Contents
Title
“Online Touchpoints Matter!” – An Empirical Analysis of Consumer-Brand Relationships in Retail Settings
Author
Janina SÜRKEN, Sören SUNDERMANN
Classification JEL
M3, M31, M37.
Abstract
Brand touchpoints represent any communicative touchpoints between consumers and brands along the customer journey and are thus essential for the success of retail brands (Ieva & Ziliani, 2018). However, the current pandemic crisis is characterized by some severe restrictions on brick-and-mortar retail. It can be assumed that this has led to a shortage of in-store brand touchpoints and consequently to a weakening of the consumer-brand relationship which needs to be compensated (Baxendale et al., 2015). In the sense of omnichannel retailing, combining offline and online touchpoints is being advocated – even before and independently of Covid 19 – to strengthen the brand relationship of customers (von Briel, 2018; Verhoef et al., 2015). It remains unclear to what extent this integrated use of online and offline touchpoints can help to compensate for corona-related limitations by strengthening the consumer-brand relationship. This study investigates the impact of corona-related scarcity of in-store brand touchpoints on four different dimensions of consumer-brand relationship (trust, satisfaction, attachment, loyalty). On the example of a shopping mall, we tested consumer responses to two different customer journeys (solely in-store vs. in-store & online), which represented higher or weaker perceived strength of brand touchpoints. Findings of a PLS-SEM study (n=281) indicate that consumers‘ perceived strength of brand touchpoints has an overall positive effect on the single dimensions of consumer-brand relationships. It became evident that the joint use of online and offline touchpoints has a stronger effect on attachment than focusing exclusively on analog touchpoints. In our discussion, we highlight the importance of retail brands‘ capability to build up both, online and offline touchpoints to maintain and secure relationships with customers in times of crisis. The study contributes to a better understanding of brand-consumer relationships and the importance of a mix of offline and online brand touchpoints in the retail sector.
Keywords
Touchpoints, Omnichannel Retailing, Consumer-Brand Relationships, Customer Journey, Brand Experience.
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