Abstract

Purpose: With the rapid changes in the technical development and the trend of consumption trend, the convenience store industry is facing an unprecedented competitive situation in the consumption environment where the boundary between online and offline is broken due to the stagnation of offline distribution channels and the spread of online shopping. The biggest innovation strategy of the major convenience store brands in recent years are introducing the O2O (Online to Offline) platform and presenting new products and services beyond the boundaries of online and offline to transform themselves into Omni Channel stores. The study is designed to analyze the effect of innovativeness of convenience store as a stimulus in O2O platform which customers perceive on store loyalty, the final response to external stimuli, through customer engagement with convenience store brands. Specifically, the innovativeness of convenience stores was divided into types of core activities in corporate marketing and focused on innovations in services, products(proposals), promotions and experiences. Research design, data, and methodology: Various hypotheses have been developed to achieve this research purpose. The data were collected from 1,128 questionnaires the age between 15 and 60 who had experience using retail store apps and delivery apps and were analyzed using SPSS 22.0 and SmartPLS 3.3.7 program. Measurement model analysis was carried out to assess convergent and discriminant validity. Also, common method bias was tested using the values of VIF (variance inflation factor). The hypotheses were tested using structural equation modeling with SmartPLS 3.3.7 program. Results: First, service innovation has a positive effect on cognitive engagement. Second, product, promotion and experience innovation have a positive effect on cognitive and affective engagement. Third, cognitive influences affective engagement. Finally, both cognitive and affective engagement affect store loyalty, but affective engagement has a stronger effect on store loyalty than cognitive engagement. Conclusions: All four types of innovation and cognitive engagement have a positive effect on emotional engagement, which has a stronger effect on store loyalty than cognitive engagement. Thus, while innovation can build loyalty through emotional engagement, innovation strategies must be designed and pursued with caution in terms of impact through cognitive engagement may not achieve the planned goals.