Data-Driven Analysis of Omnichannel Purchasing Pathways: Age and Gender Effects Across Retail Product Categories

Abstract

The emergence of omnichannel environments has transformed consumer purchasing into a highly complex, multistage decision-making process, generating nonlinear demand signals that heavily influence retail logistics, inventory optimization, and production engineering systems. Moving beyond the binary choice between online and offline commerce, omnichannel purchasing reflects structured pathways through which consumers allocate information search and transaction activities across multiple touchpoints. This paper investigates how age and gender influence these purchasing pathways across selected product categories using a data-driven analytical framework. The empirical analysis is based on primary survey data collected from 889 consumers with prior omnichannel purchasing experience. To identify systematic differences and predictive patterns in purchasing behavior, categorical data analysis methods are employed, including chi-square tests of independence, association measures, and multinomial logistic regression (MLR). The results indicate that omnichannel purchasing behavior varies significantly across age groups, with younger consumers displaying stronger tendencies toward digitally completed transactions, even when physical stores are involved in the earlier stages of the purchasing process. Older consumers exhibit greater reliance on in-store purchasing in selected product categories, suggesting differences in channel substitution and complementarity. Gender-based variations further shape purchasing pathways, particularly in webrooming and showrooming behaviors, highlighting the importance of demographic segmentation in channel integration strategies. Additional heterogeneity was observed in channel interaction patterns across demographic segments, further reinforcing the structured nature of omnichannel purchasing pathways. These findings provide insights into demand allocation across channels and offer implications for the design and evaluation of omni-channel retail systems within contemporary digital economies.