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1. Introduction
Online retailing can be defined as “adopting digital technology and the Internet to enable the buying and selling process and transactions” (Okonkwo, 2010, p. 20). Since the beginning of the 1990s, many retailers have incorporated the internet into their multichannel strategy. Researchers believe that online retailing will continue to disrupt how we shop and will completely change the paradigm of retailing (Shankar et al., 2010). It no longer seems to be a question of whether one should be online or not, the current issue many retailers face is how they can optimally market their offerings online (Overmars and Poels, 2015a). Today, a major perceived barrier for shopping online is still the lack of physical inspection possibilities for products offered online. This issue particularly matters for product categories characterized by experience attributes (Weathers et al., 2007). The dearth of sensory input when shopping online makes consumers end up with less complete mental product images (Rosa and Malter, 2003) and as such substantial perceived risks associated with the purchase. This risk may induce shoppers on the one hand to abandon their online shopping trip all together, causing a direct loss in retail turnover. On the other hand, thanks (or due) to common free shipping and return policies, shoppers take the risk, order products online, but if their expectations are not met, after physical inspection once delivered, the products are often being returned (Foscht et al., 2013). These tremendous amounts of returned packages cause substantial operational and financial distress for the retailer.
Beyond the use of the internet for doing business, this study focuses on how digital technology in a broader perspective can provide online retailers with the means to further optimize the value proposition toward their customers. In accordance to Citrin et al. (2003, p. 902), we strongly believe that:
Technology may provide the means to bridge the gap that it created in reaching out and virtually touching the consumer, thereby promoting successful retailing to consumers via the Internet.
In this study, the focus is particularly on sensory-enabling technologies, defined by Kim and Forsythe (2008, p. 1102) as “technologies providing sensory input in the online shopping environment as a proxy for sensory experiences encountered in direct product examination, and including both product...