Pricing Strategies in Dual-online Channels Based on Consumers’ Shopping Choice

AbstractBesides an official website mall (OWM), retail stores on the third party e-commerce platform(3PEP) is an another important online channel that manufacturers adopt to sell online. How to properly price products in these two channels simultaneously is a tough problem to firms and gains much attention by researchers. In this paper, we analyze their channel choice, and give demand functions of the two channels based on the consumers’ segmentation and preference. Then we design a sale model including two online channels: OWM and a retail store on 3PEP. According the Stackelberg game theory, we calculate and discuss the optimal pricing strategies of the manufacturer and retailer in three feasible regions. The result shows that manufacturers emphasizing channel sales prefer to choose pricing strategies that helps two online channels share the online market. But some manufacturers think adjusting the OWM's price and the wholesale price to control the retailer's pricing strategies is reasonable and necessary, even if nobody will prefer the OWM

Developing trends in showrooming, webrooming, and omnichannel shopping behaviors: Performance analysis, conceptual mapping, and future directions

In an omnichannel era, businesses and marketers need insights into the dynamics of customer shopping behaviors, particularly the interplay between omnichannel, showrooming, and webrooming behaviors. This study investigates the evolution and trends of the research and channel shopping behaviors (RCSB) domain, spanning from 1998 to 2022, including the Covid-19 era. The study performed a bibliometric review of 500 papers in the Scopus database. The performance analysis reveals an annual growth rate of nearly 16%, with average citations per document of 44, indicating sustained and growing research interest. Science mapping revealed five distinct cluster themes, including showrooming and webrooming in multi- and omni-channel contexts; consumer behavior in online retail and shopping; customer satisfaction and trust in multi-channel retailing; mobile commerce in a multi-channel environment; and the interplay between online shopping, channel choice, and supply chain management. Furthermore, topics, such as showrooming, e-commerce, retailing, and omnichannel retailing, remain popular before and during the pandemic, as seen in the thematic evolution. Our examination of the thematic maps revealed various topics that gained significance during the pandemic, such as multichannel, channel choice, customer experience, social commerce, purchase behavior, and covid-19. Among these, the thematic maps indicate that customer experience, channel choice, multichannel, and covid-19 are emerging and basic topics. These topics can steer research directions in the RCSB domain toward examining customer experiences using digital innovations, e-commerce (including mobile and social commerce), and omnichannel strategy and management

Behavioral Aspects of Pricing

Buyers sometimes exhibit seemingly “irrational” behavior with respect to prices and use socially embedded heuristics to simplify their purchase decisions. In some cases small changes in prices can lead to much larger than anticipated changes in sales and profitability. Sellers need to understand the heuristics consumers use, the situations in which they emerge, and recognize how they can respond in markets where information and knowledge of product attributes and competitive prices is increasingly available via the Internet. This chapter explores consumers’ behavioral reactions to price through a review of contemporary literature in the field of pricing. The chapter delineates the nature and scope of these effects based upon a critical review of the most up-to-date empirical research in the field, and concludes by providing implications for innovation in pricing, and guidance for managers to reduce the disconnect between themselves and consumers

A conceptual model of channel choice: measuring online and offline shopping value perceptions

This study tries to understand how consumers evaluate channels for their purchasing. Specifically, it develops a conceptual model that addresses consumer value perceptions of using the Internet versus the traditional (physical) channel. Previous research showed that perceptions of price, product quality, service quality and risk strongly influence perceived value and purchase intentions in the offline and online channel. Perceptions of online and offline buyers can be analyzed to see how value is constructed in both channels. This model enables comparisons between online and offline shoppers perceptions. As such, it is possible to determine the factors that encourage or prevent consumers to engage in online shopping.

