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Many e-commerce retailers are adding “bricks to clicks” - that is, opening an offline channel in addition to their digital sales channel(s). Taking the perspective of such an online pure player, this research assesses the effects of offline channel additions on the financial performance (e.g., sales, profits) and customer behavior (e.g., basket size, return rate) in the extended channel network as well as the initial online channel of the retailer. Across two studies, one at the zip code level and the other at the customer level, we find that the channel addition of a fashion and lifestyle retailer is synergistic in terms of increasing not only overall sales but also profits. At the same time, the new offline channel does not significantly cannibalize the existing online shop, as new customers are attracted through the channel addition. The effects of channel additions, however, are influenced by characteristics of customers gained before the channel addition and of the trade area around the newly opened stores: among existing customers, those who bought more in the online channel do not react as positively to the addition of an offline channel, and trade areas with socioeconomic characteristics that are often viewed as disadvantageous for digital retailing (e.g., an older population, lower average income) show a stronger positive sales effect of a brick-and-mortar addition. The attractiveness of the offline channel for these customer segments highlights that adding bricks to clicks might be most attractive for those customers who were previously unwilling to purchase from an online-only retailer.
Individuals born within one generation are assumed to share a common identity resulting in similar personal values throughout their impressionable pre-adult years. Specific political, economic, social, technological, ecological, and legal conditions leading to common experiences characterize these pre-adult years. The resulting beliefs and values are perceived to remain relatively stable throughout human lifetimes. Simultaneously, social and technical changes in the last decades turned out to be exponentially proportional to the rate at which humans exchange information. Humans increasingly experience rapidly changing living conditions, which holds for regions with a high net inward migration. This confrontation raises the question of the extent to which personal values are changed by experiencing rapid modernization after the impressionable pre-adult years. Our results are the first longitudinal evidence for an accelerated shift towards post-materialism associated with migration from East to West Germany. The duration until a transition to post-materialism is shorter for East–West Movers compared to East Stayers. We find the confrontation with more available social capital and related social norms to result in leaps in post-materialism on an individual level. Consequently, drastic changes in living conditions can be assumed to alter an individual’s value orientation.
Recent regulation in the European Union (i.e., the General Data Protection Regulation: GDPR) affects websites’ information privacy practices. This regulation addresses two dimensions: websites must (1) provide visible notice about which private information they collect through cookies and (2) allow consumers the choice to disagree to such tracking. Policy makers need to understand the degree of implementation of their regulation, but also its effect on consumers. We develop a typology of website cookie notices along the dimensions notice visibility and choice. A field study shows that most websites only offer low notice visibility and limited choice over the collection of private information. In addition, four experimental studies in the EU and United States explore the effects of information privacy practices: while offering choice over whether or which data are used increases consumer power, visibility of the notice (vs. no notice) only affects risk perceptions. We establish the novel suggestion that perceived risk is mitigated if consumers have more choice over their data (indirectly through greater power). Power and risk influence consumers’ affect and purchase intent.
Competitive webrooming, the phenomenon in which consumers gather product information online but ultimately purchase the product in an offline store of a competing retailer, has gained traction and become a major threat for retailers. To gain a deeper understanding of its drivers, we surveyed 1081 retail customers about their most recent consumer electronic product purchase to examine the impact of channel-related aspects as well as retailer-related aspects – a dual approach that has not been applied previously. A channel’s anticipated after-sales service and price level are the strongest predictors for webrooming. Moreover, retailer aspects determine whether customers simultaneously switch retailer when webrooming. A retailer’s assurance of delivery, including payment modalities, return policies, and product obtainment, as well as competitive product prices motivate consumers to switch retailer when webrooming. These results suggest that customers have a fundamental need for certainty within and after the buying process, which can be satisfied by both channel and retailer. Additionally, this is the first study to empirically test for interactions between channel and retailer aspects, as they are likely to occur in real shopping situations. We identified two interactions: First, a retailer’s assurance of delivery can compensate for an anticipated lack of a channel’s after-sales service, dampening the impact of the latter on competitive webrooming. Second, retailer’s price attractiveness acts in a similar vein. Hence, to steer customers into channels and/or keep them with the company, retailers should emphasize their price attractiveness as well as assurance of delivery.
Recent regulatory changes (i.e., General Data Protection Regulation of the European Union) enforce that seller (e.g., retail and service) and all other websites disclose through cookie notices which data they collect and store. At the same time, websites must allow consumers to disagree to the tracking of their browsing behavior. Despite sellers' concern about the loss of consumer insights—as consumers might disagree to the collection of their browsing data—cookie notices might also have a surprising side-effect: Consumers might accept frequent price changes (from personalized or dynamic pricing) more readily, if they agree through a cookie notice that their behavior can be tracked. Specifically, two experimental studies show that consent to the tracking of browsing behavior increases consumers internal attribution of a price change, as consumers attribute the cause of the change (here: giving up data) to themselves. This increases price fairness perceptions and, in turn, purchase intent. As a result, for online sellers of goods or services the implementation of cookie notice should no longer be thought as a matter to be avoided, but rather a trade-off decision: Loss of a part of consumer insights versus higher acceptance of data-driven marketing mix decisions, such as frequent price changes.