182 Managing Multichannel Integration, Designing Perceived Affordances, and Developing Customer Relationship in the Online and Offline Retailing affordances influences their belief in the value of service or production offerings (Lee et al., 2014). Thus, placing great emphasis on perceived affordances is important for multichannel retailers. In line with Dong and Wang (2018), our findings reveal that customers are likely to obtain shopping values when they perceive affordances with online and offline channels. Another major finding is that economic and relational values can satisfy customers between online and offline channels, which sequentially enhance online and offline loyalty. Customers who perceive the channels to be consistent with their values are likely to be motivated to purchase through these channels. Congruence between customers’ economic value or relational value and channel features increases their satisfaction with these channels (Verhoef et al., 2007). For relational value, enjoyable interactions, which enhance value for customers, increase online and offline satisfaction. For economic value, customers can experience high-level service quality and customization, both of which strengthen online and offline satisfaction. Satisfaction in this study is distinguished into two kinds: online satisfaction and offline satisfaction. That is, when multichannel customers are satisfied with shopping in an offline channel, they are likely to develop loyalty behaviors toward the offline channel of a multichannel retailer (Bolton, 1998). Meanwhile, when a multichannel retailer can satisfy customers’ shopping needs online, customers are likely to be loyal to the online channel (Carlson and O’Cass, 2010). That is, multichannel integration and perceived affordances affect online and offline satisfaction by increasing economic and relational values. Thus, the development of economic and relational values should be used as a valuable supplement to retailer efforts for deepening satisfactory relationships. 5.2 The Reinforcement Effects across Channels Importantly, this study aims to bridge the gap between diverse channels and to understand the reinforcement effects across channels. Wallace et al. (2004) argue that customers transfer their existing beliefs and behavioral patterns from offline channels to online ones. In this study, we find that customers’ satisfaction and loyalty toward offline channels likely affect their satisfaction and loyalty toward online channels. That is, previous offline experience with a given phenomenon generates an adaptation level for subsequent online judgments. Moreover, comparison-level theory is beneficial for enhancing the understanding of customer attitude. The theory postulates that outcomes from a present experience modify the comparison level for future considerations
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