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An increasing number of consumers use the Internet and a smartphone when searching for information about products, and often also when visiting brick-and-mortar stores. Showrooming behaviour, or showrooming for short, refers to getting familiar with products in a physical retail shop and searching for additional information from the Internet or by means of a smartphone. For example, a showroomer can use a smartphone to look for lower prices while testing a product in a brick-and-mortar store.

Channel integration as an asset in competition

Traditional shops have reacted to increased showrooming by improving their channel integration, that is, the interplay between a brick-and-mortar store and an online shop. This can be done, for instance, by standardising the visual appearance, product information, prices, and customer service between the channels. If their channel integration is successful, chain stores can prevent their customers from changing over to the online shops of their competitors despite increased showrooming.

The survey used a largely representative sample of Finnish adult population (N = 1028). It indicated that consumers’ skills to shop fluently between the two retail channels increases the tendency for showrooming. In contrast to other respondents, showroomers considered the channel integration of retailers more positively.

“This means that the skill to shop between different channels and showrooming help customers enjoy the channel integration provided by chain stores,” states the principal author of the research article, Doctoral Researcher Matilda Holkkola.

Often a happy showroomer is also a happy customer

Customers who found shopping between the online shop and brick-and-mortar store of the same chain smooth and fluent were willing to revisit the chain retailer. Although there is evidence that multi-channel advertising also via smartphones can get customers hooked, the showroomers perceived, on the other hand, that they could better compare the prices and selections of different suppliers by means of a smartphone.

“The chain stores whose customers include showroomers, such as younger generations, should therefore invest in seamless channel integration,” Holkkola advises.

Award-winning and funded study

The study received the Best Paper Runner-Up Award at the 15th Mediterranean Conference on Information Systems (MCIS) in Madrid.

“The award is a great merit to me and my co-authors, and it further encourages me with my doctoral dissertation work,” Holkkola rejoices.

The study is part of the DAWN_CI project funded by Business Finland and also part of the DigiConsumers research project, which has received funding from the Strategic Research Council and the additional COVID-19 funding of the Academy of Finland.

Research publication: Holkkola, M., Nyrhinen, J., Makkonen, M., Frank, L., Karjaluoto, H., & Wilska, T.-A. (2023). Showrooming behavior, omnichannel self-efficacy, and perceived channel integration as antecedents of revisit intention. The 15th Mediterranean Conference on Information Systems, 2023.