Online channel adoption in supermarket retailing

摘要

Introducing a new online channel is a crucial decision for brick-and-mortar retailers that requires insight and forecasts into customers' adoption and subsequent behaviour. The aim of this study is to analyse the dynamics in the behavioural heterogeneity of (new) multichannel supermarket customers when the online channel is introduced. A Latent Class Analysis (LCA) was conducted on 1151 adopters of the new online channel of a supermarket retailer to segment customers. We employed an extended "Recency, Frequency and Monetary (RFM)" model that includes customers' purchases prior to the introduction of the new channel. Results show that adopters of a new channel are not a homogenous group of customers displaying a similar behaviour: two segments - or 35% of the sample - quit the channel after using it for some time, another segment (5%) left the company altogether, the other four segments remained multichannel to different degrees, with one shifting shopping substantially to online. Based on these results, the paper provides directions to retailers for developing Customer Relationship Management (CRM) strategies to manage the different customer segments and support channel performance evaluation and channel management decisions in a multichannel context.