The impact of customers' purchasing patterns on their showrooming and webrooming behaviour: an empirical evidence from the Georgian retail sector

The purpose of this study is to explore the shopping behaviour of the contemporary Georgian customers. Never in the history of the Caucasus region, since the inception of the great Silk Road, have consumers benefited from such a range of global, high-tech shopping options. Today, Georgian consumers are able to shop from various vendors in a virtual marketplace with the click of the mouse, leaving Georgian consumers with an unlimited digital marketplace beyond their local shops, markets and bazaars. However, while this presents opportunities for some local retailers, it also poses problems for others. This paper studies the relationship between customers' purchasing patterns, namely: customers' basket size, frequency of their purchasing intervals, the monetary value of their purchases and their webrooming and showrooming behaviour. This study adopted a deductive approach by formulating and analysing hypothetical relationships between the above-mentioned concepts. To test the hypotheses, we designed and distributed a questionnaire with closed-ended questions, among a sample of 417 respondents that measured the impact of variables empirically. The results indicate a negative correlation between basket size, frequency of purchases and webrooming and showrooming behaviour while rejecting a strong positive correlation between monetary value and research into online shopping.