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One key issue to be addressed in multichannel retailing strategies has to do with ensuring the consistency of the retailer offerings between the brick-and-mortar and the online stores to offer their customers a seamless experience. This study assesses whether perceived congruence may be relevant to identify segments of heterogeneous based on their online loyalty levels as well as other constructs and variables related to the customer relationship with the retailer for two different product categories.

From the responses of apparel and electronics multichannel shoppers to an online survey, a CHAID algorithm was performed to identify the most relevant congruence attribute(s) perceived by customers for predicting their loyalty levels toward the online store.

The results have allowed the identification of five segments of online shoppers, both for apparel and for electronics retailing, so that customers showing the highest scores in all congruence attributes also showed a higher loyalty toward the online store.

This study presents a first insight into the link between perceived congruence and online loyalty in retailing using a CHAID segmentation-based approach by differentiating various dimensions of perceived congruence for two product categories.

The results obtained allow for inferring a series of strategies and actions that retailers can adopt for improving perceived congruence between physical and online stores along with a series of dimensions, and ultimately, increase online loyalty.

As the interest of the literature on perceived congruence between offline and online stores is relatively recent, this exploratory research contributes to shedding light on the implications of specific congruence dimensions between the offline and the online store in terms of consumer online loyalty in all multicategory setting.

This paper aims to examine the effects of consumers' perceptions concerning the ethics of online retailers on web site satisfaction and loyalty.

An online survey instrument was administered to a sample of 220 students who were enrolled in various business undergraduate classes at a mid size university located in the southwestern USA. Participants completed a questionnaire based on their latest online purchase. The measurement model and structural relationships were estimated using AMOS 18.

Non‐deception, fulfillment, and security are significant predictors of web site satisfaction. Only privacy is related directly with loyalty. While direct effects of fulfillment and non‐deception on loyalty are not significant; satisfaction mediates these relationships. Results provide a strong support for the web site satisfaction‐loyalty relationship.

Internet retailers must address ethical issues surrounding their web sites by protecting financial and personal information, delivering accurate products, and avoiding deceptive practices.

The current research is one of few studies in online retailing that examines the relationship between perceived online ethics, satisfaction and loyalty. By offering evidence to prior conflicting results in the literature, a strong association between what consumers perceive as ethical online retailing, their satisfaction and loyalty to online retailers was confirmed.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the dimensions of online customer experience (OCE) and their impact on satisfaction and loyalty in the clothing e-retail context. Furthermore, it explores the influence of gender on the OCE-satisfaction-loyalty chain.

OCE dimensions were drawn from the literature and then adapted and validated using two samples (217 – exploratory factor analysis, 651 – confirmatory factor analysis) of experienced online clothing shoppers in India. An analysis was done using structured equation modelling.

Six OCE psychological factors and four OCE functionality factors were revealed. Both OCE dimensions impact loyalty either directly or indirectly through satisfaction. Gender is observed to moderate the relationship among three OCE factors (e-distrust, e-negative beliefs and website interactivity) and satisfaction.

The research results are limited to the factors related to each of the two OCE dimensions explored within the clothing e-retail context in India.

Clothing e-retailers need to focus on both the OCE dimensions to drive business sustenance. Furthermore, their OCE strategies should be in line with the gender-based differences highlighted by the study.

The study facilitates in the adaptation and validation of the OCE dimensions in the clothing e-retail category in an emerging market. While all factors associated with both OCE dimensions are important for driving satisfaction and loyalty, the study underscores the need for a higher focus on visual engagement by e-retailers in the given context. Gender moderates the OCE-satisfaction paths, but does not moderate the OCE-loyalty paths.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the effects of multichannel integration (MCI) on customer loyalty. The specific objectives are to provide an appropriate reliable measure of the construct, and to analyse the impact of MCI on offline and online loyalty, both directly and by mediation of customer satisfaction.

The paper focusses on the retail apparel sector of Spain and the UK. The authors applied a scale development process and tested the model with data of 761 multichannel apparel shoppers. The proposed theoretical model was estimated through EQS 6.1 and a mediation test was calculated.

The findings show, first, that the construct of channel integration has two dimensions: reciprocity, which refers to the possibility of crossing the channels while shopping, and coordination, which refers to the alignment of offline and online offers. Second, that MCI affects positively both offline and online loyalty both directly and through satisfaction, which partially mediates the relationship.

