Digital and Mobile Touch Points in The Fashion Market: A Comparison Between Chinese and European Millennial Consumers

Over the past few years, the Internet has profoundly affected customer experience and how customers interact with and respond to offerings (Kumar and Anjaly, 2017). Nowadays, digital and social media represent relevant touch points that contribute to shape the customer journey and allow consumers to engage more with firms (Leeflang et al., 2014; Kim and Ko, 2012; Verhoef, Reinartz, and Krafft, 2010). In particular, digital media play a primary role in China, which has the highest revenues in the e-commerce sector worldwide. Indeed, China’s e-commerce value is S$740.422bn as opposed to the United States’ volume of $560.747bn (Statista, 2019). Another characteristic of the Chinese market is represented by mobile retailing, which accounts for 75.35% of total Internet sales as of 2017 (Euromonitor International, 2018). Despite the relevance of China in the global commerce, studies on the customer journey in such market are still scarce. Therefore, with the present research we aim at analyzing the impact of digital and mobile touch points on the customer journey in China focusing on the fashion sector, the segment with the highest e-commerce revenues in 2018 (Statista, 2019). Our main research questions are: 1. What are the drivers of the use of digital and mobile touch points in the customer journey in China? 2. What are the effects of the use of digital and mobile touch points in the customer journey in China? 3. Do drivers and effects in China differ from the ones among European consumers? We carry out a survey among Chinese and European consumers and we analyze results using Structural equation modeling (SEM). We contribute to the marketing literature on digital touch points and provide relevant managerial implications for fashion firms that operate at international level.