Title: Adding bricks to clicks: Which characteristic of a showroom affects consumers when they shop online?

Authors: Abeer A. Mahrous; Ola Tarek; Wael Kortam

Addresses: Faculty of Commerce, Business Administration Department, Cairo University, 12613, Egypt ' Faculty of Commerce, Business Administration Department, Cairo University, 12613, Egypt ' Faculty of Business Administration, Economics & Political Science, The British University in Egypt, Sherouk City, 11837, Egypt

Abstract: There is a recent trend among many e-retailers worldwide to expand their online-only channels to offline stores to increase demand among their online stores and gain more online shoppers with high levels of uncertainty when buying online. So the main aim of this research is to determine the offline attributes that affect the channel selection intention when adding offline stores for online-first retailers and study the impact of some consumer characteristics on this relationship. The data were analysed using partial least squares structural equation modelling. The results revealed that cognitive attributes are one of the variables online shoppers look for when buying offline. Additionally, the affective attributes of the offline store will make the repeated online shopper more likely to shop online, and the relational attributes of the offline store will make the goal-oriented online shopper more likely to purchase online after adding the offline channel.

Keywords: channel selection; channel extension; offline attributes; e-retailers; offline store; showroom; omnichannel.

DOI: 10.1504/EMJM.2022.127443

EuroMed Journal of Management, 2022 Vol.4 No.4, pp.332 - 344

Received: 17 Jul 2022
Accepted: 23 Jul 2022
Published online: 05 Dec 2022 *

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