distinct in their impact on satisfaction and loyalty. Results suggest that in the BOPS sample, consumer satisfaction partially mediates the relationship between condition and loyalty and fully mediates the relationship between timeliness and loyalty. In the BSSD model, consumer satisfaction partially mediates the relationship between timeliness and consumer loyalty.

This research studies LSQ in two different omni-channel scenarios; additional research is needed to explore other omni-channel scenarios and extend the findings to be more generalizable.

Managers should recognize that for omni-channel consumers, timeliness is the essential driver of satisfaction and loyalty. Retailers need to account for this reality and dedicate substantial resources to meet delivery requirements in a timely manner. Logistics service providers need to emphasize speed and reliability of their delivery processes for omni-channel consumers.

This research is the first attempt at conceptualizing LSQ in an omni-channel supply chain, and testing the impact of LSQ on consumer satisfaction and loyalty.