Purpose: – Digitalization denotes an on-going transformation of great importance for the retail sector. The purpose of this paper is to analyse the phenomenon of the digitalization of retailing by developing a conceptual framework that can be used to further delineate current transformations of the retailer-consumer interface.Design/methodology/approach: – This paper develops a framework for digitalization in the retail-consumer interface that consists of four elements: exchanges, actors, offerings, and settings. Drawing on the previous literature, it describes and exemplifies how digitalization transforms each of these elements and identifies implications and proposals for future research.Findings: – Digitalization transforms the following: retailing exchanges (in a number of ways and in various facets of exchange, including communications, transactions, and distribution); the nature of retail offerings (blurred distinctions between products and services, what constitutes the actual offering and how it is priced); retail settings (i.e. where and when retailing takes place); and the actors who participate in retailing (i.e. retailers and consumers, among other parties).Research limitations/implications: – The framework developed can be used to further delineate current transformations of retailing due to digitalization. The current transformation has created challenges for research, as it demands sensitivity to development over time and insists that categories that have been taken for granted are becoming increasingly blurred due to greater hybridity.Originality/value: – This paper addresses a significant and on-going transformation in retailing and develops a framework that can both guide future research and aid retail practitioners in analysing retailing’s current transformation due to digitalization.

On-screen tourism destinations provide tourists with a mixture of reality and mass-media experience. This study builds a conceptual framework of authenticity evaluating the relationship between fantasy proneness, authenticity, and destination loyalty. It is among the first to compare perceived authenticity of dual images of a destination, both the film location and the story’s setting. Using Game of Thrones and the city of Dubrovnik as a case, it applies a mixed method of interviews followed by a main survey with both closed- and open-ended questions. The primary findings show that the relationship between authenticity of the film location (Dubrovnik) and loyalty is positive, but such relationship is insignificant for the authenticity of the story’s setting (King’s Landing). This investigation enriches our understanding of the complex assessments of authenticity and expands the theory of imagination by evaluating the effects of fantasy proneness on perceived authenticity in the context of on-screen tourism.

Non-store retailing is dominated by the Internet and is a potential strategy for manufacturers, brand owners, and retailers entering emerging markets. Consumers in developed markets shop online for a variety of retail goods, and motives for choosing e-commerce are often referred to as convenience reason. Convenience is essential for understanding why consumers prefer one channel to another. By revisiting the concept of convenience as a significant variable in e-commerce and exploring its complexity and the multiple meanings of the concept with regard to emerging markets, the paper considers a business opportunity in terms of new ways of reaching emerging markets and proposes potential lines for future research with regard to this concept.

Purpose: This paper aims to identify content strategies on social media that influence engagement and to analyze those operations to describe important features for co-creation and trust.Design/methodology/approach: This paper addresses the question of how social media content can influence engagement by using a medium-sized Swedish company for an empirical case study. This empirical study is based on a participatory action research methodology. By using the company account on LinkedIn, the authors experimented with relational content to understand the effects on customer-perceived value and trust.Findings: Results reveal that action-oriented messages had a more significant impact on engagement than product-oriented messages and value-based messages.Originality/value: This paper builds on the existing literature in two ways: drawing upon business-to-business relationships and perceived value and using recent advances in the use of social networking sites to understand the value of co-creation through a participatory culture.