EXPRESS: Channel Adoption Pathways and Post-Adoption Behavior

The rapid growth of digital shopping channels has led many traditional retailers to invest in e-commerce websites and mobile apps. While prior research shows that multichannel customers are more valuable, it overlooks how the motive for adopting a new channel shapes post-adoption behavior. Using transaction-level data from a major Brazilian pet supplies retailer, we study offline-only consumers who adopt online shopping through four pathways: organic adoption, the COVID-19 pandemic, Black Friday promotions, and a loyalty program. Using consumer-level panel data and difference-in-differences estimates, we examine how these pathways are associated with post-adoption spending, profitability, and channel usage. We find that all adopters spend more than comparable offline-only consumers, but their post-adoption behavior differs systematically by adoption pathway. Promotion-driven adopters exhibit patterns consistent with forward buying and lower subsequent profitability, whereas COVID adopters display stronger offline persistence consistent with consumer inertia and habit persistence. These findings suggest that managers may benefit from accounting for adoption-pathway heterogeneity when forecasting customer lifetime value and assessing the breakeven and ROI of promotions designed to induce online adoption.