Customer Migration: An Empirical Investigation across Multiple Channels

Abstract

Recent industry studies suggest that customers routinely use multiple channels of the same retailer to make their purchases. However, most studies about the drivers of customer profitability only focus on customer behavior in a single channel. This research investigates customer channel migration and the outcome of channel migration on the drivers of customer profitability. We find that all single-channel buyers and all multi-channel buyers are not alike. In addition, we discuss how forecasts of customer migration patterns can impact channel equity, channel expansion decisions, and promotion and product strategies.