“Brick-and-mortar” retailers, when expanding their businesses to online channels, can either add a separate online channel or integrate channels to enhance service offerings. Although past studies on channel choice have yielded insights into factors affecting consumers’ channel preference, there is a dearth of research that sheds light on when and why massive investments into channel integration would be preferred over online optimizations. To this end, we construct and validate a theoretical model that posits omnichannel integration services for acquisition and recovery as predictors of consumers’ online channel preference through influencing their perceptions of convenience and risk. Our experimental study reveals how distinct configurations of cross-channel service offerings affect consumers’ channel evaluations and decisions, as well as how comple-mentarities from channel integration across transaction and post-transaction phases can prevail over pure online substitutes. Consequently, this study bridges diagnostic and prescriptive research streams on multichannel and omnichannel retail by attesting to channel integration as a viable channel differentiator. From a practical standpoint, we compare 12 distinct channel configurations with regard to consumers’ core evaluative criteria and highlight the value of omnichannel integration since efficiency improvements to the online channel can only serve as a partial substitute to channel integration.

Despite extensive deliberations in contemporary literature, the design of citizen-centric e-government websites remains an unresolved theoretical and pragmatic conundrum. Operationalizing e-government service quality to investigate and improve the design of e-government websites has been a much sought-after objective. Yet, there is a lack of actionable guidance on how to develop e-government websites that exhibit high levels of service quality. Drawing from marketing literature, we undertake a goal approach to this problem by delineating e-government service quality into aspects of IT-mediated service content and service delivery. Whereas service content describes the functions available on an e-government website that assist citizens in completing their transactional goals, service delivery defines the manner by which these functions are made accessible via the web interface as a delivery channel. We construct and empirically test a research model that depicts a comprehensive collection of web-enabled service content functions and delivery dimensions desirable by citizens. Empirical findings from an online survey of 647 respondents attest to the value of distinguishing between service content functions and delivery dimensions in designing e-government websites. Both service content and delivery are found to be significant contributors to achieving e-government service quality. These IT-mediated service content functions and delivery dimensions represent core areas of e-government website design where the application of technology makes a difference, especially when considered in tandem with the type of transactional activity. A split sample analysis of the data further demonstrates our model’s robustness when applied to e-government transactions of varying frequency.