The Long-Term Effect of Multichannel Usage on Sales

Abstract

The paper investigates the long-run consequences of multichannel shopping customers' spending. Using data from a major US catalog copany, which introduced an online channel, our results validate previous findgs that multichannel customers spend more than more than mono-channel customers in the short run. However, the difference in spending dissipates over time with multichannel customers reverting to their regular consumption patterns in 3 years. As our results are based on obsevational data, we use different panel data econometric models and combine them with propensity score matching methods to control for potential self-selection biases. Our results are consistent across the analysis methods.