Transitions towards omni-channel retailing strategies: a business model perspective

Abstract

Purpose-Digitalization has been identified as a driving force behind retail sector transformation. The purpose here is to provide a deeper understanding of how omni-channel strategies link to the digitalization phenomenon. The study is explorative in nature and aims to expand existing knowledge by using a business model (BM) perspective. Design/methodology/approach-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. Findings-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: (i) a seamless customer experience, (ii) an integrated analytics system, and (iii) an effective supply chain and logistics. Practical implications-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. Originality/value-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.

Change in technology-enabled omnichannel customer experiences in-store

“…The customer journey is defined by the multiple stages of prepurchase, purchase, and post-purchase, which are increasingly seen as non-linear and more intricate (Grewal and Roggeveen, 2020; Lemon and Verhoef, 2016;Puccinelli et al, 2009;Schmitt, 2003;Stein and Ramaseshan, 2016). The activities performed within each stage have changed due to channel integration and the shift towards OCR (Jocevski et al, 2019). For example, in pre-purchase, price comparisons can be conducted on smartphones; in the purchase stage, consumers can select from a range of payment and delivery options online and offline; and the post-purchase stage includes a focus on consumption experience, service, returns, and repurchase, as well as word-of-mouth, engagement, and loyalty (see Fig.…”

“…For example, in pre-purchase, price comparisons can be conducted on smartphones; in the purchase stage, consumers can select from a range of payment and delivery options online and offline; and the post-purchase stage includes a focus on consumption experience, service, returns, and repurchase, as well as word-of-mouth, engagement, and loyalty (see Fig. 1) (Lemon and Verhoef, 2016;Jocevski et al, 2019). This complexity, making use of human, virtual, and technology-driven contact, has led to the merging of online and offline retail spaces (Lee, 2015;Salomonson et al, 2013).…”

Exploring customers’ likeliness to use e-service touchpoints in brick and mortar retail

“…The channel usually refers to a particular medium that facilitates the interaction between a company and its customers (Halvorsrud et al 2016;Neslin et al 2006). The concepts of offline, online/digital, and mobile channels describe collections of related media, such as online shops and social media, which are specific digital channels or TPs (e.g., Hickman et al 2019;Jocevski et al 2019;Straker et al 2015). Others understand TPs as individual channels or media (e.g., Baxendale et al 2015;Lim et al 2015;Straker et al 2015), actual moments of contact or encounters that constitute customer journeys (e.g., Halvorsrud et al 2016;Homburg et al 2017;Verhoef et al 2015), and perceptible stimuli that offer the potential for encounters (e.g., S. Davis and Longoria 2003;Kronqvist and Leinonen 2019;Richardson 2010).…”

“…TPs offer various means of interaction during the customer journey (Boyd et al 2019;Jocevski et al 2019). All of the TPs customers encounter during their journeys have "direct and more indirect effects on purchase and other customer behaviors" (Lemon and Verhoef 2016, p. 82), so optimizing customers' experiences requires an understanding of what characteristics cause these effects (Ponsignon et al 2017;Verhoef et al 2015).…”

Online Grocery Shopping Acceptance: The Impact on the Perception of New Technologies and Loyalty in Retailing

“…Newer technologies and business models, and big data /predictive analytics suggest that the shopping process is on the verge of a quantum leap into an unknown shopping realm (Grewal et al, 2017). The importance of new technologies in retailing is demonstrated by many studies oriented on consumers´ behaviour (Kim, Libaque-Saenz, & Park, 2019;Izogo & Jayawardhena, 2018), new business models (Jocevski, Arvidsson, Miragliotta, Ghezzi, & Mangiaracina, 2019), technologies in retailing such as virtual reality (Violante, Vezzetti, & Piazzolla, 2019;Huang, 2019), augmented reality (Esch et al, 2019), and also the changes in retailing reality in some shops (Pantano & Vannucci, 2019). The purpose of this paper is to provide an overview of what technology can be used in grocery retail and how these technologies are perceived by customers.…”