Exploring the Role of Omni-Channel Marketing in the Retail Environment from a Shopper Perspective

Purpose – Omni-channel marketing in the retail environment involves the integration of multi-channel marketing activities to provide a unified and holistic shopping experience to customers. The purpose of this paper is to understand the impact of omni-channel marketing in the retail environment with respect to various types of shoppers. Understanding how an omni-channel retailing model interacts with customers’ preferences in the context of physical retail space becomes crucial to examine how it may affect retailers’ marketing and business operation models. Design/methodology/approach – This research applies hierarchical and k-means cluster analysis to survey data collected from 36 shopping malls in Hong Kong. Principal components analysis (PCA) was used to evaluate the validity of the 36 mall attractiveness attributes, i.e., omni-channels for shopping malls. The k-means cluster analysis was then conducted to group respondents with similar perceived mall attractiveness.Findings – The study identifies that while shoppers have a slightly positive attitude towards innovative retail technologies, the traditional factors for successful mall operation such as location, tenant mix, facilities and management services still play a dominant role. Our findings imply that the impact of omni-channel retailing is contingent on shoppers’ characteristics after other conventional physical attractiveness of retail spaces are taken into consideration.Originality/value – In this research, omni-channel is conceptualised as a multidimensional construct of shopping malls’ attractiveness and how different customers’ types perceive these attributes. The finding indicates that retailers have to consider the customer-centric approach in devising omni-channel marketing strategies in the retail environment