The importance of online retailers' ethics for traditional, online and multichannel customers

This chapter explores the role of retailers’ ethics in consumer behaviour and channel selection. It is largely acknowledged that many ethical issues in online retailing differ from those of traditional brick-and-mortar retailing. However, there is limited understanding of how ethical considerations vary among consumers that use various shopping channels. Our analysis is based on survey data from traditional shoppers (n = 216), online shoppers (n = 224) and multichannel shoppers (n = 244) in Finland. We firstly examine how these three customer types perceive four key elements of online retailer ethics: security, privacy, non-deception and fulfilment. Secondly, we examine how consumers’ perception regarding the ethics of online retailers is linked to online customer patronage behaviour. Our results demonstrate that the importance of different aspects of online retailing ethics varies among traditional, multichannel and online customers, and online retailers’ ethics are especially important for the most active online shoppers. These results can assist retailers who either operate or have the intention to operate as either online or multichannel retailers to better understand consumers’ ethical expectations towards online retailing.