Kristina Kleinlercher

Multichannel retailers aim at steering customers to physical stores to increase cross-selling, benefit from higher margins, and offer multisensory experiences. The question is how retailers can steer customers to strategically important channels. We propose that retailers may induce customers to switch to physical stores by communicating information about channel integration on their websites but that this explicit communication of channel integration is additionally influenced by the implicit communication of shopping benefits, which customers and retailers may not be aware of. Using a multilevel and multisource approach with field data of 1,479 customers from 104 firms, we find that informational online-to-physical channel integration on a retailer’s website influences customers’ online-to-physical store switching and that the density of shopping benefits concurrently communicated moderates this effect. Our results extend literature on channel choice and provide implications for retailers on how to design their websites as information hubs to steer customers to physical stores.

While technology has disrupted retail industries such as electronics or apparel, it has just started to transform the health industry. This paper sheds light on the digital disruption in retailing of over-the-counter drugs in Switzerland, different customer segments purchasing over-the-counter drugs, and technology-enabled health services.

The abundance of new touchpoints (e.g., mobile apps, price comparison portals), stakeholders (e.g., manufacturers, other customers), and technologies (e.g., artificial intelligence, virtual reality) that shape today’s customer journey have rendered retailing more complex, fast-moving, and competitive than ever before. In light of the high demands on retail managers of tomorrow to use innovative practices and service solutions for delivering customized and delightful customer experiences, educational institutions struggle to make their courses more relevant for the challenges that students are about to be confronted with in their professional life. With the help of two qualitative studies, this paper investigates the role of experiential learning in triggering transformative learning, i.e., the process of continuous critical reflection and perspective transformation, among students, retail managers, and frontline employees. Findings reveal that experiential learning formats may induce students’ transformative learning along five different categories centered on the students’ self and the interaction between the self and others. Our results extend research on retailing and experiential and transformative learning and derive valuable implications for retailers and educators alike.

Event-specific price promotions such as Black Friday promotions play an important role for retailers’ promotional activities. The question arises whether some discounts levels are more attractive when communicated as an event-specific promotion or as a regular price promotion. The study shows that the effect of deal level on consumers’ perceived deal attractiveness depends on the promotion framing. For low discounts, framing promotions as “Black Friday Promotion” leads to a higher deal attractiveness than regular promotion framing. When a high discount is offered, the promotions are perceived as equally attractive. The results indicate that price consciousness plays a moderating role in this relationship. Consumers with high levels of price consciousness show stronger reactions to the interaction of discount level and promotion framing. Surprisingly, highly price conscious consumers evaluate Black Friday Promotions at high discount levels as less attractive than regular promotions.