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This empirical study aims to examine luxury fashion retailers' localised multiple channel distribution strategies in China.

Through case studies of 15 participating retailers, qualitative data were collected from 33 semi-structured interviews.

Strong impacts of internationalisation strategies, distribution strategies and channel length towards multiple channel retailing are revealed. Multi-channel retailing is widely employed by firms who have entered China and further developed their businesses through local partnerships and adopted a selective distribution strategy via relatively longer channels. Omni-channel retailing is only suitable for the few retailers using an exclusive distribution strategy through direct marketing and wholly owned customer relationship management. As a dynamic transformation from multi- to omni-channel retailing, cross-channel retailing is adopted by those who are withdrawing from local partnerships and shifting to wholly owned expansions and operations in host markets.

The results are potentially challenged by relatively small sample size.

Practitioners are suggested to adapt multiple channel retailing to their international expansion strategies, distribution strategies and channel length in the host markets.

This paper contributes to the literature in both multiple channel retailing and international retailing by offering insights into the motives, development patterns and suitability of multiple channel retailing in the international retail marketing context.

This meta-analysis aims to examine and compare the pleasant ambient scent effects on consumers’ affective, cognitive and behavioural responses in the retail and hospitality sectors.

55 articles, including 102 effect sizes, are collected from electronic databases and search engines. The effect of pleasant ambient scents on consumer responses is examined using meta-regression analysis.

The results show a positive effect of pleasant ambient scent on all responses in both sectors, while the effects on cognitive and behavioural responses are stronger in hospitality than retailing. Moreover, the scent effects in hospitality research vary with method aspects, including sampling frame, research design, setting and location.

The findings provide theoretical insights on the sensory tangibilization of experience and methodological insights on designing scent research.

The stronger effect of pleasant ambient scents on cognitive and behavioural responses in a hospitality environment signals that contextual differences should not be neglected. Moreover, hospitality researchers need to stay vigilant to the methodological influence on the findings about scent effects. These findings enrich the sensory marketing literature, in which contextual comparison is scarce.

Consumer behavior has evolved because of technological development. Nowadays, consumers carry out the different stages of the decision-making process by combining multiple devices which has been defined as multi, cross and omnichannel behavior. These behaviors have attracted the attention of academics and become a hot topic in literature. As a result, vast amounts of studies on the subject need to be revised and clarified. Thus, the aim of this chapter is to synthetize the primary academic literature that analyzes multi, cross and omnichannel behavior from the consumer point of view. To do that, first, the main concepts (multi, cross and omnichannel) and their differences are clarified. Second, the major findings of channel mix literature regarding the topics, channel scope and theories are exposed and described. Third, the opportunities and future lines of research are presented. This chapter contributes to the literature by clarifying the conceptualization of multi, cross and omnichannel behaviors; offering a complete picture of the main topics, channel approaches and theories addressed in channel mix literature; and presenting future research opportunities and open research questions in a channel mix context that could serve as a starting point to build further research.

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.

The purpose of this study is to consolidate the existing literature on small retail and develop a conceptual framework using thematic analysis.

The relevant set of 224 articles has been obtained from the Scopus database by applying the PRISMA framework. Bibliometric analysis has been performed using Biblioshiny in Bibliometrix and VOSviewer.

Four major themes have been identified within the conceptual structure of the small retail domain, and a conceptual framework has been developed using the interlinkages within the themes. The intellectual structure of the domain has been explored using citation analysis, co-citation analysis and bibliographic coupling. Future research directions are also identified and documented based on the thematic analysis and overall consolidation of the literature.

This is perhaps one of the first attempts to consolidate the published literature on small retail using bibliometric analysis.

Acknowledging previous scholarly focus on functional attributes in understanding technology acceptance behaviour, the current study aims to offer a novel perspective by integrating eight different dimensions of utilitarian and hedonic attributes to examine their influence in delivering a holistic web-based retail shopping experience.

The research model was tested and validated through data collected from 370 online shoppers across both hedonic and utilitarian product ranges. Hypotheses were tested using covariance-based structural equation modelling with multi-group analysis to examine the moderation effect.

The findings strongly support the model confirming eight new utilitarian and hedonic dimensions that influence web-based retail shopping behaviour. The findings also confirm that hedonic attributes remain important even for utilitarian product purchasing.

The key managerial implication is the demonstrated need to balance utilitarian and hedonic attributes in web-based retail platforms, where previously, there has been an overemphasis on functional features. Web-based retailers should consider the optimal blend of utilitarian (e.g. information quality) and hedonic (e.g. aesthetic) attributes in the design of a retail shopping site, irrespective of the product category.

