Abstract
Digital technology is leading the transformation of business models into sustainable ones, expanding and changing the competitiveness scenario. This paper aims to promote a new sustainable retailer model shaped by contingent free shipping theory and the optimisation of the customer’s journey, enriching the scientific literature by proposing a consumer behavioural model that highlights the contribution of four selected touchpoints to the sustainable transformation of SMEs. The research was elaborated by deploying a framework that presents five analysis methods, namely, an additive function construction, a TOPSIS method, a Spearman rank correlation coefficient calculation, a content analysis and an analytic hierarchy process, which engender the new model. Discovering nine distinguished categories of e-tailers, the sustainable retailer profile was developed and the touchpoint with the greatest contribution to the transformation process was identified. The results of the study allowed the authors to propose the model as a solution to withstand the preponderant negative experience provided by analysed e-tailers to digital buyers, representing the opportunity for SMEs’ sustainable transformation and long-term growth in a competitive, ever-growing market.
Highlights
The expansion of the Internet has changed business models and retail practices [1], leading to an appreciable consumer behaviour metamorphosis [2,3]
small and medium enterprises (SMEs) in the single digital market, providing competitive advantages. They support the process of creation of a needed sustainable shopping environment for digital buyers [15], which leads to the necessary transformation of business models into sustainable ones through a blended value proposition and improved customer relationship by introducing the touchpoint optimisation as a component of business value proposition in the business canvas model [12]
The sustainable retailer profile that this paper presents manages online consumer behaviour, providing visitors with a pleasant experience during the customer journey, which is an important goal for online retailers and we find it is supported in other studies [105,106,107]
Summary
The expansion of the Internet has changed business models and retail practices [1], leading to an appreciable consumer behaviour metamorphosis [2,3]. The COVID-19 pandemic has further driven consumers to proceed toward online shopping [4,5], which has caused remarkable growth in e-commerce [6,7,8]. Digital technology is leading to the transformation of business models into sustainable ones by providing “a blended value proposition, integrative value creation, and multidimensional value capture” [12]. There are big differences between large enterprises and small and medium enterprises (SMEs); in terms of starting conditions, large enterprises have “higher driven forces” and smaller barriers . For SMEs, the constraints as well as the challenges are related to costs and knowledge [14]
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