Investigating the Omnichannel Integration on Customer Value: The Moderating Effect of Technological Advancement in Retail Context in Sri Lanka

Abstract

Omnichannel integration is emerging as a key aspect for proving better value to customers in their retail shopping journey. The study has identified a specific issue as the research problem regarding the customer buying process. The researcher has studied how omni-channel integration impacts on customer value in a retail setting, with effects of technological advancements. Although an omnichannel strategy ensures seamless experiences in retailing, in a practical scenario, there are some difficulties that customer has to face in the omnichannel buying process. The customer is unable to get a seamless experience due to those inefficiencies in the omnichannel retailing process such as inconsistent inventory management and disparity of marketing and promotion activities. This has been identified as the practical gap in study. Consequently, researchers have explained that there is an empirical deviation regarding the moderating effect of technological advancement. Although technological advancement influences the relationship between channel integration and customer value, there is a lack of studies that prove that relationship. In addition to that, the researcher has provided an in-depth review of the literature by outlining and evaluating previous studies that have been done on the study’s variables. Based on that, an advanced explanation has been provided regarding omnichannel integration, customer value and the impact of technological advancements. Therefore, the main purpose of this study is to explore the impact of omnichannel integration on customer value in the retail context. According to the methodology selection, the research design includes an explanation of research philosophy, approach, and strategy. The study uses a survey strategy, and a deductive approach based on positivism to investigate how omnichannel integration affects consumer value with the impact of technological advancement. Apart from that, a conceptual framework has been developed by showing the relationship between the study’s variables. According to this study, “Omnichannel integration” is the main independent variable, “Customer Value” is the dependent variable and “Technological Advancement” moderates the relationship between the two. The independent variable has four sub variables namely Integrated Promotion, Integrated Product & price, Integrated Information Access and Integrated order fulfilment. The researcher has built up hypotheses based on the relationships between independent variable, sub variables and dependent variable and moderating relationship as well. In addition to that, the study uses a cross-sectional time horizon in which data is collected at a specific moment to analyze the relationship among variables. The researcher has used a non-probability, convenience sampling method to gather data. The sample size was 384 in this study. Hence, a structured questionnaire with both open-ended and close-ended questions that were created using a 5-point Likert scale has been shared with 384 consumers in Sri Lanka. Furthermore, the survey design allows for quantitative analysis of the collected data to examine the research problem and hypotheses effectively. The data analysis of this study has done using IBM SPSS 27, starting with data cleaning and rejecting incomplete 05 responses. The variables were coded and descriptive statistics were used to analyze the demographic information of respondents. The data was cleaned through missing value analysis and outlier removal, followed by testing for normality, linearity, multicollinearity and homoscedasticity. Furthermore, using Cronbach’s alpha, reliability was assessed with an acceptable range of 0.6 to 0.8 indicating consistent measurement across variables. Every Cronbach's Alpha score shows that the data used in this investigation was reliable. The KMO test was used to assess each variable's validity independently. Every indicator under every variable type was found to produce a higher KMO value. There was a strong and positive correlation between the independent, moderating and dependent variables since all of the Pearson values were greater than 0.90. The hypotheses were tested using multiple regression analysis and all hypotheses were accepted through the analysis. Finally, study provides significant theoretical and practical implications regarding omnichannel integration and customer value in the retail sector in Sri Lanka. Theoretically, it extends existing theories by investigating how technology innovations such as mobile apps, real-time data and artificial intelligence act in influencing how customers perceive value across multichannel. Further, previous studies have explored the omni-channel concept and customer value separately and previous researchers have examined the concepts such as the impact of omnichannel integration on customer experience, opportunities and challengers of omnichannel businesses. On the other hand, researcher suggests that businesses should adapt technological advancements to enhance customer value through efficient shopping experiences under the practical implications. According to the researcher, this includes aligning consistence promotions across all channels, improving inventory management and ensuring a consistent customer experience. However, this study has limitations, including a small sample size and limited geographic coverage. Hence, future research can address the role of psychological factors such as trust and emotional engagement in customer value and how it varies across different demographic groups. Moreover, this study contributes to the expanding volume of research on omnichannel retailing and provides practitioners with practical advice on how to succeed in a market that is becoming more digitalized and competitive.