The Different Phases of the Omnichannel Consumer Buying Journey: A Systematic Literature Review and Future Research Directions

In recent decades, retail has been faced with a challenging scenario, resulting from the digital transformation driven by advances on the internet that has transformed retail business models, especially in commercial transactions, giving consumers a new shopping experience. However, it has been a challenge for retailers to maintain the same shopping experience in different marketing channel formats, mainly with regard to understanding the consumption habits of consumers and what can influence their purchase decisions. As far as is known, the buying process is not only about the act of buying. There is an entire buying journey that must be studied to ensure customer satisfaction from the first contact to the after-sales experience. In this context, this article identifies and analyzes the stages of the omnichannel retail purchase journey from the consumer’s perspective. To achieve the proposed objective, this study was conducted through a systematic literature review in accordance with the SPAR-4-SLR protocol. The results present several analyses that demonstrate the complexity involving the consumer’s perspective in the purchase decision process. The insights show how complex it can be to for companies to manage the purchase journey due to the individuality of each consumer. The main finding shows that most marketing studies do not address the omnichannel consumer journey and, when they do, they focus on specific parts to the detriment of a more holistic view of the buying process. The originality of this article lies in the fact that few studies on omnichannel retail have focused on the integration of all touchpoints using an empirical longitudinal evaluation.