IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/bla/popmgt/v31y2022i8p3217-3232.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Showrooming, webrooming, and operational strategies for competitiveness

Author

Listed:
  • Chuanya Jiao
  • Bin Hu

Abstract

Show/webrooming refers to a consumer inspecting a product at a brick‐and‐mortar (BM)/online retailer before purchasing it from a competing online/BM retailer. Despite retailers adopting price‐matching and free‐shipping policies, show/webrooming remains prevalent. We model different product value information that consumers can learn by visiting a BM retailer and researching an online retailer, and studying consumers' show/webrooming behavior in a unified model. We confirm that consumers can engage in show/webrooming for informational reasons, but webrooming may also be driven by a noninformational reason. We find that show/webrooming may, respectively, benefit BM and online retailers; in particular, there exist win‐win‐win outcomes where both retailers and the consumers benefit from show/webrooming. We propose in‐store research assistance for BM retailers and free sampling for online retailers and show that these operational strategies may improve the retailers' competitiveness in the presence of show/webrooming. Our results are found to be robust in several model extensions.

Suggested Citation

  • Chuanya Jiao & Bin Hu, 2022. "Showrooming, webrooming, and operational strategies for competitiveness," Production and Operations Management, Production and Operations Management Society, vol. 31(8), pages 3217-3232, August.
    • Handle: RePEc:bla:popmgt:v:31:y:2022:i:8:p:3217-3232
    DOI: 10.1111/poms.13747
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://doi.org/10.1111/poms.13747
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1111/poms.13747?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Paolo Letizia & Morteza Pourakbar & Terry Harrison, 2018. "The Impact of Consumer Returns on the Multichannel Sales Strategies of Manufacturers," Production and Operations Management, Production and Operations Management Society, vol. 27(2), pages 323-349, February.
    2. Rajiv Lal & Miklos Sarvary, 1999. "When and How Is the Internet Likely to Decrease Price Competition?," Marketing Science, INFORMS, vol. 18(4), pages 485-503.
    3. Kyle Cattani & Wendell Gilland & Hans Sebastian Heese & Jayashankar Swaminathan, 2006. "Boiling Frogs: Pricing Strategies for a Manufacturer Adding a Direct Channel that Competes with the Traditional Channel," Production and Operations Management, Production and Operations Management Society, vol. 15(1), pages 40-56, March.
    4. Qian Tang & Mei Lin & Youngsoo Kim, 2021. "Inter‐Retailer Channel Competition: Empirical Analyses of Store Entry Effects on Online Purchases," Production and Operations Management, Production and Operations Management Society, vol. 30(8), pages 2547-2563, August.
    5. Anantaram Balakrishnan & Shankar Sundaresan & Bo Zhang, 2014. "Browse-and-Switch: Retail-Online Competition under Value Uncertainty," Production and Operations Management, Production and Operations Management Society, vol. 23(7), pages 1129-1145, July.
    6. Fei Gao & Xuanming Su, 2017. "Omnichannel Retail Operations with Buy-Online-and-Pick-up-in-Store," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 63(8), pages 2478-2492, August.
    7. Gökçe Esenduran & James A. Hill & In Joon Noh, 2020. "Understanding the Choice of Online Resale Channel for Used Electronics," Production and Operations Management, Production and Operations Management Society, vol. 29(5), pages 1188-1211, May.
    8. Kay-Yut Chen & Murat Kaya & Özalp Özer, 2008. "Dual Sales Channel Management with Service Competition," Manufacturing & Service Operations Management, INFORMS, vol. 10(4), pages 654-675, June.
    9. Xubing Zhang, 2009. "Retailers' Multichannel and Price Advertising Strategies," Marketing Science, INFORMS, vol. 28(6), pages 1080-1094, 11-12.
    10. Bing Jing, 2018. "Showrooming and Webrooming: Information Externalities Between Online and Offline Sellers," Marketing Science, INFORMS, vol. 37(3), pages 469-483, May.
    11. Oksana Loginova, 2009. "Real And Virtual Competition," Journal of Industrial Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 57(2), pages 319-342, June.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Yanwei Chen & Xiaojun Liu & Kaiqing Huang & Huajun Tang, 2022. "Pricing and Service Effort Decisions of Book Dual-Channel Supply Chains with Showrooming Effect Based on Cost-Sharing Contracts," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 14(18), pages 1-23, September.
    2. Wang, Qiang & Ji, Xiang & Zhao, Nenggui, 2024. "Embracing the power of AI in retail platform operations: Considering the showrooming effect and consumer returns," Transportation Research Part E: Logistics and Transportation Review, Elsevier, vol. 182(C).
