Deciphering in-store-online switching in multi-channel retailing context: Role of affective commitment to purchase situation
Introduction
The fashion market covers an extensive range of products, including apparel, watches, accessories, handbags, shoes, jewellery, and perfume to name a few (Saran et al., 2016; Jebarajakirthy and Das, 2021). With a significant share in total global business, fashion consumption has become an engaging socialisation activity as opposed to just being a transactional activity (Kang and Park-Poaps, 2010). Fashion consumption experience has been radically transformed with the advancement of information technology and with an increasing rate of internet penetration (Kim et al., 2015; Martins et al., 2019). Customers can now make a trade-off between online and offline channels to purchase fashion products (Flavián et al., 2020). As a result, fashion marketers tend to adopt both online and in-store retailing to effectively serve fashion consumers (Kinley et al., 2010).
Retailing has undergone dramatic changes in the past decade with the evolution of concepts, such as multi-channel and Omni-channel retailing (Verhoef et al., 2015; Salmani and Partovi, 2021; Hajdas et al., 2020). The multichannel strategy means using more than one channel or medium to manage customers and exchange products, services and information between customers and retailers (Bressolles and Lang, 2020). For example, when retailers utilise multiple mediums (e.g., physical stores, online stores, mobile apps, catalogues, and tele-calling) in silos (Friedman and Furey, 2003) to sell their products and services, this strategy is known as multi-channel retailing (Grewal et al., 2004). Omni-channel retailing, on the other hand, indicates a retailer's sound integration of multiple channels (online and offline) (Herhausen et al., 2015; Tueanrat et al., 2021) to provide a seamless consumer experience across the channels (Kang et al., 2019). It is a multichannel approach to sales that focus on providing seamless customer experience regardless of whether the customer is shopping online using a laptop, shopping via mobile apps or shopping in a brick-and-mortar store. For example, in Omni-channel retailing, a retailer provides options, such as placing an order online and collect it from physical stores (Mishra et al., 2021). Besides, retailers also provide information in their websites concerning in-store product availability as well as store location (Herhausen et al., 2015).
In this context, understanding shoppers' channel selection behaviour (i.e. whether to buy online or in-store) is of paramount importance for both fashion marketers and retailers. One factor that might have significant impact on shoppers' channel selection decision is their affective commitment to a fashion purchase situation since emotion plays a vital role in shoppers' purchase decisions (Jenkins and Molesworth, 2017; Antwi, 2021). Affectively committed purchase decisions are based on emotions and feelings (Damasio, 2005) and reflect shoppers' levels of emotional involvement with the purchase situation (Naderi, 2013). Based on shoppers' level of affective commitment to a purchase situation, their need for haptic information processing is expected to change (Jha et al., 2019), which might influence their channel choice (online vs in-store). However, research is yet to investigate how affective commitment to a fashion purchase situation affects shoppers’ channel selection (online vs in-store). This indicates a significant gap in the extant retailing literature. Absence of such informed knowledge is a hindrance for fashion retailers and marketers in effectively delivering fashion items via both online and offline channels to maximise the reach of the items.
Hence, the purpose of this research is to investigate whether channel selection (online store vs in-store) for fashion purchases varies depending on consumers’ level of affective commitment (high vs low) to a fashion purchase situation in a multi-channel retailing context. As multi-channel retailing lacks integration among different channel options, it is of paramount importance for the retailers to understand which channel a consumer might prefer under varied affective commitment scenario. Accordingly, two studies have been designed to investigate this broader purpose confining to the emerging market of India.
Study one investigates the effects of affective commitment to a fashion purchase situation (high vs low) on consumers' channel choice (in-store vs online) for a fashion purchase along with the mediating role of hedonic benefits. A consumer obtains both utilitarian and hedonic benefits (Chitturi et al., 2008) from a purchase process. Utilitarian benefits are cognitive, functional, and instrumental; whereas hedonic benefits are affective, experiential, and non-instrumental (Das et al., 2021a, Das et al., 2021b). In the current study, we assessed hedonic benefits as the mediator between affective commitment (high vs low) to a fashion purchase situation and channel choice for fashion purchase (online vs in-store). Since hedonic benefits are associated with consumers' assessment of emotional values obtained from a purchase (e.g., enjoyment, and pleasure) (Luk and Yip, 2008; Hepola et al., 2020), we argue that consumers’ level of emotional involvement with a fashion purchase situation (high vs low level of affective commitment) will determine the degree of hedonic benefits they seek from the purchase process leading them to make a choice between in-store/online channels for the fashion purchase. Accordingly, hedonic benefits are assessed as a mediator.
Study two revalidates the findings of study one with a different product within fashion product category and adds consumer innovativeness as a moderator to hypotheses proposed in study one to investigate whether the effects hypothesised in study-one are moderated by consumer innovativeness. Since innovative consumers are more risk-takers and use consumption as a mean of expressing their innovativeness (Rašković et al., 2016), experience with different channels and the propensity to overcome risk associated with those channels may vary depending on customer innovativeness. Hence, we posit that the level of customer innovativeness might alter the strength of the direct and mediation relationships mentioned above.
