Showrooming : a look into the Portuguese electronics market

The Internet made information widely available to every person with a connection. Furthermore, the increasing popularity of tablets and smartphones in the 2000s made the Internet connection more accessible and mobile. Nowadays, the combination of the facilitated access to the Internet and the growing number of online retailers generates transparency on the consumers’ minds that wasn’t possible before. We can check the price of an iPhone on a country on the other side of the world just by tapping a few times on the screen. Therefore, there’s a risk that brick-and-mortar stores turn into showrooms as consumers use them to see and touch the products but they never actually make the purchase offline. Although online vs. offline behavior has been widely studied in the past, the research about showrooming is insufficient. Plus, showrooming has many times been addressed from a negative standpoint, where authors try to identify and quantify the adverse effects for retailers.A Internet tornou a informação amplamente disponível para qualquer pessoa com uma conexão. Para além disso, a popularidade crescente dos tablets e smartphones nos anos 2000 fez com que esta conexão se tornasse fácil e móvel. Hoje em dia, a combinação do acesso à Internet com o número crescente de retalhistas online criou uma transparência para os consumidores que não era possível até agora. Qualquer consumidor pode ver o preço de um produto num país que fica do outro lado do mundo ao clicar duas ou três vezes num ecrã. Existe então o risco das lojas tradicionais se tornarem em lojas de exposição que os consumidores usam apenas para ver os produtos. Embora o comportamento online vs. offline já tenha sido extensivamente estudado no passado, há uma quantidade limitada de investigação no que diz respeito ao showrooming. Para além disso, o fenómeno tem sido muitas vezes estudar ode uma perspetiva negativa em que os autores tentam identificar e quantificar os efeitos negativos para os retalhistas

Understanding Mobile Showrooming Based on a Technology Acceptance and Use Model

Showrooming is an increasingly popular behaviour in the omnichannel era. The purpose of this paper is to understand the consumer intention to showroom through a technology acceptance and use model based on UTAUT2 that includes value consciousness and purchase involvement as drivers of showrooming intention and mobile dependency as a moderator. Data collected via a survey answered by 659 showroomers were analysed using Partial Least Squares (PLS). Results show that value consciousness, purchase involvement, hedonic motivation and social influence explain mobile showrooming intention and mobile dependency moderates the impact of value consciousness on mobile showrooming intention. Our results offer suggestions for multichannel retailers to deal with showroomers visiting their stores to try to turn them into buyers

Competitive (versus Loyal) Showrooming: An Application of the Push-Pull-Mooring Framework

Showrooming is an increasingly popular practic that threatens retailers' performance. This paper adopts the push-pull-mooring framework to understand the shopper decision to purchase online from a different retailer (competitive showrooming) rather than from the same retailer visited to gather information (loyal showrooming). Going beyond the customer motivation to get the best value, we focus on retailer-situational variables (store crowding and quality of salesperson service) and retailer-relational variables (customer satisfaction, trust and loyalty) in the decision on competitive (vs loyal) showrooming. Data was collected via a survey answered by 659 showroomers and analysed using fuzzy-set Qualitative Comparative Analysis (fsQCA) to unveil different patterns of competitive showrooming. Results highlight the role of mooring factors, such as a strong customer-retailer relationship and quality salespersons' service, in reducing competitive showrooming

Exploring Factors Influencing Showrooming Behavior in Multi-Channel Shopping: A Cognitive Appraisal Theory Perspective

Multi-channel shopping keeping consumers from changing retailers during the channel conversion process has become an important issue. Showrooming, one of the increasingly popular form of multi-channel behavior, brings different influences to retailers. This paper focuses on how to keep consumers loyal to retailer of showrooming behavior during the channel conversion process, and explore its influencing factors from the perspective of cognitive appraisal theory. Three hundred and ten questionnaires were collected to conduct empirical analysis by structural equation modeling (SEM). The empirical research results show that information availability, price comparison, and after sales service positively affect perceived fluency and perceived value, but interaction service has no significant effect on perceived fluency and perceived value, and that perceived value and perceived fluency further promote the appearance of showrooming behavior. The research results improve the existing showrooming research system, and provide suggestions for retailers on how to improve the channel characteristics to promote positive showrooming

