The impact of mobile app adoption on physical and online channels

The authors investigate the impact of customers’ mobile app adoption on grocery shopping behaviors. Specifically, they investigate the cannibalization of existing physical and online channels by the newly adopted mobile app and evaluate changes in households’ total expenditures at the focal chain. They find that households adopting the mobile app marginally decrease their spending in physical stores, but considerably increase their expenditures and shopping trips through the mobile app. They present evidence that the mobile app plays a synergistic role for customers who never used a digital shopping channel. Lastly, the authors find a competitive encroachment effect by the mobile app. They find the impact of mobile app adoption is greater in markets where the focal chain faces more intense competition from a nearby competitor.