Consumer decision‐making in omnichannel retailing: Literature review and future research agenda

Abstract

The emergence of omnichannel retailing has revolutionized the way traditional e‐commerce business operates, subsequently bringing fundamental changes to consumer expectations and decision‐making processes. Despite the unquestionable relevance of this area of inquiry, the focal literature concerning omnichannel retailing remains sporadic and fragmented. With this in mind, the purpose of the current paper is to provide a comprehensive and concise state of the art literature review on omnichannel retailing. More specifically, we engage and draw upon the cognitive‐affective‐conative model to understand consumer behaviour within the omnichannel retailing context. The current study is built based on a review of total 131 research papers that were identified following a comprehensive search of the Web of Science database, capturing the time period between January 2011 and April 2020. This set of work was reviewed thoroughly to explore the aims, methodology and key contributions. In addition to engaging a systematic assessment and rigorous evaluation of the studies, we also extend literature by studying the relationship between omnichannel retailing and consumer decision making, with specific attention to consumer motivation, attitude and behaviour towards omnichannel retailing. Previous studies suggest consumer behaviour in omnichannel retailing to be a promising yet underexplored area with several potential avenues for future research. Among these, particularly lucrative directions include theory‐driven research, comparative cross‐cultural studies and qualitative approaches that capture rich first‐hand accounts of consumer decision‐making encounters. The current paper is timely and advantageous because it offers a holistic picture of omnichannel retailing research and provides literature‐driven evidence about a range of relevant consumer behavioural dimensions. It also integrates consumer responses using the cognitive‐affective‐conative model to advance our understanding of consumer decision‐making in the omnichannel customer journey. Recommendations for future research are provided using the Theory, Methodology and Context (TMC) framework. We conclude the paper by discussing implications for academics and practitioners.