The impact of channel integration on consumers’ channel preferences: Do showrooming and webrooming behaviors matter?

Abstract

This study investigates the relationships among channel integration and consumers' online and offline patronage intentions. The theoretical framework proposes perceived empowerment, perceived assortment, and perceived benefits as mediating variables in the channel integrationpatronage intention relationship, with consumer showrooming and webrooming behaviors as moderating variables. Data was collected by means of two studies; that is, for search and for experience products, respectively. The proposed conceptual model was tested by employing variance-based structural equation modeling. The results of both studies confirm that channel integration significantly affects consumers' channel preferences. The mediating roles of empowerment, assortment, and benefits were confirmed for all of the relationships except for the mediating effect of empowerment on the relationship between channel integration and offline patronage intention. Further, showrooming and webrooming moderated the positive impact of channel integration on online/offline patronage intentions. The study contributes to the multi-channel retailing literature by providing useful implications for academicians and practitioners.

How Does Online Engagement Drive Consumers' Webrooming Intention?

“…Product assortment refers to "the availability of a variety of merchandise in terms of quality, quantity, and brand choice" (Verhoef et al, 2007). Due to space constraints in a brick-and-mortar setting, retailers have limited opportunities to showcase the product verities; however, over online platforms, retailers can showcase a wide range of product verity (Kang, 2018;Goraya et al, 2020). Online retailers can also use online catalog to feature breadth and depth of products and services (Islam et al, 2019).…”

“…Product assortment plays a crucial role in consumer channel choice during the purchasing process (Verhoef et al, 2015;Gensler et al, 2017). Over online platforms, consumers receive better assortment and save time, money, and efforts in the evaluation of the products (Rubio et al, 2017;Shankar and Jain, 2020) but also get the automatic suggestions of complementary, bundling, and substitute products, which help them in better evaluation (Kang, 2018;Goraya et al, 2020). Over online platforms, consumers can quickly gather comparative information regarding features, price, quality, warranty, and consumer ratings of alternative products and brands (Duarte et al, 2018;, which is difficult to obtain in offline stores.…”

Optimal Showroom Service Strategy and Power Structure for Retailers considering Consumer Return

“…All of the above studies investigate the decisions problem considering the negative effect of showrooming. But the showrooming also has a positive effect; for example, Goraya et al [36] find that showrooming and webrooming moderated the positive impact of channel integration on online/offline patronage intentions. Different from the above studies, this paper introduces the showroom service strategy to mitigate consumer return and examine how the consumer return affects the optimal showroom service strategy and power structure.…”

Understanding Mobile Showrooming Based on a Technology Acceptance and Use Model

“…The transition to omnichannel has contributed to blurring the frontiers between channels [1], allowing shoppers to interact with sellers through several channels and touchpoints during their shopping journey [2]. Retailers have increased channel integration, facilitating consumer cross-channel behaviours such as webrooming and showrooming [3,4]. Webrooming, i.e., search online and then purchase in-store, is the most common behaviour [5]; however, as channel synergies build up, showrooming, i.e., examine products in-store and then purchase online, is growing steadily [6].…”