Getting the Most from Omnichannel Management Strategy: Special Session: Best Articles from the Italian Marketing Association: An Abstract

In recent years scholars and practitioners have suggested omnichannel management as the best approach to reach and engage the customer in the buying journey. Traditional literature on distribution channels has focused on the co-operation and mostly on conflicts and competition among a company’s direct and indirect distribution channels (Frazier 1983; Gaski 1984; Coughlan et al. 2006). More recently, literature on marketing channels has debated the need for a multi-channel approach based on separated offline and online channels (Neslin et al. 2006). At present, the prevailing focus is on an omnichannel management strategy intended as the synergetic and integrated management of the numerous available channels – online and offline - and customer touchpoints to optimize the customer experience and channels’ performance. An effective omnichannel strategy lets the consumers use channels seamlessly and interchangeably and experience the channels uniquely (Verhoef et al. 2015).