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1. Introduction
Mobile device development, the Internet and the ever-growing technological innovations are factors which have contributed to revolutionise consumer behaviour in retail (Pantano, 2014), with the proliferation of touchpoints with companies (Simone and Sabbadin, 2017; Barann et al., 2020). In order to tackle these changes and remain competitive, companies have incorporated the online channel and have adjusted their strategies to a multi-channel model (Verhoef et al., 2015), whose main goal is to manage and boost every channel's performance (Ailawadi and Farris, 2017). Nevertheless, multi-channel did not integrate the various channels and client management (Neslin et al., 2014). Since society became more experienced with technology (Immonen and Sintonen, 2015), consumers are no longer satisfied with companies which operate in isolated business channels and expect their purchase/buying experience to be completely integrated with all channels (Piotrowicz and Cuthbertson, 2014). The expectation of consumers has increased the pressure on retail companies to integrate channels (Cook, 2014; Gallino and Moreno, 2014; Herhausen et al., 2015), moving from a multi-channel model towards an omnichannel model (Beck and Rygl, 2015). The omnichannel provides a whole purchase experience (Quach et al., 2020), whether the client enters a physical store, navigates through the website or looks for something on the smartphone (Rigby, 2011).
Omnichannel is a dynamic phenomenon, which calls for a continuous research study (Bernon et al., 2016). Its implementation faces several transformation challenges (Bell et al., 2014; de Borba et al., 2021; Hoogveld and Koster, 2016), which require a progressive and evolutionary approach through different stages (Cao, 2019), involving not only technology implementation but also a business transformation that affects customer approach and the business model (Westerman et al., 2014). Research has shown the advantages (Quach et al., 2020) and the identified barriers and challenges of omnichannel implementation (Bell et al., 2014; de Borba et al., 2021; Hoogveld and Koster, 2016). While recent literature created a framework to design the store of the future, under the assumptions of omnichannel (Alexander and Cano, 2020), there is still a dearth of research about how the transformation process occurs. The only knowledge is the case of fashion brands (Silva et al., 2020), but remains restricted to the stage of implementation,...