"Here Today, Gone Tomorrow"

Abstract: The fast pace of digitization in the retail landscape has revealed serious challenges for retailers. With the rise of new touchpoints in customer journeys, retailers have to provide memorable experiences to retain and attract new customers. Literature concerning the role of omni-channel shopping experience and how retailers maximize the omni-channel shopping experience by considering different touchpoints are still insufficiently researched. Due to the recent trends of pop-up stores, this thesis focused on assessing the value of pop-up stores in an omni-channel context. The purpose of the thesis was to examine how pop-up stores contribute to a successful and seamless omni-channel shopping experience. To meet the purpose of the thesis, a case study with Tchibo GmbH in form of a mixed methods research design was conducted. The quantitative data was collected through 148 surveys to identify what effect pop-up stores exhibit on omni-channel shopping value and brand loyalty. The supporting qualitative data was gathered through seven semi-structured interviews with the intention to discover the role of pop-up stores in an omni-channel context. The overall findings indicated that pop-up stores enhance the omni-channel shopping experience and brand loyalty through mostly offline channels. The online channel was found to not increase brand loyalty significantly. The qualitative findings evaluated pop- up stores based upon the following characteristics: Awareness, Curiosity, Creating an Urgency to Act, Social Media, and Word-of-Mouth. The thesis contributed to a complementary perspective to the literature by enhancing the theoretical knowledge about the role of pop-up stores for an omni- channel shopping experience and its effect on brand loyalty in today‟s age of digitization. The findings gathered a better insight for Tchibo GmbH on both how to maximize the customer shopping value at different touchpoints and how to allocate their resources best to the respective channels. The originality of this thesis is marked by the novel character of the investigation of pop-up stores‟ roles in an omni-channel context in combination with brand loyalty. The thesis also emphasizes on the importance of seeing pop-up stores as a hybrid strategy featuring digital and physical aspects and marketing tool in an omni-channel context.