Enabling Customer Journeys: An examination of social others and cultural factors in the context of online shopping in Nigeria

Abstract

The customer journey has attracted practitioners’ attention as a way to boost sales by managing online shopping interactions and customer experience. Despite the strength of customer journey frameworks, they are predominantly shaped by Western perspectives. As such, they might not fully encompass the socio-cultural factors, economic realities and added risks (e.g., financial, product, privacy, and security) experienced by customers in emerging markets. By focusing on the case of Nigeria, this research explores the online customer journey in an emerging market to shed light on how online consumers (shoppers and vendors) circumvent inherent challenges of shopping online. Based on an exploratory qualitative multi-method inquiry using netnography and in-depth interviews, results show that online shopping in Nigeria occurs at two levels: on the local and overseas market. Findings suggest that shoppers take steps to overcome barriers when shopping online and that the customer journey is less linear than previously theorised. Specifically, the study shows: 1) how social agents act as ‘enablers’ in the realm of online shopping; 2) the various journeys Nigerian consumers embark on before completing an online purchase and 3) the importance of human interaction in the digitised and seemingly automated transaction of online shopping (e.g., negotiating prices, ensuring trust). The study contributes to theory and practice by identifying ways in which the ‘customer journey model’ proposed by Lemon and Verhoef (2016) can be extended to reflect cultural and social factors in emerging markets. Moreover, this research further theorises 'social others' (Hamilton et al. 2021) as enablers of the customer journey, foregrounding broader marketplace realities, including risks and challenges that consumers, firms or suppliers must overcome. Finally, the managerial implications help inform companies on the cultural, social, and economic factors that impact online shopping journeys in emerging markets and beyond. The study suggests future areas of research such as exploring other types of enablers in other countries (beyond the African context) to identify the roles they play in online customer journey.