Why Do Consumers Use Technologies for Shopping in Omnichannel Environments? Examining a Special Relationship Between Consumers and Devices

The proliferation of smartphones, tablet computers and mobile internet influences the evolution of consumer behaviour. Trade and industry cater incrementally to consumers who use more and more technologies within their demand journey. Some suppliers distribute their goods and services and communicate in omnichannel systems. Technologies such as Quick Response Code, Near Field Communication, Augmented Reality or beacons provide new opportunities for the embodiment of various phases of the demand process. The internet complements and enables a functional networking of different marketing channels. Technological trend monitoring is now an important management task, as well as the design of omnichannel systems that allow buyers a problem-free shopping across multiple marketing channels. The consumers’ acceptance and their willingness to use certain technologies are the focus of numerous studies. But how can different forms of acceptance and willingness to use be explained? How is it that consumers attribute certain technologies like smartphones such an important role in everyday life? The purpose of this paper is to broaden the comprehension of the behaviour of consumers dealing with technologies in an omnichannel environment. This paper develops a framework which focusses on the relationship between consumers and devices in the context of omnichannel systems. Several theoretical approaches such as the actor-network-theory, the extended self and cyborgs are used to derive hypothetical constructs providing implications for downstream empirical studies. The framework implies inter alia that some consumers include technologies in their selves and extend their real selves with a digital self to the point of creating a symbiosis with technologies. Some consumers respond to active impulses from technologies and thereby sometimes change their behaviour. Finally, the framework implies that the higher the importance consumers attach to technologies is, the higher their willingness to use technologies within omnichannel systems is.