Agenda

Managing the Interface to the Customer: Where Brands, Retailers, and Platforms Collide
Werner Reinartz, University of Cologne
Consumers have traditionally made purchase decisions at the store shelf, giving institutional brick-and-mortar retailers great power to learn about and influence behaviors and preferences. With the rise of e-commerce, mobile shopping, and smart technologies, new competitors (online retail platforms, branded-product platforms) threaten this long-standing supremacy. This then redefines who has the authority over the interface to the customer. For the parties involved in this new competitive setting, acknowledging the changes and actively managing their position in the evolving eco-systems is crucial.

How Sustained e-Commerce Sales Lift from Pandemic Lockdowns Depends on Age
Koen Pauwels, Northeastern University
During the pandemic, online shopping across countries did not just increase during lockdowns, but has continued since that time especially among seniors (65+ years old). As part of this session, Koen will explain the online shopping trends as well as the implications they carry for retailers and local communities.

Logging Off: Is Covid-19 the ultimate deus-ex-machina for online grocery shopping?
Katrijn Gielens, University of North Carolina
While 25% of US households were already ordering groceries online in 2019, by May 2020 this had grown by 400% as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic. Adoption does not guarantee continued usage, however, so the question remains: Will the online channel become the new normal for groceries? Much of the 2019 increase was for consumers doing only a small amount of their grocery shopping online. More recently, one-third say they will reduce or stop online grocery shopping as pandemic restrictions ease. Katrijn Gielens will discuss research she and her colleague, Els Gijsbrechts, conducted on why consumers fail to adopt online grocery shopping and to what extent online grocery may become the ‘new normal.’ By establishing the levers required to create repeat usage, their findings can help grocery retailers build a stronger online presence.