Antecedents of Webrooming in Omnichannel Retailing

Although webrooming has become common practice in omnichannel consumer behavior, only a few empirical studies have managed to shed light on the phenomenon. With this research work, we aim to investigate important antecedents of webrooming. We base our conceptual framework on anticipated utility theory and expect that customers' anticipated utility from using the physical store versus the online store for purchase can be predicted by four groups of antecedents: psychographic variables, shopping motivations, channel-related variables, and product-related variables. With the help of a data set from a large cross-national online survey in which 1497 customers reconstruct their last purchase journey, we differentiate webroomers from pure online shoppers. In addition, we disentangle customers who used retailer-owned, competitor-owned, and independent touchpoints along the search and purchase phase of the customer journey in order to characterize webroomers in an omnichannel context and assess their prevalence in different countries and industries. Our insights on the characteristics and antecedents of webrooming help retailers to detect and better understand the psychology behind the webrooming phenomenon from a consumer perspective in an omnichannel retailing environment. In addition, results from our exploratory analysis on the positive association between webrooming and customer spending contribute to research and practice by providing first evidence on the economic value of webrooming

Webrooming or showrooming, that is the question: explaining omnichannel behavioural intention through the technology acceptance model and exploratory behaviour

Purpose: This paper evaluates how the intention to develop webrooming or showrooming behaviour is affected by both the perceived usefulness and the perceived ease-of-use, as well as by the consumer's personal predisposition to exploratory information seeking and acquisition. Design/methodology/approach: The fashion retailing environment is more omni-channel than ever before. The two predominant omni-channel behaviours are webrooming and showrooming. Taking as its basis the technology acceptance model (TAM) and the concept of exploratory consumer behaviour. Findings: The results obtained from a sample of 847 apparel shoppers (462 webroomers and 385 showroomers) show that the higher perception of the usefulness and ease-of-use of omni-channel buying processes, the higher the intention to develop both webrooming and showrooming behaviours. Additionally, the perceived ease-of-use exerts an additional indirect effect on the intention of developing these omni-channel behaviours through perceived usefulness. Finally, exploratory information seeking and acquisition have a relevant influence on webrooming intentions, but not on showrooming. Originality/value: The authors' research contributes to the literature on consumer behaviour in the fashion sector by testing a model to explain the intentions of individuals to adopt webrooming and showrooming, incorporating different psychographic variables linked to the use of ICT and the development of an exploratory consumer behaviour

The Effects of Consumer Buying Habits in the Automotive Industry

This study addressed the effects of consumer buying habits in the automotive industry. With consumer buying habits constantly changing and the advancement of technology and e-commerce, there is a growing opportunity for brick-and-mortar stores and dealerships to adapt their strategies to maintain and enhance revenues and profitability. Failure of organizations to adapt their strategies have resulted in a loss of revenue and led to bankruptcy. This qualitative case study addressed the failure of an organization to adapt to consumer buying habits in the automotive industry resulting in a loss of revenue and profitability. Further, the study provided an understanding of the actions taken by organizations to increase profits, and also the upcoming consumer buying habit trends that will cause an organization to adapt their strategies to maintain and enhance revenues. The results of this study indicated that a dealership’s adaptability was a necessity in a constantly changing industry. The actions taken by the dealership group included aggressive pricing, use of new technology, advertisement initiatives, and strategies, such as off-site and on-site services were effective among other results. While electrification was a common theme of discussion, the results of this study indicated no significant concern for upcoming trends

“Polarization” of Consumer Behavior: S-O-R Theory Perspective

S-O-R theory provides information that atmospheric cues (stimulus) affect the cognitive and emotional states of buyers (organisms), which then affect the outcome of their shopping behavior (response). Perceived value (organism) based on how much the customer wants or needs it. This article is the result of ideas constructed from various articles and then compiled to determine “polarization” of consumer behavior with the S-O-R theory perspective. The results show that the stimulus is a consumer external factor that drives the organism. Organisms as mediators of stimuli with responses such as cognitive traits (memory, knowledge structure, images, beliefs, and thoughts), emotions (satisfaction, worry and trust), consumer attitudes, hedonic motivation, risk or benefit, consumer expectations, personality, shopping experience