Effects of cross-channel synergies and complementarity in a multichannel e-commerce system – an investigation of the interrelation of e-commerce, m-commerce and IETV-commerce

Abstract

With the increasing availability of Internet-enabled devices (such as smartphones and tablet PCs), online shopping behavior changes and shifts to a multidevice usage. This implies that retailers have to operate and manage diverse online channel formats. Next to the individual capabilities of an individual online channel, we expect that interactions across the electronic retail channels (e-channels) are of relevance to create a holistic online shopping experience. Hence, this research merges knowledge from multichannel retailing and e-commerce to investigate the role of synergy and complementarity among e-channels and their effects on online shopping behavior. On the basis of theoretical assumptions, we develop a conceptual framework for a multichannel e-commerce environment and empirically test it with a data set of N = 904 consumers. We discuss our findings, which underline the relevance to create cross-channel synergy and complementarity among e-channels and derive implications for the management of multichannel e-commerce systems.