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1. Introduction
In the current market, direct and indirect sales live together, and the analysis of multi-channel competition and their consumer behaviour differences have acquired especial importance in the literature ([65] Yan and Pei, 2009; [24] Grewal and Levy, 2009). A recurrent conclusion is that brick-and-mortar retailers want to beat the convenience of home shopping and easy access to information provided by today's direct sales mechanisms; however, in order to reach this objective, these physical intermediaries necessarily have to add value to the product ([68] Zhang, 2009; [43] Mukhopadhyay et al. , 2008). Note that this additional value provided by the intermediaries in competition with direct e-tailing can give extra satisfaction to individuals, as customer satisfaction depends on functional - the product itself - and performance-delivery elements -services provided by the retailer ([15] Czepiel et al. , 1985). Consequently, retailers might help differentiate the same product sold by direct sales through the above retail services.
According to [65] Yan and Pei (2009), retail services can be defined as "all forms of demand-enhancing services (provided by the retailer), which include immediate customer support, presale advice, pre- and post-purchase services, in-store advertising and promotions, technical and shopping assistance, return service, channel assembly services and the overall quality of the shopping experiences". Note that these elements are factors that affect the individual's retailing decisions and are directly managed by the retailers ([56] Staus, n.d.). Consequently, the main thrust of brick-and-mortar retailers builds on their value-added services, not always available through direct channels ([66] Yao and Liu, 2005).
Because of this, consumers might be willing to pay for them because, apart from the uniquely enriching experiences retailers can provide ([53] Sands et al. , 2009), some of these services can reduce transportation and search costs ([35] Kopalle et al. , 2009). In this line, it is generally reported that prices in indirect channels are higher than in direct channels ([8] Brunger, 2010; [9] Brunger and Perelli, 2009); note that, when margins in the latter are low, [68] Zhang (2009) suggests that multichannel retailers can benefit from drawing consumers back to physical stores.
On this account, the study of prices in retailing is a substantive issue that has attracted major attention, from core influences such as the effect of...