Using Fahp to Evaluate Non-store Retailing Channel Alternatives

Past studies pointed to the fact that consumers associate a higher level of risk with non-store shopping than in-store shopping. However, with the advent of the information technology and e-commerce, shoppers are now increasingly likely to shop across multiple channels. Multi-channel integration continues to be a focus and will be a key factor driving growth onward. This paper describes the Fuzzy Analytic Hierarchical Process (FAHP) to determine the weights of the perceived benefits and risks of various non-store retailing channels in a Fuzzy Multiple Criteria Decision-Making (FMCDM) environment and then to evaluate the performance of those alternatives. We find that the importance of non-store retailing channel decision-making main-dimension can be ranked in the sequence of price, merchandise, information service, purchasing atmosphere, convenience, and perceived risks. Consequently, the ranking order of the synthetic performance values of the non-store retailing channels obtained in this case is online shopping, TV home shopping, catalog shopping, newspaper shopping, and broadcasting shopping.