It is different than what I saw online: Negative effects of webrooming on purchase intentions

Abstract

Webrooming is a two‐stage shopping process that begins with examining product options online followed by making a purchase at an offline store. In four experiments, we investigate webrooming effects on product evaluation and purchase intentions. The results suggest that webrooming (vs. non‐webrooming) has negative impacts on (1) perceived product performance vis‐à‐vis expectations and (2) purchase intentions for the products offline. Our moderated‐mediation analyses show that webrooming leads to lower perceived product performance, which in turn results in lower purchase intentions, and participants’ Need for Touch (NFT) moderates the negative mediation effect, which is stronger with instrumental NFT than autotelic NFT. However, this moderated‐mediation effect is attenuated when products are searched across multiple categories. These findings contribute to the marketing literature by providing a more nuanced understanding of how two‐stage, webrooming behavior affects consumers’ cognitions and purchase decisions. They also provide several managerial implications that when controlling for time intervals between the stages, (1) webrooming may adversely affect retailers’ business outcomes when webrooming within a single (e.g., blankets), related (e.g., baby products), and unrelated product categories; (2) thus, creating an integrated online‐to‐offline cross‐channel customer experiences is critical to minimize the negative webrooming effects on final sales.

To touch or not to touch: Examining the role of choice set size

“…Our results suggest that for items where product touch can be diagnostic (e.g., clothing, etc. ), not having an opportunity to touch products under consideration can attenuate the positive outcomes typically associated with product touch, potentially depressing sales revenues (i.e., Chung et al, 2022). Therefore, it may be advantageous for online retailers to offer “smaller” assortments for products where touch can be diagnostic.…”

Webrooming as the new retail experience: a smart-shopping perspective

“…The latest research has started to explore the experience and outcomes of webrooming. For instance, Chung et al. (2022) found that webrooming can widen the gap between expectations and product performance, which eventually lowers purchase intentions.…”

“…However, there is a limited understanding of factors and mechanisms driving consumers' webrooming behaviour, particularly in the digital marketing environment. To this end, we adopt the online–offline channel perspective (Chung et al. , 2022) to examine the role of online reviews (Arora et al.…”

“…However, there is a limited understanding of factors and mechanisms driving consumers' webrooming behaviour, particularly in the digital marketing environment. To this end, we adopt the online-offline channel perspective (Chung et al, 2022) to examine the role of online reviews (Arora et al, 2019;Aw et al, 2021;Chung et al, 2022;Flavi an et al, 2016) in their purchasing decisions. In particular, we focus on review diagnosticity, as the product information available on the Internet may not be credible (Tormala et al, 2008), given that most contributions are anonymous, which may affect the online search experience (Reimer and Benkenstein, 2016).…”

Search Online and Purchase Offline: The Role of Instagram Marketing, Consumer Behavior and Webrooming in Building Brand Loyalty

“…In Australia, bricks and clicks businesses are designed to provide product-related information in webrooming for providing better opportunities to the consumers (Arora & Sahney, 2017, 2019Aw, 2019Aw, , 2020Choi & Yang, 2016;Flavián et al, 2016;Manss et al, 2020). In this way, Australian customers are always concerned about getting information from webrooming before purchasing the products for their satisfaction (Arora & Sahney, 2018, 2019Chung et al, 2022;.…”