An Empirical Study On The Factors Affecting Consumers' Multichannel Selection Under Internet Economy

With the fast development of information science technology,the market goes into an era of Internet economy from traditional economy.Under the Internet economy,the consumers' performance is changing with the times and they have diversified channels to select.The consumers become multi-channel buyers from single-channel(brick and mortar stores)buyers because of the rapid development of electronic commerce(E-commerce)and mobile commerce(M-commerce).The objective of this study is to analyze the characteristics of consumers' multi-channel choice behavior and find the factors affecting consumers' multichannel selection.Based on the media richness theory,channel expansion theory and media richness-task fit,a conceptual framework is constructed.Through quantitative study,the phenomenon and influencing factors of consumers' multichannel selection are studied in order to recognize and predict consumers' behavior and offer suggestions for companies' multichannel strategy.Questionnaire survey is the most important method of this study.A questionnaire is designed according to the former study and a pilot study of this questionnaire is carried out to test the reliability and validity.A formal questionnaire takes shape after amending and improving according to the pilot study.Then,target-consumers' data is got from a large-scale questionnaire survey.Reliability and validity analysis,explorative and confirmatory factor analysis,regression analysis and structural equation modeling(SEM)are conducted to test the research model and hypotheses by using SPSS,EVIEWS and AMOS.The research results provide empirical support for media richness theory,channel expansion theory and media richness-task fit in the area of consumers' multi-channel selection and show that the factors influencing consumers' channel choice include media richness,consumers' experience,consumers' trust and media richness-task fit.Moreover,the results show that the consumers' channel experience has a positive effect on the channel media richness and media richness and perceived risk have a positive effect on the consumer's trust in different channels.The innovation points of the research are: the proposed consumers' multichannel choice model introduces a new dimension — media richness and media richness-taskfit and is tested empirically;from the perspective of multi-channel selection(brick and mortar channel,E-commerce and M-commerce),the intention of consumers' channel choice is studied;the study provides empirical support for media richness theory in the area of consumers' multi-channel selection.The main contents of the research include four parts:Part one includes Chapter 1 and Chapter 2.Chapter 1 is the introduction part,which introduce the research background,research value,purpose,and research content.Chapter 2 is literature review.Some previous studies on consumers' performance and multi-channel choice are reviewed.Part two includes Chapter 3.This part introduces basic theories of consumers' multi-channel choice.Based on these theories,some hypotheses are proposed and a theoretical model is constructed.Some theories such as media richness theory,channel expansion theory,planned behavior theory and media richness-task fit are given a detailed introduction in this part.Part three is the core part,including Chapter 4,5 and 6.Chapter 4 introduces the research methodology and method.A questionnaire is designed and measurement scale is developed,then a pilot study is carried out to test the model.A large-scale online survey is carried out and data is collected and analyzed by applying SPSS EVIEWS and AMOS in chapter 5.Chapter 6 makes a conclusion and states the main contribution,limitations and avenues for future research.Part four is the last part.Managerial implications are discussed in Chapter 7.The implications are: firms should take advantage of their bricks and mortar stores and interact with consumers through modern technology;combine on-line and off-line stores and adopt O2 O business model;change management concept and realize multi-channel combination and integration strategy;develop new business model such as Internet franchising and M-commerce franchising;transform chain stores into service sites offering after sale service;satisfy the consumers by the comparative advantages and coordination of diversified channels.