The Impact of Omnichannel Shopping Experience and Channel Integration on Customer Retention: Empirical Evidence from China

Creating a new retailing environment to meet the seamless experience requirements of consumers is a challenge for Omnichannel-related businesses. Based on the “appraisal-emotion-response” chain, the purpose of this research is to explore the psychological mechanism of omnichannel integration influencing customer retention and the moderating effect of customer showrooming experience. This research uses a structural equation model in partial least square software to analyze a two-stage survey (Study 1: n = 210; Study 2: n = 342) conducted in China. The results show that channel control experience has three dimensions: perceived channel attribute familiarity, channel type matching, and cross-channel access convenience; consistent interactive experience has two dimensions: information crosschannel consistency and cross-channel service support. Furthermore, both channel control experience and consistent interactive experience are favorable for customer retention through increased customer satisfaction (transactional and retailer satisfaction). Finally, customer showrooming experience positively moderates the relationship between consistent interactive experience and customer satisfaction. This research proposes a self-regulation process model to explain how omnichannel integration enhances consumers’ experience, finally leading to consumer retention. The findings contribute to the omnichannel retail business literature and provide management implications for Asian retailers to implement an omnichannel business strategy.