Online purchase intentions: A multi-channel store image perspective Tibert Verhagen a, *, Willemijn van Dolen b a Department of Knowledge, Information and Networks, Faculty of Economics and Business Administration, VU University Amsterdam, Amsterdam, Netherlands b Department of Business Studies, University of Amsterdam Business School, Netherlands 1. Introduction Many research papers have discussed the impact of online stores on customer purchasing. A key limitation of these studies concerns their focus on the online store as a single channel, though a growing number of firms have moved to a bricks-and-clicks format. Building upon competitive advantages such as a stable customer base, experience, trust, financial resources, brand strength, and cross-promotional opportunities, these firms are likely to be the most successful. Today, many consumers use both traditional outlets and virtual storefronts when engaging in purchase behavior. Being exposed to the two channels, consumer purchase behavior is affected by perceptions of both. Research on multi-channel purchasing has generally studied either the difference between the two purchase behaviors (e.g. [2,8]), or the relationships between multi-channel perceptions and channel-independent perceptions like satisfac- tion, loyalty (e.g. [24]) and retention (e.g. [29]). Except for a few studies of cross-channel service perceptions (e.g. [4,5]) and multi- channel trust (e.g. [14,19]) there are no empirical works addressing the extent to which bricks-and-clicks operations contribute to consumer online purchase behavior. Therefore, the influence of the bricks-and-clicks shopping environment on online purchasing needed to be empirically explored [6]. A study comparing the impact of traditional and online store images was considered of special interest [10]. Both images were assumed to affect online purchasing, but while relative consensus exists on the positive effect of an online store image on online purchases, the visual impact of traditional stores on online purchasing is not well understood. Thus adoption of a multi- channel store image perspective incorporating both channels was crucial. Our approach therefore applied a multi-channel store image perspective to assess the impact of the overall impression of the offline and online store on consumers’ online purchase intention. We consider those dimensions that have been found to influence the brick-and-click context. Based on a comparison of the influence of online and offline store attributes, we concluded that consumers may consider the same criteria in evaluating online and offline stores, but that they differ in their influence on online purchase intention. We suspected that the influence of offline store image on online purchase could be direct as well as mediated by the online store image. 2. Theoretical foundations and hypotheses 2.1. Offline store image and online store image Many definitions of store image and store attributes exist but although these draw upon different perspectives, their essence is a total impression of tangible or functional factors (merchandise selection, prices ranges and store layout) and intangible or psychological factors (such as perceived manner of the sales staff, Information & Management 46 (2009) 77–82 ARTICLE INFO Article history: Received 22 February 2008 Received in revised form 2 October 2008 Accepted 4 December 2008 Available online 15 January 2009 Keywords: Bricks-and-clicks Online store image Offline store image Online purchase intention Multi-channel synergy ABSTRACT The advantages of the bricks-and-clicks retail format in the battle for the online customer has been widely discussed but empirical research on it has been limited. We applied a multi-channel store image perspective to assess its influence on online purchase intentions. Drawing on a sample of 630 customers of a large music retail store in the Netherlands, the results demonstrated that offline and online store perceptions directly influenced online purchase intention. In addition, our findings confirmed that offline store impressions were used as references for their online store counterparts. Synergy and reference effects are discussed. ß 2008 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved. * Corresponding author. Tel.: +31 20 5986059; fax: +31 20 5986005. E-mail address: tverhagen@feweb.vu.nl (T. Verhagen). Contents lists available at ScienceDirect Information & Management journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/im 0378-7206/$ – see front matter ß 2008 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.im.2008.12.001