Multichannel retailing in Korea: Effects of shopping orientations and information seeking patterns on channel choice behavior

Abstract

Purpose – To examine shopping orientation, information search, and demographics of multichannel customers in comparison to traditional single channel customers. Design/methodology/approach – A questionnaire was used to assess research variables and mailed out to 10,000 individuals in South Korea who were randomly selected from a purchased national database. A total of 2,926 usable questionnaires were returned for a 29 percent response rate. Findings – Shopping orientation, information search, and demographics differentiated shopper groups: single-channel offline users, single-channel online users, multichannel offline users, and multichannel online users. Research limitations/implications – A lack of theoretical approaches, a direct self-assessment for store choice behavior, and duplicated measures for independent and dependent variables perhaps limit its usefulness. Practical implications – Provides guidance to global retailers who plan to pioneer new markets with multichannel retailing strategies. Shopping orientations, perceived usefulness of information sources, and demographics can be effectively used to identify target markets in Korea. Originality/value – This study first explored Korean consumer profiles in the context of multi-shopping channels and added valuable empirical findings to the current limited literature in multichannel retailing in the international market and to help global retailers identify consumer segments based on channel choice behavior. © 2006, Emerald Group Publishing Limited