تجربه خرید آنلاین در بازار خرده فروشی الکترونیکی Online shopping experience in an emerging e-retailing market

Introduction The retail sector has undergone and will continue to undergo transformation in the coming years, especially as multichannel retailing has become the dominant operating business model for most retailers (Doherty and Ellis-Chadwick, 2010). E-commerce grew at a rate that has even outpaced traditional channels of retailing. In the USA, for instance, Forrester research predicted that online retail sales will hit $370bn by 2017, up from $231bn in 2013 (Lomas, 2013). In South Africa, 51 per cent of individuals with internet access shop online; in Kenya, 18-24 per cent individuals shop online (Internet Business Statistics, 2016). In Nigeria, online shopping expenditure grew from N50 to N78bn between 2010 and 2012 (Phillips Consulting, 2014). With digital tools rapidly redefining the way value is created and delivered (Evans and Cothrel, 2014), the best way to exploit the burgeoning opportunities which online retailing offers is to enhance customer experience (Hoffman and Novak, 1996). Thus, retailers that want to keep their current customers and attract future ones are therefore challenged to explore the potentials of the virtual storefront (Tiago et al., 2015). Unfortunately, 45 per cent of leading-edge companies “find tying customer experience investments to business outcomes very difficult” (Harvard Business Review, 2014). Whereas facts show that negative shopping experiences result in negative outcomes (Afshar, 2015), previous shopping research focused mainly on studying patronage behavior and developing shopper typologies (Compeau et al., 2016). Little research simultaneously investigated how online shoppers behave individually and in group environments. Although customer experience and its behavioral outcomes have been studied through interview methods (Trevinal and Stenger, 2014), emerging consensus technique (Klaus, 2013), survey-based approaches (Gentile et al., 2007; Ahmad, 2002) and experimental methods (Cyr et al., 2007), these approaches in one way or the other suffer from respondents’ inhibition. Accordingly, they may not reflect the true state of customer experience and behavior in group situations. But the consumption experience theory emphasizes the utility of group behavior (Verhoef et al., 2009). Although research abounds in this area, economic and socio-cultural realities differ across countries (Flambard-Ruaud, 2005 cited in Izogo et al., 2016). Thus, it is difficult if not impossible to rigorously apply evidences from developed markets in emerging markets. The adaptation of existing models of customer experience to meet the needs of emerging markets is therefore becoming urgent and can largely serve to advance services science literature in general and experiential consumption literature in particular. We selected the African continent because within the past five years, the growth of internet penetration and online shopping has been geometric leading to retail format blurring. Thus, firms operating within the continent need to be guided on how to strategically respond to this shift.