Research On The Influence Of Multi-channel Integration On Customer Loyalty

With the popularity of the Internet,more and more consumers choose to buy through multiple channels.According to the 42 nd China Internet development report released by CNNIC,as of June 2018,the total number of online shopping users in China was 569 million,accounting for 71% of the total Internet users.Among them,the number of shopping users on the mobile network reached 557 million.With the rapid development of online and offline integration of retail industry,multi-channel integration has become an important way for the sustainable development of retail enterprises.On customer loyalty as before because of the deepening of the research,the brand image is affected by the attention of many scholars,when the enterprise to consumer also show a positive brand image,to obtain and maintain consumer loyalty and formation of their competitive advantage,therefore,the brand image is an important driving factor to keep customer loyalty.Previous researches on customer loyalty mainly focus on influencing factors,etc.This paper takes brand image as an intermediary,and studies the influence of multi-channel integration on customer loyalty,which is helpful to enrich existing theories.By means of literature review and questionnaire survey,this paper hopes to achieve the following three objectives:(1)further enrich the concepts of multi-channel integration,brand image and customer loyalty,as well as the dimensional framework of each concept;(2)enrich the test scale of multi-channel integration and brand image in the retail field;(3)verify the model of "multi-channel integration--brand image--customer loyalty".Based on multi-channel retailers as the research object,through combing the domestic and foreign about the multi-channel integration,customer loyalty,brand image and product involvement degree of relevant literature,theory of customer relationship and the theory of consumer purchase behavior theory achievements,such as structural equation model as the main research methods,build the relevant theoretical model,and proposes the corresponding management advice.At the same time,364 valid questionnaires were collected through star and We Chat by referring to relevant scales.SPSS21.0 and Amos21.0 were used to validate the model.The results show that the three dimensions of multi-channel integration have direct positive effects on retailers' brand image.The brand image of retailers has a direct positive impact on customer loyalty.Information consistency integration,process consistency integration and business relevance integration have positive effects on customer loyalty through brand image.However,product involvement will weaken the influence of business relevance integration on brand image.Therefore,multi-channel retailers can consider: targeted multi-channel integration,pay attention to multi-channel information sharing;Attach importance to the publicity and promotion of new channels and brand image through official channels.For example,set verification codes to identify the authenticity and make the brand stories of enterprises into micro films.In the case of low involvement degree of consumer products,it should focus on strengthening the integration strategy of business relevance.Attach importance to the combination with local tourism resources,develop tourism products and promote sales through online and offline channels;Attach importance to the market of young consumers and female consumers,and provide reliable quality products,so as to drive the sales of the products of the older generation of consumers in the family to multi-channel retailers,so as to maintain customer loyalty.Finally,The author explained the innovation points of this paper: the research on the influence of brand image as the intermediary and multi-channel integration on customer loyalty almost did not appear in the literature being inquired,and there is no reference model.The research of this paper is helpful to fill in the research gap.At the same time,this paper points out some deficiencies of the research object,such as the unselected multi-channel retailers,in order to provide some references for the future research direction.