Culture might play a moderating role in the relationships found that are not analysed.

The findings have implications for the managers of multichannel retail companies as they help to understand the benefits of channel integration in creating a loyal customer base both online and offline.

This paper contributes to the literature on multichannel retailing in two main ways: first, by developing a scale to measure MCI, and second, by demonstrating that MCI has strong effects on customer satisfaction and loyalty.

Generation Z (Gen Z) is particularly influenced by digital technologies as this cohort is found to have grown up with technology forming the pivot of most of their routine activities. Owing to the huge potential of this market, online retailers are keen to build and sustain their loyalty. Shopper’s loyalty varies across age, gender, income, service quality perceptions, etc. of customers. This study aims to show that it is necessary to identify distinct consumer segments of these shoppers which can enable online retailers to fine tune their marketing programs and increase program effectiveness.

Using a sample of 700 students pursuing Masters in Business Administration (553 usable responses) from two state universities in North India, data have been collected with reference to accessories, clothes, books and electronic goods. SPSS and AMOS have been used to analyse data using cluster analysis and multinomial logit (MNL) regression analysis.

The results of cluster analysis reveal that these shoppers can be clustered into three segments, namely disloyal shoppers (DS), staunch loyals (SL) and vacillating shoppers (VS) on the basis of their online retail loyalty. The odds ratio reveals that less frequent online shoppers are less likely to be VS or DS than being SL shoppers. People who experience flow while surfing online shopping websites are 3.260 times more likely to be VS than being SL. Further, service quality decreases the odds of a shopper acting as a VS in comparison to SL shopper by 0.113.

These findings would help marketers identify strategies that can transform the VS or the disloyal ones into loyal and profitable segments. The present study is limited to Gen Z shoppers and so results may vary for customers belonging to other age groups.

The study contributes to existing literature by understanding the antecedents which contribute to online retail loyalty of distinct segments of young shoppers.

In an era of burgeoning activity in online retail in India, the role of web-store design is paramount. Web-store design elements such as website functionality, brand assortment and product quality are expected to generate customer loyalty.

Using data collected from 553 students from two universities in north India, the present study investigates the indirect effect of web-store dimensions (through website functionality, brand assortment and product quality) on online store loyalty via an enjoyment state (flow) and customer satisfaction. Serial mediation has been analysed through PROCESS macro developed by Hayes version 3.0. In addition to this, the moderating role of gender and purchase frequency has also been investigated.

The present study renders support to serial mediation between website functionality, flow, customer satisfaction and loyalty. However, the path between brand assortment and loyalty is more strongly mediated by customer satisfaction only. Males experience less flow as compared to females while handling brand assortment on websites. The three-way interaction between brand assortment, gender and purchase frequency is also statistically significant.

The study examines the manner in which online retailers can choose to build customer loyalty when they try to build retail image using web store functionality and /or product/brand assortments. The study offers insights to retailers about how and when to focus on hedonism versus customer satisfaction or both of them in conjunction to enhance customer loyalty. This study is important as it investigates the relationships in Indian scenario witnessing a high rate of growth in online retail which can tremendously affect these relationships.

The purpose of this paper is to integrate extant literature on psychological dimensions and trust to develop a model of consumer e-loyalty.

This paper develops four important psychological-based factors impacting consumer trust and e-loyalty: perception-based, experience-based, knowledge-based and attitude.

The results of this paper propose that perception-based and experience-based factors are the main determinants of consumer trust and e-loyalty in e-retailing. Consumers do consider information practices.

This paper has attempted to shed some light on the psychological antecedents of consumer trust in e-retailing but still missed some important antecedents for example personality. An option for “not applicable” as an answer choice was not provided in the survey instrument. It is hard for a participant to provide accurate information about his/her past experience that happened three months ago in a self-reported method.

From a theoretical perspective, the psychological-based consumer trust decision-making model provides a holistic view of an online consumer’s purchase decision-making process and e-loyalty. From a practical standpoint, the paper identified a number of potentially important psychology determinants of consumers’ trust in a website and empirical evidence concerning the relative impact of each of these determinants on consumers’ trust and e-loyalty.

