Research online and purchase offline: The disruptive impact of consumers' online information on offline sales interaction

Abstract Retailers hire salespeople in physical stores to boost revenue by influencing consumer decision‐making. However, the Internet provides consumers with a variety of online product information before they enter the physical store, and this rich online information reduces their willingness to interact with offline salespeople. Using regulatory focus theory, we explore why well‐informed consumers avoid sales interactions and explore strategies for salespeople to mitigate this negative effect. Across three studies, we show that high consumer informedness induces a heightened prevention focus that causes consumers to avoid sales interactions to control the decision‐making process by themselves (Studies 1 and 2). This effect can be alleviated when salespeople provide consumers with currently available information rather than additional information (Study 3). This research contributes to the literature on consumer informedness, regulatory focus theory, and research on promotional information types and provides guidance for retailers' sales interactions.