One Man's Meat is Another Man's Poison: Unraveling the Impact of Buy Online Pickup in Store Service in the Catering Industry

Although omni-channel retailing has been widely embraced in the retail industry, its effectiveness within the catering sector remains largely explored. In contrast to the retail industry, this study argues that the adoption of buy online pick up in store (BOPS) may detrimentally influence consumer experience due to the tidal effect in catering. To further verify the viewpoint, our study gathered customer transaction data from a renowned fast-food chain in China. By employing propensity score matching and difference-in-differences approaches, we discovered that consumers’ BOPS adoption in the catering sector decreases their shopping frequency and shopping amount. Additionally, the offline store operating modes, such as menu-based and tangible product-based ordering, significantly moderate the effects of BOPS. Furthermore, our research empirically verified the adverse outcomes of BOPS instigated by the tidal effect in canteen settings. Thus, our study aims to make a novel contribution to omni-channel operations within the catering industry.