Exploratory evidence of channel performance in single vs multiple channel strategies

Channel performance is a key marketing and organisational issue, given the potential and actual impact in the accomplishment of organisational goals. A recent trend in distribution strategy has been the increasing utilisation of multiple channels across sectors. Because of the newness of these channel systems, it is important to understand how they influence key channel performance indicators. With this purpose, a study was conducted in a sample of 62 UK financial services organisations. The research considered several indicators of channel performance, which were statistically reduced to two broad dimensions: sales and profitability. The results show that multiple channels are associated with higher sales performance and lower channel profitability. However, the statistical significance of the results was observed to depend on the extent to which multiple channels were being used. In addition, this article analyses the relationship between the number of channels and company size and product type. Implications for future research are derived.