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The advancement of digital technology and the growth of e-commerce have significantly changed the shopping channel choice behaviour (SCCB) of customers. This article presents a systematic literature review on the SCCB of customers using a hybrid review approach that includes bibliometric analysis and review using ‘Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses’ (PRISMA) guidelines. The search was conducted across the Web of Science and Scopus databases, covering 20 years. The bibliometric analysis was conducted to understand the spatio-temporal trends and frequency analysis in this domain. It also helped us to identify the key themes, such as retail channel dynamics, the impact of customer’s attitudes and motives, socio-economic factors, in-store retail accessibility, and product attributes on SCCB. The bibliometric analysis revealed the emergence of key themes, such as retail channel dynamics, the impact of customer’s attitudes and motives, socio-economic factors, in-store retail accessibility, and product attributes on SCCB. The systematic literature review highlighted significant variations in shopping behaviour across product types. It also elucidated the necessity for targeted research frameworks, particularly in the developing countries. The identified indicators offer actionable insights for practitioners, aiding in the formulation of marketing strategies, targeted market identification, and retail outlet location choices for retailers. This facilitates informed decision-making, enhancing retail performance and consumer engagement in both in-store and online channels.

Consumers have subjective psychological expectations of the quality and brand of products before purchasing. There is a certain tolerance for products that do not meet expectations. The discomfort caused by tolerance can be smoothly carried out through "reasonable" self-comfort and explanation mechanisms. Based on the theory of rationalization defense mechanism, a 2 × 2 purchase channel matrix of online and offline purchase, online consultation, and the offline experience was constructed to explore the influence of consumers' tolerance of product quality and brand on their purchase channel choice. The results show that: (1) consumer product tolerance positively influences consumers' online purchasing choice; (2) consumer product tolerance influences purchase channel choice through rationalization; and (3) the sweet lemon mechanism mediates consumer product tolerance on online consultation and online purchase and offline experience, but the sour grapes mechanism does not mediate. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Consumers have subjective psychological expectations of the quality and brand of products before purchasing. There is a certain tolerance for products that do not meet expectations. The discomfort caused by tolerance can be smoothly carried out through “reasonable” self-comfort and explanation mechanisms. Based on the theory of rationalization defense mechanism, a 2 × 2 purchase channel matrix of online and offline purchase, online consultation, and the offline experience was constructed to explore the influence of consumers’ tolerance of product quality and brand on their purchase channel choice. The results show that: (1) consumer product tolerance positively influences consumers’ online purchasing choice; (2) consumer product tolerance influences purchase channel choice through rationalization; and (3) the sweet lemon mechanism mediates consumer product tolerance on online consultation and online purchase and offline experience, but the sour grapes mechanism does not mediate.