This research carries academic and practical importance. Academically, research has not yet showed the role of affective commitment to a fashion purchase situation in determining channel choice when a retailer offers multiple channel options to make a purchase. Our research fills this gap by examining the impact of consumers' affective commitment to fashion purchase situation on consumers' channel choice behaviour along with the role played by hedonic benefits and consumer innovativeness in a multi-channel retailing context. In addition, we confirmed the appropriateness of affect heuristics to explain channel choice decisions in emotion laden situations; i.e. affectively committed fashion purchase situations. Irrespective of being considered as an effective mean of explaining consumer decision making processes (King and Slovic, 2014), the literature has seldom used affect heuristics to explain individuals’ emotion laden purchase decisions. Thus, we have extended the application of affect heuristics to channel choice research in multi-channel retailing context. Overall, our study contributes to the multi-channel retailing literature in the fashion-marketing context. Practically, the findings of this study will help multi-channel fashion retailers and marketers to design effective channel strategies to maximise their reach via both in-store and online channels.
The rest of the study unfolds as follows: First, we provide the literature and a theoretical background for our study and then develop study hypotheses based on theoretical grounding. Next, we present the methodology, analysis, results, and discussion of findings for both study 1 and study 2. Subsequently, we offer the implications (theoretical and practical) and limitations of our research, along with the insightful future research directions.
Section snippets
Fashion consumption
Fashion means a “way of dressing, hairdressing, and fitting out” (Scholze-Stubenrecht et al., 2014). The fashion products mostly comprise items, such as apparel, footwear and accessories. It represents characteristics, such as inventiveness, artistry, modernism and status (Jebarajakirthy and Das, 2020). Preferences for fashion items tend to vary over time, and accordingly, fashion expresses a contemporary taste. People tend to use fashion items to demonstrate their identity (Baron, 2016), and
Proposed model
Based on above discussion and hypotheses, a conceptual framework has been developed and presented in Fig. 1. We posit that level of affective commitment to a fashion purchase situation influences channel choice (online vs in-store purchase). Also, the hedonic benefit sought from that purchase varies between high and low level of affective commitment, which in turn, leads to channel choice (online vs in-store purchase). Further, consumer innovativeness moderates all the above indicated
Method, analysis, and findings
Two scenario based between-subjects experimental studies were conducted to test the hypotheses. The first study examines the effects of affective commitment (high vs low) to a fashion purchase situation (H1–H3), and the second study revalidates the findings of study one and examines the interaction effects of consumer innovativeness (H4–H6). Participants for both the studies were recruited via an online panel of a marketing research company.
To ensure that the data were collected from consumers
General discussion and academic implications
Emergence of channel switching, i.e. moving from online to in-store or vice-versa (Liu et al., 2018), resulted in a challenge for multi-channel fashion retailers in designing channels to allow fashion purchase. Previous studies on multi-channel retailing identified various factors that might impact consumers channel choice during purchase. For example, channel attributes, marketing efforts, channel integration, social influence, situational factors and customer heterogeneity are identified as
Managerial implications
With technological advancements and burgeoning competition in the retail industry, retailers tend to offer multiple channels to consumers to complete their purchase (Liu et al., 2018). Hence, an understanding of consumers’ preference for in-store or online channels, i.e., under which circumstances a consumer might prefer a type of channel over the other, will be of great use to multi-channel retailers. The findings of this study will provide several implications for multi-channel fashion
Limitations and future research directions
The findings of the study are subject to a few limitations that future researchers may resolve. Though we have used two different fashion items for study 1 and study 2 to better generalise our findings, our study is focused on fashion consumers in India. Hence, generalising the findings across the globe is questionable. Future researchers could replicate this study in other countries for a better generalisation. Further, consumer preference for channel selection during fashion purchases is a
Dr Charles Jebarajakirthy is a Lecturer in Marketing in Griffith Business School, Gold Coast, Australia. His research interests are in the areas of retailing, consumer behaviour and services marketing. Charles's research has been published in the Journal of Business Research, Psychology and Marketing, Journal of Marketing Management, Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, Marketing Intelligence & Planning, and Journal of Strategic Marketing, among others.
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Dr Charles Jebarajakirthy is a Lecturer in Marketing in Griffith Business School, Gold Coast, Australia. His research interests are in the areas of retailing, consumer behaviour and services marketing. Charles's research has been published in the Journal of Business Research, Psychology and Marketing, Journal of Marketing Management, Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, Marketing Intelligence & Planning, and Journal of Strategic Marketing, among others.
Dr Manish Das is an Assistant Professor in Marketing in Tripura University, India. His research interests are in the areas of retail marketing & management, consumer psychology, services marketing, retail marketing, sustainability, ethics & social responsibility. Manish's research has been published in the Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, Journal of Marketing Management, Journal of Product and Brand Management and International Journal of Consumer Studies among others.
Dr Dhara Shah is a Senior Lecturer at the Griffith Business School, Australia. Her research expertise has been within the areas of cross-cultural adjustment, social innovation, career growth, training, IHRM, India, women entrepreneurship, and expatriates. She has published in the International Journal of HRM, Journal of International Management, Journal of Global Mobility, Journal of World Business, International Journal of Cross-Cultural Management, among others. In 2021, she won the Pro Vice-Chancellors Research Excellence Award.
Dr Amit Shankar is an Assistant Professor in Marketing Management at the Indian Institute of Management, Visakhapatnam, India. His research interests are in the areas of service quality, services marketing and mobile banking. Amit's research has been published in the Journal of Marketing Management, Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, Journal of Strategic Marketing, Services Marketing Quarterly, International Journal of Nonprofit and Voluntary Sector Marketing, International Journal of Bank Marketing, Journal of Internet Banking and Commerce, Global Business Review, and International journal of Service Technology and Management among others.