When Gains Outweigh Risks: Understanding Hybrid Shopping Behaviours Among Consumers in Iloilo City, Philippines

This research investigates showrooming and webrooming behaviours, using Prospect Theory to understand consumer shopping patterns between physical stores and online platforms. The study examines Iloilo City consumers' views about the benefits and drawbacks of online and offline shopping to determine how shopping history and expectations affect consumers’ hybrid shopping activities and final purchasing decisions.

Structural Equation Modelling (SEM) was employed to demonstrate that online benefits, including convenience, cost savings and broad product selection, directly influence customers to adopt hybrid shopping and make their final purchases. The study shows that customers no longer avoid online risks because they prioritise gaining benefits over potential losses. It demonstrates that offline benefits hinder customers from using hybrid shopping, but offline disadvantages lead to higher purchase completion rates because of loss aversion principles. Cluster analysis results indicated that the "Hybrid Magnifiers" segment stands out as the most common consumer group because it effectively combines offline and online shopping to achieve maximum benefits..

Results from the study allow retailers to minimise customer perceptions of lost sales by offering customers more confidence about their purchases while building brand loyalty. Policy makers will have a data-driven justification to create protective regulations for hybrid markets by establishing clear price disclosure requirements and delivery performance benchmarks. Additionally equal market opportunities between digital and physical retail sectors can be achieved.  Future researchers may need to investigate online gains dominance across different locations and population groups. Longitudinal research methods could determine if online gains dominance will persist as a permanent consumer behaviour or will remain limited to specific situations.