Segmenting the Non-users of E-channels Category in Emerging Markets

Abstract

The technological communications revolution has led to disruptions in many retail markets. Many famous brands have closed their brick and mortar stores and only focus on online stores. However, this shift hasn‟t extended in some segments, cultures and countries. For example, senior customer segments tend to prefer offline channels. Also, many customers in many cultures and countries still want to try or see the products before they purchase. Therefore, the rise of show rooms has been witnessed recently. Furthermore, international marketers and scholars have always emphasized the need to study the non-users segment of e-channels to determine who can be attracted to online channels and those who are persistent offline channel users. Therefore, this working paper wants to shed the light on the need to segment non-users of online channels to identify the sub-segments within them that should be services with different marketing strategies (e.g., show rooms, online stores with augmented reality attributes, brick and mortar stores).