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Showrooming, webrooming, and operational strategies for competitiveness

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  • Chuanya Jiao
  • Bin Hu

Abstract

Show/webrooming refers to a consumer inspecting a product at a brick‐and‐mortar (BM)/online retailer before purchasing it from a competing online/BM retailer. Despite retailers adopting price‐matching and free‐shipping policies, show/webrooming remains prevalent. We model different product value information that consumers can learn by visiting a BM retailer and researching an online retailer, and studying consumers' show/webrooming behavior in a unified model. We confirm that consumers can engage in show/webrooming for informational reasons, but webrooming may also be driven by a noninformational reason. We find that show/webrooming may, respectively, benefit BM and online retailers; in particular, there exist win‐win‐win outcomes where both retailers and the consumers benefit from show/webrooming. We propose in‐store research assistance for BM retailers and free sampling for online retailers and show that these operational strategies may improve the retailers' competitiveness in the presence of show/webrooming. Our results are found to be robust in several model extensions.

Suggested Citation

  • Chuanya Jiao & Bin Hu, 2022. "Showrooming, webrooming, and operational strategies for competitiveness," Production and Operations Management, Production and Operations Management Society, vol. 31(8), pages 3217-3232, August.
    • Handle: RePEc:bla:popmgt:v:31:y:2022:i:8:p:3217-3232
    DOI: 10.1111/poms.13747
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    Cited by:

    1. Yanwei Chen & Xiaojun Liu & Kaiqing Huang & Huajun Tang, 2022. "Pricing and Service Effort Decisions of Book Dual-Channel Supply Chains with Showrooming Effect Based on Cost-Sharing Contracts," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 14(18), pages 1-23, September.
    2. Wang, Qiang & Ji, Xiang & Zhao, Nenggui, 2024. "Embracing the power of AI in retail platform operations: Considering the showrooming effect and consumer returns," Transportation Research Part E: Logistics and Transportation Review, Elsevier, vol. 182(C).
    3. He, Xiang & Li, Michael Z.F. & Li, Li & Li, Jing & Hu, Jiao, 2024. "Competitive pricing and advertising strategies for online retailers with “showrooming” and “webrooming”," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 316(2), pages 617-638.

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