Paint´n Roll Omnichannels: A study of retail channel integration, channel content and their impact on customer satisfaction, purchase intention and brand attitude

Abstract: Parallel to the digitization of Western societies retailers have been offering customers more and more meeting points and places for transactions. Today you can not only shop in physical stores or online, but through both channels simultaneously. From this development, the concept of omnichannel retailing has manifested, which is where a seamless movement across channels and touchpoints is enabled. Prior research on omnichannels have for instance aimed at; conceptualizing the phenomena, studying the effect of different kinds of channel integration, and measuring threats and benefits attributable to the use of multiple channels. Some have also measured the difference between multichannel and omnichannel, but most of them lack a holistic approach to omnichannel shopping experiences, where several channels and services are linked together. Therefore, the quantitative experimental research design applied in this study instead intends to test the causal relationship between different levels of channel integration and type of channel content, and customer satisfaction, purchase intention and brand attitude, in a full-length shopping experience. The Millennial generation is the focus of this study, as they are the first digital natives, that is, the first to be raised in a digital world. The direct and moderating effect of the Millennial generation’s increasing digital competence and e-commerce experience was thus also taken into account and measured. The findings reveal that the level of channel integration does not significantly impact the level of customer satisfaction, purchase intention and brand attitude. When taking the consumer variable into consideration, it was found that the higher level of digital competence and e-commerce experience a customer has, the higher the level of customer satisfaction, purchase intention and brand attitude is. Finally, there was a significant interaction effect between digital competence and e-commerce experience and channel integration measured, on level of purchase intention. The findings of this paper hint that even though customers are positive to integration of channels and touchpoints, the level of integration does not seem to play a key role. Consequently, a multichannel solution may suffice for now, therefore companies do not need to rush an omnichannel solution.