Contemporary Issues in Digital Marketing

8

The role of social capital in digitalised retail servicescape

Jussi Nyrhinen, Mika Skippari and Terhi-Anna Wilska

DOI: 10.4324/9781003093909-11

Introduction

Regardless of the rapid digitalisation of the retail trade and the fast growth of online commerce (e-commerce), the majority (i.e. 88%) of all global retail of goods and services was still bought from physical stores (i.e. ‘offline’ or ‘brick-and-mortar’ stores) in places such as high streets or malls before the COVID-19 pandemic (Statista, 2019 – see Further reading). Pandemic’s preventing measures, such as quarantines, social distancing and moving restrictions, have forced consumers to increasingly adopt digital channels and that has further accelerated the digitalisation ...