1. Oxford Retail Futures Conference 2014 Examining the Role of Social Media in the Omnichannel Customer Journey of High-Involvement Young Female Fashion Consumers Samantha Lynch 3 rd Year PhD Researcher Dr Liz Barnes Supervisor Research interests: Omnichannel, Consumer Behaviour, Fashion Retailing, Internet of Things, Customer Journey, Customer Experience, Social Media.

2. Overview of Research & Main Findings 4 focus groups, 11 interviews to explore: The relationship between social media and omnichannel fashion retailing The stages of the shopping journey in which high-involvement young female fashion consumers will engage with social media Consumer motivations and purposes associated with using social media when shopping for fashion Findings 1.Relationship between omnichannel and social media is developing consumers brand engagement 2.Social media features at the “inspiration” and “showing-off” stages of a consumer’s fashion journey 3.Specific devices are associated with accessing the social media channel during an omnichannel journey

3. Next Steps Revisit literature Revisit data collection tool – new questions based on new literature Conduct 50 interviews to get a fuller understanding of the overall journey and interactions Coding procedure will be based around coding to stages of journey and themes associated with omni retailing Develop framework Key Challenges of the Study Limited academic papers on omnichannel since project started 3years ago which affected data collection tool Theoretical background - currently using the consumer decision process model is there a better alternative Coding procedure

4. Recommendations for Retail Senior Management Action: Retailers should be context-centric when trying to understand device and channel usage. Benefit: Channel will be better designed to meet the customers needs within a given stage in the journey. Retailers will be able to pinpoint which stage a consumer is at in their journey dependent on which channel they are using. This study is part of a wider doctoral research project on: Examining the total customer journey of high-involvement female fashion consumers.

5. Omnichannel Framework 2014