Is a seamless and synchronized customer experience, using all of the retailer’s shopping channels.

As customers demand a tailored shopping experience and seek new, convenient means to guide their purchasing decisions, many retailers have launched omnichannel retailing strategies to remain competitive (Lee et al., 2019). However, omnichannel retailers face the complex challenge of providing a unified and uninterrupted customer experience in which transaction and order fulfillment processes are fully integrated across all channels (Hübner et al., 2016). In the BRP Consumer Study (2019), 87% of customers expressed the desire to have a personalized and consistent consumer experience across all shopping channels, but only 28% of retailers offer the ability to “start the sale anywhere [and] finish the sale anywhere.” Furthermore, although 83% of customers expect flexible shipping and fulfillment options when they make a purchase (Salesforce, 2020), only 32% of retailers offer cross-channel order fulfillment, such as the option to purchase items online and pick them up in-store (Deloitte, 2020).

To meet customer demands of consistency, convenience, and flexibility, omnichannel retailing strategies should focus on logistics processes integrated across all channels (Davis-Sramek et al., 2020; Song et al., 2019). As a consequence, the quality of logistics service and channel integration plays key enablers in delivering an excellent customer experience. In the omnichannel retailing literature, the impacts of channel integration quality on customer experience and behavioral intention have been studied (W. Gao et al., 2021; Le and Nguyen-Le, 2021; S. Mishra et al., 2022), as have the benefits of logistics service quality on the enhancement of customer satisfaction (Cotarelo et al., 2021; Murfield et al., 2017; Sorkun et al., 2020). However, there remains an absence of empirical studies examining the association between logistics service quality and channel integration quality, especially how their harmonious role affects customers' satisfaction and behavioral intention.

The quality of logistics service and channel integration is taken into account by customers in their experience during the omnichannel shopping journey (Saghiri et al., 2017). Consequently, customer perceptions of logistics service quality and channel integration quality differ in their shaping of customer experiences over time, leading to varying levels of customer satisfaction. For example, customers may have a dissatisfying experience because their orders do not arrive on time (relating to transaction-specific satisfaction) but may remain satisfied with the omnichannel retailer overall (relating to cumulative satisfaction) because of multiple prior satisfactory encounters (Jones and Suh, 2000). Although studies on multichannel context (Yang et al., 2017; Zhao et al., 2012) have argued that transaction-specific satisfaction and cumulative satisfaction exert distinct impacts on customer behavior. Investigating both types of customer satisfaction in driving customers’ behavioral intention has been untouched in omnichannel retailing studies.

Omnichannel retailing focuses not only on the platform on which the product is purchased but also on the integrated activities across channels through which a customer can move seamlessly between channels in a single transaction (Verhoef et al., 2015). Salesforce (2019) reported that 67% of customers use multiple channels to complete a single transaction. Accordingly, omnichannel retailers can actualize a frictionless shopping flow across channels by offering hybrid experiences within a single transaction. From the customers’ standpoint, hybrid experiences can be acquired when customers decide to make a purchase online and then pick up the order at a physical store (buy online, pick up in-store [BOPS]) or purchasing the product in-store and then having the product directly delivered to their destination (buy in-store, ship direct [BSSD]; Bell et al., 2014). Such approaches were studied by Murfield et al. (2017) and Cotarelo et al. (2021). However, their focus solely evaluated whether the dimensions of logistics service quality differ in impacting customer satisfaction across hybrid scenarios and did not guide the role of channel integration quality.

A holistic understanding of customers’ perceptions in the omnichannel setting is essential, especially to assure the success of omnichannel retailing strategies in integrating services across channels (R. Mishra et al., 2021; Murfield et al., 2017). Thus, the present study measures consumer perceptions towards the association of logistics service quality with channel integration quality and subsequently investigates their effects on satisfaction and behavioral intention in omnichannel retailing. Specifically, this study aims to address the two principal research questions as follows. First, how does the mechanism by which perceived channel integration quality and perceived logistics service quality affect customer satisfaction (transaction-specific versus cumulative) and further influence repurchase intention? Second, do the respective contributions of perceived channel integration quality and perceived logistics service quality in enhancing transaction-specific satisfaction differ through the distinct hybrid experiences?

The remainder of this paper is structured following. In Section 2, a review of the relevant literature is presented, the theoretical foundation is outlined, and the model is introduced. Section 3 presents the hypothesis development. The methodology is described in Section 4, and the results are reported in Section 5. In Section 6, the theoretical and managerial implications of the study and the limitations are discussed, and directions for future research are proposed.

Omnichannel retailing

Omnichannel retailing overcomes various obstacles in the shopping experience. The shift from multichannel to omnichannel retailing reflects the complex, formidable challenge of satisfying customers' demands (Shen et al., 2018; Shi et al., 2020). Unlike multichannel retailing, in which individual channels work separately, omnichannel retailing blurs the boundaries between channels; channels function synergistically, thus providing a seamless customer experience (W. Gao et al., 2021; Trenz et

Perceived logistics service quality and perceived channel integration quality

In an omnichannel environment, customers expect to order what they want, where they want, when they want, and have it delivered how they want, in an effortless manner. To ensure that a customer moves seamlessly between channels, omnichannel retailing strategies should consider both channel activities and logistics operations integrated throughout the customer's shopping journey (Hübner et al., 2016; Murfield et al., 2017). Moreover, the delivery of the same level, synchronized services to

Sample selection and data collection

This empirical study focuses on one retail sector—furniture—and one leading company within the sector. Omnichannel shopping is common in the furniture sector. As consumers shift from shopping in brick-and-mortar stores to shopping on online platforms, online sales in this sector are growing at twice the rate of e-commerce sales across all sectors (Coresight, 2020). Specifically, the present paper centers on IKEA, one of the leading firms in the furniture industry and the fourth-most valuable

Measurement model assessment

According to Hair et al. (2019), measurement model assessment involves four steps. Indicator reliability is tested in step 1. The standardized outer loadings should be greater than or equal to 0.708 (Hair et al., 2017). Herein, the outer loadings ranged from 0.813 to 0.957, suggesting that indicator variables shared more than 50% of the variance with their respective latent constructs. The second step entails examining the internal consistency reliability with respect to the composite

Discussion and conclusion

The present study intended to explore the harmonious role of channel integration quality and logistics service quality, examining how they influence satisfaction and further affect repurchase intention from the perspective of customers. In particular, this paper looked to understand the distinguished role of the two types of customer satisfaction (transaction-specific versus cumulative) in enhancing repurchase intention within omnichannel settings. Additionally, this study investigated whether

Limitations and future research

This study has some limitations. First, the sample comprised only customers from one omnichannel retailer within one retail sector. Future studies should consider examining the present conceptual model on the basis of data from various retail sectors; such investigations may enhance the generalizability of these findings. Second, this study was conducted in Indonesia. Considering that findings may vary with the cultural context of the study setting, data from other countries can be collected in

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