Paper Number
1804
Paper Type
short
Description
A significant acceleration of research-online and purchase offline behavior makes online channels crucial for brick-and-mortars. Realizing this trend, many retail stores have been using a novel strategy, called virtual appointments, whereby consumers can access rich information online before visiting the stores. This study investigates the multifaceted business value of virtual appointments by using a rich dataset related to the car dealers’ business across the U.S. We empirically show that virtual appointments increase dealers’ sales. However, the effect depends on the competition level. The presence of within-brand competitors decreases the benefits of virtual appointment services, while the existence of between-brand competitors increases the benefit of the service.
Recommended Citation
Mousavi, Nasim; Golara, Sina; Kumar, Subodha; and Bockstedt, Jesse, "The Business Value of Virtual Showrooms" (2022). ICIS 2022 Proceedings. 7.
https://aisel.aisnet.org/icis2022/digit_nxt_gen/digit_nxt_gen/7
The Business Value of Virtual Showrooms
A significant acceleration of research-online and purchase offline behavior makes online channels crucial for brick-and-mortars. Realizing this trend, many retail stores have been using a novel strategy, called virtual appointments, whereby consumers can access rich information online before visiting the stores. This study investigates the multifaceted business value of virtual appointments by using a rich dataset related to the car dealers’ business across the U.S. We empirically show that virtual appointments increase dealers’ sales. However, the effect depends on the competition level. The presence of within-brand competitors decreases the benefits of virtual appointment services, while the existence of between-brand competitors increases the benefit of the service.
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