A Study On Consumers’ Channel Usage Transfer In The Multichannel Environment

With the development of Internet technology and mobile communication technology, the channels that the enterprises transfer products and services have a significant change. More and more traditional offline enterprises expand online channel and mobile Internet channel to provide products and services to consumers, and online service providers develop mobile Internet channel, the channel environment convert to multi-channel environment. Although online channel and mobile Internet channel can bring consumers more convenient, the usage effect is not ideal. In the multi-channel environment how to promote consumers use the online and mobile Internet channel that the providers provide actively and improve service quality is a key problem in current research and practice.Based on the current channels including traditional offline channel, online channel, and mobile Internet channel and from the perspective of usage transfer between different channels and the use of the mainstream mobile Internet channel in the future, this study respectively develops and empirically tests a model of usage transfer from offline channel to online channel, a model of usage transfer from offline channel to mobile channel, a model of usage transfer from online channel to mobile Internet channel, a model of mobile services usage. The research work in the study is as below.First, based on the valence framerwork, the innovation diffusion theory, and previous research on habit, the study builds an offline-to-online usage transfer model. The empirical results show that habit, innovativeness, and relative benefit have significant effects on consumers’usage transfer from offline to online channel and the moderating effects of Internet experience and online banking experience are confirmed.Second, relying on the push-pull-mooring model, the study builds an offline-to-mobile usage transfer model. The results indicate that ubiquitious connectivity, perceived risk and perceived risk significantly influence consumers’usage transfer from offline to mobile channel.Third, from the perspective of the differences between online and mobile environment, the study builds an online-to-mobile usage transfer model and analyzes the influences of perceived technology differences and perceived value difference on consumers’usage transfer from online to mobile channel. The empirical results find that perceived differences of end user devices, communication networks, convenience, personalization, and risk between online and mobile environment have significant effects on consumers’usage transfer from online to mobile channel.Finally, in the mobile environment, choosing mobile shopping services as the research object, combining with the distinctive features of mobile commerce, the study esatblishs a mobile shopping adoption model. The results demonstrates that the three significant attributes of mobile commerce, including perceived convenience, perceived personalization, and perceived contextual offer significantly affect consumers’adoption of mobile shopping services. And the research also verifies with the change of product category that consumers buy, the effects of the above mentioned factors on consumers’ mobile shopping behavior change simultaneously.