This study integrates multiple dimensions of utilitarian and hedonic attributes into a single model and highlights the interplay of these attributes, thus extending the technology acceptance model. This paper also advances scholarship through its identification of attribute impact across different product categories.

This paper aims to investigate the effect of gamified e-service quality (GE-SQ) on customer value co-creation, relationship quality and purchase intention in e-retailing.

A questionnaire was used to collect data from a sample of 549 e-retailing customers who participated in a gamified online service process. A structural equation modeling approach was adopted to analyze the model.

The empirical evidence confirmed that GE-SQ encouraged customer value co-creation behavior and relationship quality. Customer value co-creation and relationship quality led to higher purchase intention. Also, value co-creation and relationship quality partially mediated the relationship between GE-SQ and purchase intention.

The findings increase our knowledge of GE-SQ and its behavioral consequences. Moreover, the study proposes and validates a theoretical framework based on GE-SQ, value co-creation and customer relationship quality. This study provides insight into using gamification as a practical tool in the e-retailing industry.

This paper aims to explore the factors influencing the behavioural intention of Gen Y consumers to avail omnichannel service and to identify the relative influence of predictors in explaining the behavioural intention of Gen Y consumers to use omnichannel service.

Data collected through surveys from 287 Gen Y consumers has been analysed through structural equation modelling to examine direct and mediated relationships between the constructs influencing behavioural intention to use omnichannel service.

Findings indicate that perceived ease of use, social influence, perceived trust, and personal innovativeness positively affect behavioural intention to use omnichannel service, with the result accounting for 48% of the variance. We also demonstrate that perceived value and perceived ease of use mediate the association between personal innovativeness and behavioural intention to use omnichannel service.

The study provides valuable insights into adopting technology-based offerings for Gen Y customers. The presented model can be extended for analysing consumers' behavioural intentions by considering additional variables, such as consumer personality traits and diverse cultural settings. The study may help managers and policymakers formulate a consumer-focussed strategy to win over modern retail consumers.

This study explores the behavioural intention of Gen Y consumers in availing omnichannel services. Further, the study contributes to the technology acceptance model (TAM), unified theory of acceptance and use of technology (UTAUT) or UTAUT2 theories that may need to be extended in the omnichannel shopping context.

This paper aims to investigate the impact of acquisition and organic growth on the operating efficiency and total factor productivity change of retailing networks.

The assessment uses low-frequency data of newly opened stores and acquired stores of a large supermarket (S/M) network in Athens, for a period (financial year 2014) where the network began to refocus on its organic growth after a two-year period of deep recession (financial years 2012–2013). To evaluate the performance effects of both strategies, the authors employ the innovative benchmarking tool of bootstrap data envelopment analysis (DEA) for measuring operational efficiency and the Malmquist productivity index DEA approach for measuring productivity change over time.

The short-run evidence indicates that compared to organic growth, acquisitions lead to lower operating efficiency. However, this difference gradually converges over time as acquired stores show a higher rate of productivity compared to newly opened stores. The authors interpret this as a result of the smooth integration of the acquired chain store into the organizational structure of the existing store network given their significant similarities in terms of products and customers.

The authors inform managers of store chains that during the process of organic growth, a general improvement in efficiency takes place while in the case of acquisitions, the required post-acquisition streamlining actions cause a short delay on the realization of efficiency gains. Therefore, managers should not take it for granted that acquisitions cause a long-term decrease in efficiency.

The study contributes to the literature on growth strategies and retailing performance in general, by offering new evidence regarding the comparative effect of the horizontal growth modes on the efficiency of store chains.

This research investigates apparel consumers' psychological and behavioral responses to omnichannel (OC) integration. Specifically, the study applies the cognitive–affective–conative (CAC) model to reveal consumers' decision-making process under the impact of channel integration quality (CIQ), perceived fluency (PF) and cognitive and affective trust (AT).

Primary data were collected through an online survey. In total, 657 eligible responses were received. This study applied partial least square structural equation modeling for data analysis.

The findings demonstrate that the extrinsic cognitive factor, CIQ, substantially affects consumers' intrinsic cognition (cognitive trust [CT] and PF), which consequently fosters consumers' AT and shopping intentions. Specifically, integrated promotion and transaction information positively affects CT, while integrated product and price and information access negatively impact CT. All the dimensions of CIQ, except integrated promotion (IP), significantly affect PF. CT and AT exhibit mediation effects in the CAC model.

Apparel brands and retailers may apply the findings to effectively design their retail channels and implement channel integration to boost consumers' shopping intentions and trust.

This study is one of the pioneering studies applying the CAC model to empirically examine OC consumers' decision-making process. It is also among the first to determine that cognitive and AT have theoretical distinctions in the OC retailing setting.