Engaging consumers in multichannel online retail environment

Abstract

According to ASSOCHAM-Resurgent survey (2016), around 70 million people in India shopped for something online and this number is expected to cross 100 million by 2017. This statistic clearly reverberates the fact that Indian e-commerce has come a long way. For instance, India has become world s second largest user of smartphones (Ming, 2017) and with more users adopting mobile devices for online shopping, Indian online retailers now have to manage mobile channel in addition to existing traditional channel (of computers). Additionally, with m-commerce taking huge strides in last couple of years and contributing up to seventy per cent of total sales for online retailers in India, research efforts into related marketing strategies tailored for improved customer experience across touch points and platforms have also intensified. Hence, the purpose of this study has been threefold: i) to analyze the factors that influence online shopping behaviour of existing online shoppers of India, with a focus on driving continued usage, ii) to examine product specific purchase behaviour of online consumers through a multi-group moderation analysis conducted for electronics and fashion goods, and iii) to investigate the mapping of product characteristics with individual channel capabilities and its effect on online consumer behaviour. newlineA comprehensive research model was developed based on knowledge gained from multichannel retailing and e-commerce literature. The proposed research model included eight main factors: attitude, subjective norm, trust, perceived usefulness, perceived risk and perceived self-efficacy, purchase intention and actual purchase behaviour. Then, the model was empirically tested, with primary data collected from 344 customers, using structural equation modelling (SEM). The data was collected from customers across two product categories i.e. electronics and fashion, and across two shopping platforms i.e. traditional online and mobile channel. newlineThe results revealed that perceived usefulness, perceived risk and perceived self-efficacy were important drivers of online consumer behaviour for continued usage. The multi-group analysis confirmed the moderation influence of platform type and product type for some relationships across electronics and fashion products. The findings underlined the importance of multichannel complementarity across electronics and fashion products. The preference of mobile devices for fashion and traditional devices like computers for electronics provided valuable insights for online retailers towards management of multichannel e-commerce ecosystem. newlineIn Indian context, this is the first empirical research on online multichannel retail setting, studying the impact of diverse shopping platforms on different product categories. The study s findings give empirical basis to online retailers to look out for right product-channel fit strategy for engaging consumers in the long run. newline