This research is a quantitative research with an exploratory character. A special research instrument is developed for this research. The research instrument is one of the most important components because it is used to collect data from consumers. Data is collected through a questionnaire, because a questionnaire offers an objective means of collecting information about people’s knowledge, beliefs, attitudes and behaviour (Sapsford, 1999). It is very important to take care of a clear questionnaire with good content. Because when the questionnaire is not designed well, it leads to poor quality data and wrong conclusions. Therefore a well designed and well managed questionnaire is of major importance. The major challenge for this research was to operationalize omni channel shopping behaviour during the customer journey in measurable variables for designing a questionnaire.
4.1.1 WHICH DATA DO WE NEED?
Data needs to be collected in order to answer the following research question: What consumer segments can be found in the Netherlands taking into account consumers’ omni channel shopping behaviour during their customer journey? The questionnaire must therefore collect data about consumers’ omni channel shopping behaviour during their customer journey. For this research survey data has to be collected about omni channel behaviour in the different phases of the customer journey. The customer journey and omni channel shopping have been extensively discussed in chapter 2. Briefly, the customer journey is the decision process of consumers while buying products. Within this research the customer journey is regarded within five phases;
stimulation
search for information purchase
delivery
after sales service
As found within the literature, shopping behaviour of consumers depends on the product category. Therefore, three product categories are selected for this research;
fashion personal care grocery
These product categories were selected because they are common categories in shopping centers. Other categories which were considered are electronics, glasses and hearing aids. Electronics is not selected because of the strong decline in the number of electronic shops in shopping centers. Glasses and hearing aids is a very interesting category, but this category is not selected because this product is mostly used by consumers above 40 years old. Because of the explorative character of this research it seems more desirable to use more common product categories. In order to make the product categories clear to consumers a description needed to be given. The description needed to give enough information to the consumers so they were able to answer the questions, but it was also important that the description did not influence the answers. With this in mind the categories are described as follows.
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Fashion within this research is described as clothes, shoes and accessories. Personal care products are products such as cosmetics (hair care, skin care, oral care, perfume, make-up) self-care medicines and other drugstore products. For grocery was no description needed, because a description could not contribute to a clarification of this category. For this research is assumed that the category grocery speaks for itself.
For analysing omni channel shopping behaviour during the customer journey the research instrument is divided in the following three sections:
- online and offline shopping behaviour - the customer journey
- omni channel shopping behaviour
4.1.2 ONLINE AND OFFLINE SHOPPING BEHAVIOUR
There are three phases in the customer journey that give at this moment a good representation of the omni channel shopping behaviour, those three phases are stimulation, searching and buying. Stimulation and searching were merged into orientation, because we were willing to make a distinction between pre-purchase and purchase behaviour. For these two phases, orientation and buying, a distinction is made between online and offline shopping behaviour. Respondents can indicate how often they orientate and buy online as well as offline for fashion, personal care and grocery. A 7 point scale (every day, a few times a week, weekly, a few times a month, monthly, a few times a year, (almost) never) is used for respondents to indicate their online and offline orientation and buying behaviour. This information gives a good representation about how often consumers orientate and buy online as well as offline for fashion, personal care products and groceries.
4.1.3 MEASURING THE CUSTOMER JOURNEY
Especially for this study a questionnaire is designed to obtain data about the customer journey. The questions had to be compact and clever formulated to collect data from about consumers channel usage (which channel they use and how often they use it) within every phase of the customer journey.
Phase 1 and 2: Stimulation and search for information
For this research interesting channels are selected regarding omni channel shopping behaviour. Online as well as offline channels considered for measuring stimulation and search for information. Selected online channels are webshops/websites, applications on mobile devices and social media. Webshops and websites are already common used channels search for product information. Applications on mobile devices and social media are probably less often used. However, these channels were investigated because the usage of these channels for shopping is expected to increase in popularity in the future. Offline channels in this research are brick and mortar shops, advertisement leaflets/catalogues and magazines. Family and friends is added to the questionnaire because of the strength of word of mouth advertisement especially in shopping centers.
