멀티채널 환경에서 소비자의 채널선택과 채널 포지셔닝에 관한 연구

Retail environment is changing rapidly. With the fast development in information technology, new retail channels that are tailored to meet diverse consumer needs are being introduced. A recent phenomenon in the multichannel environment is the retail format blurring which makes it harder to identify which channels are intratype or intertype competitions. The purposes of this study is to present a new way of identifying channel positioning in the multichannel environment and to argue that channels should be categorized by benefits sought by consumers rather than channel traits. The specific aims of this study are four folds：1) to examine the overall tendency of consumer's channel choice in the consumer decision making process, 2) to categorize consumers according to their channel selections, 3)compare consumer traits by their channel choices, and 4) to develop channel positioning map based on the traits of consumers who chose different channels. The major findings of this study are as follows. First, the result of cluster analysis showed that consumers who used multichannel in information search stage accounted for 55% of all respondents, and online information sources with consumer-driven nature were most commonly used by consumers. Second, depending on the consumer's shopping orientation, there were significant differences in information search, both in the sources used and the amount of search, and purchase channel choices. Third, consumers' perceived risks were more significantly associated with consumers' channel choice in the information search stage rather than in the purchase stage. Fourth, a channel positioning map based on consumers’ shopping orientations and perceived risks were developed and directly competing channels were identified. These results suggest that it is useful to analyze the retail channels based on consumer's characteristics rather than channels characteristics.