To date, this is the first research that has been conducted to analyse psychological dimensions of trust in e-retailers and its influence on e-loyalty by using partial least squares in Saudi Arabia e-commerce research.

Understanding customer behavior from the perspective of channel integration has become a major stream of research in multi-channel retailing literature. Yet, despite recent advancements in scholarship, how retailers can most effectively sustain customers in online retailing remains unclear. Scholars have suggested online–offline channel integration (OOCI) as an effective multi-channel approach for increasing online loyalty; yet, few studies have explored OOCI's influencing mechanism. This study addresses that gap by investigating how OOCI helps achieve customer loyalty online and further examines the moderating role of retailer credibility in the influencing mechanism of OOCI.

The research model driving this study draws upon the stimulus-organism-response (S-O-R) model and cue consistency theory. The authors collected a sample of 259 customers in China with experience making multi-channel purchases from retailers that have implemented OOCI in online retailing. Structural equation modeling and response surface analyses were employed to conduct data analysis.

The results revealed that the relationship between OOCI and customers' online channel loyalty was mediated by customers' perceptions of the usefulness and risks of online channel usage. The results also found that congruence and incongruence between informational OOCI (IOOCI) and fulfillment OOCI (FOOCI) had different curvilinear associations with perceived online channel usefulness and perceived online channel risk. In addition, retailer credibility weakened the effects of IOOCI on perceived online channel usefulness and FOOCI on perceived online channel risk but strengthened the effect of IOOCI on perceived online channel risk and had no impact on the effect of FOOCI on perceived online channel risk.

Theoretical and practical implications of this study are also discussed.

The purpose of this paper is to consider the nonlinear impact of online retail stores’ quality dimensions on general customer satisfaction and loyalty.

Using a quantitative approach, 429 online users answered a closed questionnaire regarding their present satisfaction with 26 service attributes, their general satisfaction and loyalty. Using factorial analysis with Varimax rotation, five service-quality dimensions are studied: service accessibility/speed, fault recovery, buying reliability, service and site flexibility and site interaction/feedback. Penalty and reward contrast analysis identifies the Kano model classification of the service-quality dimensions, and the nonlinear impact of these dimensions, and customer satisfaction, on customer loyalty.

The results show that there is a nonlinearity between quality dimensions, customer satisfaction and loyalty. The dimension “service accessibility/speed” has a one-dimensional impact on customer satisfaction, but with higher reward impact than penalty impact. “Fault recovery” is a “must-be”, “buying reliability” and “service flexibility” are “attractive” and “site interaction/feedback” is one-dimensional. Besides, the dimension “service accessibility/speed” has also a direct impact on loyalty if achieving above-average performance, thus reinforcing general customer satisfaction.

Few previous papers explore this nonlinearity in online retail services. So, future studies should lead to a theoretical and practical understanding of managing these services. Understanding this nonlinearity may help companies to better identify what improve or offer to customers.

Retail store loyalty is essential to the survival and success of a retailer. The intangible benefits provided by the social exchange in-store influence the way consumers consider their relationships with the retailer. However, its relationships with social proximity and cultural factors are not clear. Therefore, this article investigates the effects of specific cultural dimensions on loyalty behaviour, as well as the mediating role of social proximity on the relationship investigated.

This research is based on an empirical investigation undertaken in Thailand with a sample of 636 respondents. Two retail chains were investigated (Big C and Tesco). Structural equation modelling was used to test the research model and a series of research hypotheses.

The results reveal that uncertainty avoidance and long-term orientation have positive direct effects on loyalty, while collectivism does not. Furthermore, social proximity significantly mediates the effects of collectivism and long-term orientation on customer loyalty. These findings show that Thailand is a specific emerging market in which retail chains should adapt their loyalty programme accordingly.

The cultural differences could be used for segmentation strategy for retailers to engage customers in a relationship with the hypermarket. Social proximity is an efficient lever to build loyalty in Thailand. In addition, retailers could utilise certainty and steadiness message as a way to build shopper loyalty.

This research underlines the social, human dimension that consumers seek, which is opposed to the online purchase. Specifically, this study highlights the mediating role of social proximity between the relationship of cultural variables and loyalty in the retail context. Additionally, this research displays the direct and positive effects of culture on retail loyalty. That is, this paper enhances how culture and shopper-retail staff interaction can be managed to achieve store loyalty.