    3. He, Xiang & Li, Michael Z.F. & Li, Li & Li, Jing & Hu, Jiao, 2024. "Competitive pricing and advertising strategies for online retailers with “showrooming” and “webrooming”," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 316(2), pages 617-638.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Pun, Hubert & Chen, Jing & Li, Wei, 2020. "Channel strategy for manufacturers in the presence of service freeriders," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 287(2), pages 460-479.
    2. Li, Yanran & Li, Bo & Zheng, Wei & Chen, Xue, 2021. "Reveal or hide? Impact of demonstration on pricing decisions considering showrooming behavior," Omega, Elsevier, vol. 102(C).
    3. Li, Guo & Li, Lin & Sun, Jiasen, 2019. "Pricing and service effort strategy in a dual-channel supply chain with showrooming effect," Transportation Research Part E: Logistics and Transportation Review, Elsevier, vol. 126(C), pages 32-48.
    4. Joshi, Raunak & Basu, Sumanta & Jonnalagedda, Sreelata & Avittathur, Balram, 2023. "Multichannel retailer’s channel choice and product pricing: Influence of investment in fit-disclosing technology by competing retailers," International Journal of Production Economics, Elsevier, vol. 262(C).
    5. Sun, Yanhong & Wang, Zihan & Han, Xiaohua, 2020. "Supply chain channel strategies for online retailers: Whether to introduce web showrooms?," Transportation Research Part E: Logistics and Transportation Review, Elsevier, vol. 144(C).
    6. Huang, Lingchen & Liu, Bin & Zhang, Rong, 2024. "Channel strategies for competing retailers: Whether and when to introduce live stream?," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 312(2), pages 413-426.
    7. Zhang, Yingdan & Yang, Ruina & Yi, Zelong & Yao, Shiqing & Jing, Yiheng, 2023. "Behavior-Based pricing under asymmetric channel competition with strategic consumers," Omega, Elsevier, vol. 120(C).
    8. Fei Gao & Xuanming Su, 2017. "Omnichannel Retail Operations with Buy-Online-and-Pick-up-in-Store," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 63(8), pages 2478-2492, August.
    9. Yang, Guangyong & Ji, Guojun, 2022. "The impact of cross-selling on managing consumer returns in omnichannel operations," Omega, Elsevier, vol. 111(C).
    10. Du, Shaofu & Wang, Li & Hu, Li, 2019. "Omnichannel management with consumer disappointment aversion," International Journal of Production Economics, Elsevier, vol. 215(C), pages 84-101.
    11. Sun, Cuiying & Zhang, Xiong & Zhou, Yong-Wu & Cao, Bin, 2022. "Pricing, financing and channel structure for capital-constrained dual-channel supply chains with product heterogeneity," International Journal of Production Economics, Elsevier, vol. 253(C).
    12. Guangyong Yang & Guojun Ji & Kim Hua Tan, 2022. "Impact of artificial intelligence adoption on online returns policies," Annals of Operations Research, Springer, vol. 308(1), pages 703-726, January.
    13. Subrata Mitra, 2022. "Economic models of price competition between traditional and online retailing under showrooming," DECISION: Official Journal of the Indian Institute of Management Calcutta, Springer;Indian Institute of Management Calcutta, vol. 49(1), pages 29-63, March.
    14. Heski Bar-Isaac & Sandro Shelegia, 2023. "Search, Showrooming, and Retailer Variety," Marketing Science, INFORMS, vol. 42(2), pages 251-270, March.
    15. Wang, Junbin & Wang, Shanshan, 2022. "Revisiting the showrooming effect on online and offline retailers: The strategic role of in-store service," Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, Elsevier, vol. 66(C).
    16. Niu, Baozhuang & Ruan, Yiyuan & Xu, Haotao, 2024. "Less is more? Channel separation to mitigate triple competition and combat copycats in agency e-commerce," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 315(1), pages 242-270.
    17. Vaishnav, Bharat & Ray, Sourav, 2023. "A thematic exploration of the evolution of research in multichannel marketing," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 157(C).
    18. Yan, Shuai & Archibald, Thomas Welsh & Han, Xiaohua & Bian, Yiwen, 2022. "Whether to adopt “buy online and return to store” strategy in a competitive market?," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 301(3), pages 974-986.
    19. Fei Gao & Xuanming Su, 2017. "Manufacturing & Service Operations Management," Manufacturing & Service Operations Management, INFORMS, vol. 19(1), pages 84-98, February.
    20. Baozhuang Niu & Kanglin Chen & Lei Chen & Chao Ding & Xiaohang Yue, 2021. "Strategic Waiting for Disruption Forecasts in Cross‐Border E‐Commerce Operations," Production and Operations Management, Production and Operations Management Society, vol. 30(9), pages 2840-2857, September.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:bla:popmgt:v:31:y:2022:i:8:p:3217-3232. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Wiley Content Delivery (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/journal/10.1111/(ISSN)1937-5956 .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.