Phase 3: Buy
For the third phase of the customer journey ‘buy’, the following channels were selected: the shop, website/webshop, catalogue, applications on mobile devices and social media. Most often used channels for buying products are the shop, catalogue and website/webshop. Another channel could be the telephone or television (tell sell), but these channels are not often used for the selected product categories. The usage of applications and social media is increasing; therefore these channels are very interesting for this research.
Phase 4: Delivery
The fourth phase of the customer journey is delivery. Consumers can indicate whether they take their bought product direct home, collect them from a pick-up point, pick-up the products later in the shop, or let the bought products be delivered at home or elsewhere. The option ‘take the product direct home’ will most often occur when products are purchased in the shop. When products are purchased through other channel than the shop (website/webshop, catalogue, applications or social media) then the other delivery options (pick-up point, in shop, delivered) are more obvious. Especially the option pick-up point is an interesting option, because the use of pick-up points is expected to increase. The number of pick-up points is increasing. Among others, supermarket Albert Heijn is expanding its pick-up points. Consumers can order groceries online (through an
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application or website), Albert Heijn takes care of the groceries and consumers can collect their bought groceries anytime they want at a pick-up point.
Phase 5: Service
The last phase of the customer journey is service. For this question online and offline channels for service are considered. Consumers can indicate whether they go back to the shop, contact the shop through the website/webshop, send a message through social media of the shop, call the shop, send an e-mail to the shop or contact the shop through an application on a mobile device. Sending a message through social media is very interesting for this research, because the interaction between retailers and customers is increasing through social media. Consumers can like or criticize retailers on social media, this gives the retailers the ability to respond direct and become on top of mind of the consumer. In addition, retailers can measure customer satisfaction on posts on social media. The customer journey is measured through five questions for each product category separately. The questions related to the customer journey for the purchase of fashion can be found below. Through a five point scale ((almost) never – (almost) always) respondents could indicate the frequency of channel usage during the five phases of the customers journey. The option ‘I do not know’ is also presented in this questionnaire. This option allows respondents to state that they do not have an opinion or that they did not think about it.
1. Do the following channels ever stimulate you to buy fashion? Magazines
Advertisement leaflets/catalogues The shop
Family or friends Website/webshop
Social media (Twitter, Facebook, Hyves, etc.) Applications on mobile devices
2. To what extent are you using the below channels to search for information on fashion? (comparing prices, new products, etc.)
Magazines
Advertisement leaflets/catalogues The shop
Family or friends Website/webshop
Social media (Twitter, Facebook, Hyves, etc.) Applications on mobile devices
3. How often do you buy fashion via the following channels? The shop
Website/webshop Catalogue
Applications on mobile devices
Social media (Twitter, Facebook, Hyves, etc.)
4. Please indicate how often you let fashion be delivered in the following way. Take home directly
Pick-up at a pick-up point Pick-up later in the shop Deliver to the door
5. If you need service for your bought fashion, how often do you contact the shop through the following channel?
I go back to the shop
I contact the shop through the website/webshop I send a message through social media of the shop I call the shop
I send an e-mail to the shop
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4.1.4 OMNI CHANNEL SHOPPING
From the questions about the customer journey information about consumers’ channel usage during the customer journey can be obtained. However, for this research omni channel shopping behaviour is requested. To be able to gain extra information about omni channel shopping behaviour the following question is implemented into the questionnaire “How often do you use the below channels while you are shopping in a brick and mortar shop?”. Consumers can indicate on a five point scale, how often ((almost) never – (almost) always)) they use channels (advertisement leaflets or catalogues, magazines, social media, websites/webshops and applications on mobile devices) while shopping in a brick and mortar shop. Online and offline channels are considered because consumers who use two offline channels at the same time can also be omni channel. Most interesting are the channels social media, website/webshop and applications. The usage of online channels in brick and mortar shops will probably increase in the future because of the habituation to the use of smartphones and tablets.
4.1.5 PERSONAL CHARACTERISTICS
Psychographics
A study by Konuş et al. (2008) (see section 3.4) has shown that psychographics are related to benefits consumers seek in their channel selections. Therefore, the influence of psychographics on the omni channel consumer behaviour is considered. Konuş et al. (2008) researched six psychographics; price consciousness, shopping enjoyment, innovativeness, motivation to conform, loyalty and time pressure.