E-Fulfillment and Multi-Channel Distribution – A Review

This review addresses the specific supply chain management issues of Internet fulfillment in a multi-channel environment. It provides a systematic overview of managerial planning tasks and reviews corresponding quantitative models. In this way, we aim to enhance the understanding of multi-channel e-fulfillment and to identify gaps between relevant managerial issues and academic literature, thereby indicating directions for future research. One of the recurrent patterns in today’s e-commerce operations is the combination of ‘bricks-and-clicks’, the integration of e-fulfillment into a portfolio of multiple alternative distribution channels. From a supply chain management perspective, multi-channel distribution provides opportunities for serving different customer segments, creating synergies, and exploiting economies of scale. However, in order to successfully exploit these opportunities companies need to master novel challenges. In particular, the design of a multi-channel distribution system requires a constant trade-off between process integration and separation across multiple channels. In addition, sales and operations decisions are ever more tightly intertwined as delivery and after-sales services are becoming key components of the product offering.Distribution;E-fulfillment;Literature Review;Online Retailing

Unveiling the Online-Offline Divide: Predicting Retail Channel Membership for Luxury Jewelry Consumers Using Discriminant Analysis

The study explores the factors that influence consumers to choose between online and offline channels for purchasing products and services. Using a quantitative approach, data was collected from 352 respondents through a survey and analyzed using discriminant analysis. The study found that consumers tend to purchase products online for self- gratification, better offers, relative price, variety of products, product information, and better price comparison. On the other hand, consumers choose offline channels for quality, reliable information, quality of judgment, and better after-sales services. The papers implications extend to marketing practitioners, specifically in luxury product marketing for segmentation, targeting, and positioning

An Empirical Investigation of the Existence and Causes of Noticeable Price Difference in Multi-Channel Retailers

Pricing strategy is one of the greatest difficulties facing multi-channel retailers (Gupta, Ting & Tiwari, 2019) as many retailers have switched to a multiple channel system (Ailawadi & Farris, 2017). Retailers are using their price strategies to encourage consumers to use either online or offline channels. Therefore, in many cases retailers want consumers to notice the price difference between channels. However, in some circumstances, retailers do not want consumers to notice the differentiation. Therefore, this thesis will answer two main research questions: How should optimal pricing be set for multiple channels that will make consumers more/less likely to notice price differentiation? What types of price presentation format are more/less likely to make consumers notice price differentiation? Prior investigations have studied noticeable price differences by using differential price thresholds in a single channel (e.g., Cheng & Monroe, 2013a; Sirvanci, 1993) rather than studying differential price thresholds for a single product when there is one retailer and two channels. Multi-channel retailers use different monetary and non-monetary promotions as price presentation formats. Previous researchers have studied the roles of monetary and non-monetary promotions in the price-framing effect. However, so far no study has investigated the price effect of different promotion presentation formats on noticing differentiation. This thesis integrates just noticeable difference theory and prospect theory to investigate consumers’ ability to notice price differentiation in different price presentation formats. It does so by conducting two experimental studies, each with 720 participants. It investigates the antecedent factors that influence the noticing of price differentiation in multiple channels. The results of the thesis have important implications for the multi-channel literature and for managerial practice. They show that consumers are more likely to notice price differentiation when the difference between the (online and offline) regular prices is 20%. The results also suggest that there is a difference in noticing price differentiation in different monetary promotional formats. The thesis can guide marketing managers to set optimal prices for single products when there is one retailer and two channels. They can decide whether to use the same price in both channels or different prices in the different channels depending on whether their strategy is to attract consumers and increase purchase intentions by making the price difference noticeable or not

Online and Offline Information for Omnichannel Retailing

This paper studies how retailers can effectively deliver online and offline information to omnichannel consumers who strategically choose whether to gather information online or offline and whether to buy products online or offline. Information resolves two types of uncertainty: product value uncertainty (i.e., consumers realize valuations when they inspect the product in store, but may end up returning the product when they purchase online) and availability uncertainty (i.e., store visits are futile when consumers encounter stockouts). We consider three information mechanisms: physical showrooms allow consumers to learn valuations anytime they visit the store, even during stockouts; virtual showrooms give consumers online access to an imperfect signal of their valuations; availability information provides real-time information about whether the store has a product in stock. Our main results follow. First, physical showrooms may prompt retailers to reduce store inventory, which increases availability risk and discourages store patronage. Second, virtual showrooms may increase online returns and hurt profits, if they induce excessive customer migration from store to online channels. Third, availability information may be redundant when availability risk is low and may render physical showrooms ineffective when implemented jointly. Finally, when customers are homogeneous, these mechanisms may not exhibit significant complementarities and the optimal information structure may involve choosing only one of the three