Does online information drive offline revenues? Only for specific products and consumer segments!

While many offline retailers have developed informational websites that offer information on products and prices, the key question for such informational websites is whether they can increase revenues via web-to-store shopping. The current paper draws on the information search literature to specify and test hypotheses regarding the offline revenue impact of adding an informational website. Explicitly considering marketing efforts, a latent class model distinguishes consumer segments with different short-term revenue effects, while a Vector Autoregressive model on these segments reveals different long-term marketing response.We find that the offline revenue impact of the informational website critically depends on the product category and customer segment. The lower online search costs are especially beneficial for sensory products and for customers distant from the store. Moreover, offline revenues increase most for customers with high web visit frequency. We find that customers in some segments buy more and more expensive products, suggesting that online search and offline purchases are complements. In contrast, customers in a particular segment reduce their shopping trips, suggesting their online activities partially substitute for experiential shopping in the physical store. Hence, offline retailers should use specific online activities to target specific product categories and customer segments.Nederlandse Organisatie voor Wetenschappelijk Onderzoek (NWO)pre-prin

De effectiviteit van informatieve websites

Wij bespreken een drietal deelstudies naar de effectiviteit van informatieve websites. Tussen de website en de winkel vonden we synergie-effecten voor wat betreft de attitudes van consumenten. Echter, positievere website-attitudes blijken samen te hangen met lagere bestedingen in de winkel. Voor de meerderheid van de klanten leidt websitebezoek tot een afname van zowel het aantal aankoopbezoeken als de bestedingen. Voor een kleine minderheid leidt websitebezoek tot een verbetering van het klantgedrag, opvallend genoeg zijn dit de ‘beste’ klanten. Tot slot blijken marketingactiviteiten via het online kanaal slechts een tijdelijke positieve invloed te hebben op het aankoopgedrag in de winkel

Challenges and Opportunities in Multichannel Management

Abstract Multichannel customer management is "the design, deployment, and evaluation of channels to enhance customer value through effective customer acquisition, retention, and development" (Neslin, Scott A., D. Grewal, R. Leghorn, V. Shankar, M. L. Teerling, J. S. Thomas, P. C. Verhoe

Channel choice in the G2B context: towards a research agenda

Knowledge about e-governmental service delivery towards businesses in general and the use and choice of service channels in particular is lacking. Current insights are mostly based on research in the context of citizens. Important differences in both domains can be found in the more networked character of the business context. These differences show that research towards the business context is needed. In order to fill the gap we provide an overview of existing knowledge about channel choice in G2B context. To conclude, we present a research agenda for future research on this topic