Acceptance of personalization in omnichannel retailing

Omnichannel retailing is an approach that enables customers to use multiple online and offline channels of retailers during a customer journey and combine them simultaneously. By embedding digital devices in brick-and-mortar retail stores, retailers are able to better observe customer behavior, to collect customer data, analyze their needs and provide personalized services. This personalization may provide additional value for customers but may also lead to privacy concerns. This paper examines the impact of personalization on privacy concerns and the intention of customers to adopt services in brick-and-mortar retail stores and online shops. The empirical study is based on an online survey that uses a within-subject design including four scenarios that covered the combinations of personalization and non-personalization with the retailing context online shop vs. brick-and-mortar retail store. The subjects had to assess their privacy concerns and their intention to adopt the omnichannel retailing services in these scenarios. 112 subjects participated within this study. Results show that personalized services cause significantly higher privacy concerns than non-personalized services for both contexts. Additionally, consumers expressed higher concerns regarding digital services in the retail store than in the online shop for both personalized and non-personalized services. The intention to adopt the digital services decreased in scenarios with personalized services, both online and offline. However, the intention to adopt personalized services is generally lower in retail stores (with digital elements of omnichannel retailing) than in the online shop. Privacy concerns appeared to have significant negative impact on the intention to adopt in three out of four omnichannel scenarios.