Purpose

Relatively little research explicitly considers how a firm’s channel decisions affect consumer tradeoffs between the cognitive costs of online search and the physical costs of visiting a retail store. This study aims to argue that opening a new retail store affects both cognitive and physical search costs, but that the magnitude of these effects depends on the location of the consumer relative to the new store. In addition, individual differences in consumers’ cognitive costs that should moderate these effects.

Design/methodology/approach

This study takes the opening of multiple retailer stores on the same day as the nature experiment. Combining with data from other sources, this study tests the hypotheses using conditional logit for the correction of incidental problem in the traditional fix-effect logit model. Endogeneity issue is tested with the control function approach.

Findings

This study finds that opening a new store leads to a 136% increase in the odds of online visiting by consumers who live in the broader metropolitan area of the new store, while it leads to a 43% decrease in the odds of online visiting by consumers who live in the nearby shopping region. However, the effect of store entry on increasing website search is weaker for consumers who are more loyal, and the effect of store entry on decreasing website search is weaker for consumers who are more efficient in searching online.

Originality/value

This study adds to prior research by identifying when, and for which consumers, opening a physical store has complimentary versus substitutive effects on online search behavior.

中文翻译：

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零售店进入和在线消费者搜索：认知与物理搜索成本的作用

目的

相对较少的研究明确考虑公司的渠道决策如何影响消费者在线搜索的认知成本和访问零售店的物理成本之间的权衡。本研究旨在论证开设新零售店会影响认知和物理搜索成本，但这些影响的大小取决于消费者相对于新店的位置。此外，消费者认知成本的个体差异应该会缓和这些影响。

设计/方法/方法

本研究以在同一天开设多家零售店作为自然实验。结合其他来源的数据，本研究使用条件 logit 对传统固定效应 logit 模型中的偶发问题进行校正来检验假设。内生性问题用控制函数法进行检验。

发现

本研究发现，开设新店可使居住在新店大都市地区的消费者在线访问的几率增加 136%，而导致消费者在线访问的几率降低 43%住在附近购物区的人。然而，对于忠诚度较高的消费者，进店对增加网站搜索的影响较弱，而对于在线搜索效率较高的消费者，进店对减少网站搜索的影响较弱。

原创性/价值

这项研究通过确定何时以及为哪些消费者开设实体店对在线搜索行为具有互补与替代效应，从而增加了先前的研究。