Price consciousness is an important variable for this research because price conscious people probably use
more channels to compare prices, because they want to pay the lowest price. A big advantage of omni channel shopping for consumers is finding a good deal by searching through channels. Retailers attract consumers with price-offers on their channels. Price conscious consumers will probably use many channels during their shopping process. They probably get activated by price offers and search for the lowest price on different channels, then they try the product in a physical shop, but when this shop does not offer the lowest price they will probably buy the product online.
Shopping enjoyment is about entertainment and benefits which are obtained by shopping. Research which was
conducted by Nicholson, Clarke, and Blakemore (2002) has turned out that channel selection and social shopping are related to each other. Therefore, it seems that channel selection and shopping enjoyment are related (Konuş et al., 2008).
Innovativeness is the degree to which customers like to find out new or different products and experiences
(Konuş et al., 2008). It is possible that individuals with a high degree of innovativeness show different channel behaviour than individuals with a low degree of innovativeness. Innovativeness individuals are expected to search more extensive and at different channels during their customer journey.
Motivation to conform is an elementary component of self-expression which is a hedonic benefit of shoppers.
Motivation to conform is the degree to which consumers need help or an opinion from someone else about a product during shopping decisions (Ailawadi, Neslin & Gedenk, 2001; Chandon, Wansink & Laurent, 2000; Konuş et al. 2008). In addition, multi-channel behaviour can be influenced by social norms (Keen et al. 2004) and channel selection behaviour may depend on the usage of channels by reference groups (Verhoef et al. 2007). Therefore, motivation to conform is a personal characteristic which probably influences omni channel behaviour.
Brand/retailer loyalty among consumers is very common. It costs lots of time to continuously switch between
brands and retailers (Konuş et al., 2008). The expectation is that the more loyal customers are, the fewer channels they use during their customer journey.
Time pressure is according to Kleijnen, De Ruyter & Wetzels (2007) when a person considers time as scarce
(Konuş et al., 2008). Persons who experience time pressure plan their time well. Shopping online can offer time saving benefits for those persons. But shopping online is just one channel, the relation between omni channel shopping and time pressure is unclear yet.
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Table 4 shows the benefits and costs of channel choice and their relation with the selected psychographics. The expected effects of those psychographics on multi channel shopping behaviour are also mentioned in this table. Every psychographic variable may be related to the omni channel shopping behaviour in the different phases of the shopping process.
TABLE 4 BENEFITS AND COSTS OF CHANNEL CHOICE (KONUŞ ET AL. 2008)
Benefits / costs Economic/hedonic Psychographics Expected effect
Savings Economic Price consciousness +
Entertainment Hedonic Shopping enjoyment +
Exploration Hedonic Innovativeness +
Self-expression Hedonic Motivation to conform +/-
Switching Economic Loyalty -
Search Economic/hedonic Time pressure +/-
Konuş et al. (2008) used a questionnaire to discover information about the psychographics of consumers. Consumers had to response on these questions through a 5-point Likert-type scale with a range from completely disagree to completely agree. In total 18 questions are implemented from the research of Konuş et al. (2008) to indicate the consumers’ psychographics. These questions are shown in annex 1.
Demographics
Research is conducted about the impact of demographics in multichannel environments (Konuş et al., 2008). Because of expected relations between shopping behaviour and demographics and in order to characterize consumer segments, demographics are added to this research. The following demographical characteristics of consumers are added to the questionnaire; age, gender, education, marital status, country of birth, average spending on grocery, work, work of partner, income. The selection of the demographic characteristics is based on the selection of Konuş et al. (2008); some extra variables are added to make the results of this research comparable with other research. Figure 8 shows the structure of the questionnaire. The entire questionnaire is shown in annex 2.
FIGURE 8, STRUCTURE OF THE QUESTIONNAIRE
4. Socio-demographic & geographic information of the respondent
Age Gender Income Education Status Work
3. Which psychografic characteristics has the respondent? Price
consciousness
Shopping
enjoyment Innovativeness
Motivation to
conform Loyalty Time pressure 2. What is the respondents online and offline buying behaviour?
three product categories search and buy
1. Which channel does the respondent uses during the customer journey and how often? three productcategories
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