Oxford Retail Futures Conference 2014
Examining the Role of Social Media in the Omnichannel
Customer Journey of High-Involvement Young Female
Fashion Consumers
Samantha Lynch 3rd Year PhD Researcher
Dr Liz Barnes Supervisor
Research interests: Omnichannel, Consumer Behaviour, Fashion Retailing, Internet of
Things, Customer Journey, Customer Experience, Social Media.
Overview of Research & Main Findings
4 focus groups, 11 interviews to explore:
•The relationship between social media and omnichannel fashion retailing
•The stages of the shopping journey in which high-involvement young female
fashion consumers will engage with social media
•Consumer motivations and purposes associated with using social media
when shopping for fashion
Findings
1.Relationship between omnichannel and social media is developing
consumers brand engagement
2.Social media features at the “inspiration” and “showing-off” stages of a
consumer’s fashion journey
3.Specific devices are associated with accessing the social media channel
during an omnichannel journey
Next Steps
Revisit literature
Revisit data collection tool – new questions based on new literature
Conduct 50 interviews to get a fuller understanding of the overall journey and
interactions
Coding procedure will be based around coding to stages of journey and
themes associated with omni retailing
Develop framework
Key Challenges of the Study
Limited academic papers on omnichannel since project started 3years ago
which affected data collection tool
Theoretical background - currently using the consumer decision process
model is there a better alternative
Coding procedure
Recommendations for Retail Senior Management
Action:
Retailers should be context-centric when trying to understand device
and channel usage.
Benefit:
Channel will be better designed to meet the customers needs within a
given stage in the journey. Retailers will be able to pinpoint which stage
a consumer is at in their journey dependent on which channel they are
using.
This study is part of a wider doctoral research project on:
Examining the total customer journey of high-involvement female
fashion consumers.
Omnichannel Framework 2014