achieve customized recommendations, etc. (Pantano, 2014), while mobile is emerging as the new mainstream for shopping activity based on ubiquitous access to product anytime and anywhere through consumer own mobile device (Pantano and Timmermans, 2014). Moreover, the number of channels through which consumers may freely access, compare, choose and buy different items is increasing rapidly (Kim and Park, 2005; Kumar, 2010; Wagner et al., 2013; Pantano, 2014), with dramatic consequences for the traditional retail settings. Hence, retailers face new challenges to successfully compete in the emergent scenario (Neslin et al., 2006). For instance, consumers may use one channel for collecting information and a different one for effective buying managed by independent actors (Verhoef et al., 2007; Chiu et al., 2011; Hsieh et al., 2012; Blazquez, 2014). Past studies provide evidence that in the emerging multichannel scenario, consumers engage more purchases if compared to one-channel buyers (Dholakia et al., 2005; Seck and Philippe, 2013). Therefore, the complexity of the competitive market grows up, by soliciting retailers to perform simultaneously in different retail settings (i.e. the physical, online and mobile scenario). For these reasons, multichannel retailing occurs as hot research topic as it stresses retailers’ ability to integrate different channels for shopping (Jin and Kim, 2010), by identifying the channel choice as a fundamental step for competing (Neslin & Shankar, 2009; Hsieh et al., 2012). Prior works showed a huge interest by scholars and practitioners towards the multi- channel phenomenon, by largely focusing on the effect of multichannel on brand equity and loyalty (Keller, 2010; Hsieh et al., 2012), on the comparison of multichannel retailing and pure (Jin and Kim, 2010), on the linkage between attitude toward physical retailer and online one (Kim and Park, 2005), on consumer switching behaviour and subsequent costs for
achieve customized recommendations, etc. (Pantano, 2014), while mobile is emerging as the new mainstream for shopping activity based on ubiquitous access to product anytime and anywhere through consumer own mobile device (Pantano and Timmermans, 2014). Moreover, the number of channels through which consumers may freely access, compare, choose and buy different items is increasing rapidly (Kim and Park, 2005; Kumar, 2010; Wagner et al., 2013; Pantano, 2014), with dramatic consequences for the traditional retail settings. Hence, retailers face new challenges to successfully compete in the emergent scenario (Neslin et al., 2006). For instance, consumers may use one channel for collecting information and a different one for effective buying managed by independent actors (Verhoef et al., 2007; Chiu et al., 2011; Hsieh et al., 2012; Blazquez, 2014). Past studies provide evidence that in the emerging multichannel scenario, consumers engage more purchases if compared to one-channel buyers (Dholakia et al., 2005; Seck and Philippe, 2013). Therefore, the complexity of the competitive market grows up, by soliciting retailers to perform simultaneously in different retail settings (i.e. the physical, online and mobile scenario). For these reasons, multichannel retailing occurs as hot research topic as it stresses retailers’ ability to integrate different channels for shopping (Jin and Kim, 2010), by identifying the channel choice as a fundamental step for competing (Neslin & Shankar, 2009; Hsieh et al., 2012). Prior works showed a huge interest by scholars and practitioners towards the multi- channel phenomenon, by largely focusing on the effect of multichannel on brand equity and loyalty (Keller, 2010; Hsieh et al., 2012), on the comparison of multichannel retailing and pure (Jin and Kim, 2010), on the linkage between attitude toward physical retailer and online one (Kim and Park, 2005), on consumer switching behaviour and subsequent costs for