Touchpoint usage in a shoppers' path-to-purchase

As preferences for touchpoints have changed since the advent of the Internet (Burke 2002) knowledge about shoppers' path-to-purchase is increasingly important (MSI 2012) and challenges retail managers to reallocate their marketing budgets.
In order to gain a deeper insight into the shoppers' path-to-purchase, we analyze how touchpoint usage is influenced by utilitarian (task oriented) or hedonic (recreational) product category characteristics and purchase risk (high/low uncertainty) - a framework recently used by Kushwawa and Shankar (2013). Unlike past research (see Neslin and Shankar 2009) we also consider channels which are not owned by the retailer.