A tecnologia da Internet oferece novas formas de relacionamento entre clientes e empresas, mas os desafios da lealdade permanecem. O objetivo deste estudo foi identificar os fatores influentes na lealdade ao fornecedor e ao canal de distribuição, focando possíveis diferenças entre opiniões e atitudes dos consumidores online e dos offline de livros, CDs e DVDs. Com tal intuito, as principais referências foram os modelos UTAUT (Unified Theory of Acceptance and Use of Technology), de Venkatesh et al. (2003), e ECM-IT (Expectation-Confirmation Model in IT Domain), de Bhattacherjee (2001b) e, ainda, os modelos de Coyles e Gokey (2002), Heijden, Verhagen e Creemers (2003) e Bramall, Schoefer e McKechnie (2004). Numa pesquisa qualitativa inicial, investigaram-se os atributos de lealdade inerentes às compras online e offline e, a partir destes, realizou-se uma pesquisa quantitativa com resultados analisados com o uso de técnicas estatísticas uni, bi e multivariadas. Entre os principais resultados, obteve-se que a maioria de consumidores destes produtos não é leal ao fornecedor e orienta-se sobretudo pela localização da loja (lojas físicas) ou pelo preço (lojas online) para voltar a uma mesma loja. Quanto à lealdade ao canal, para os consumidores exclusivos do canal offline, os aspectos mais relevantes para uma possível migração são a atitude em relação ao uso da tecnologia, a confiança, e a expectativa de performance. Para os que já compram pelo canal online, os fatores essenciais para continuar nesse canal são a satisfação, a confirmação de expectativas pós-compra, a expectativa de performance, e as condições facilitadoras.

Internet-based technology has allowed new relationship approaches between companies and their customers but customer loyalty has maintained itself as a challenge. The aim of this study was to identify key factors of loyalty to supplier and distribution channel, paying attention to possible disparities between opinions and attitudes of online and offline buyers of books, CDs and DVDs. Keeping this aim in mind, main adopted references were UTAUT (Unified Theory of Acceptance and Use of Technology) model by Venkatesh et al. (2003), ECM-IT model (Expectation-Confirmation Model in IT Domain) by Bhattacherjee (2001b), and models developed by Coyles and Gokey (2002), Heijden, Verhagen and Creemers (2003) and Bramall, Schoefer and McKechnie (2004). Starting from a preliminary qualitative research, loyalty attributes related to online and offline purchase transactions were identified. Based on these attributes, a field quantitative research was conducted and the collected data were submitted to uni, bi and multivariate statistical techniques. Results of this study have suggested that major part of buyers of books, CDs and DVDs is not loyal to suppliers (stores), and store location, for offline buyers, and pricing, for online buyers, are key factors for guaranteeing their return to the same store. Considering the loyalty to distribution channel, it was suggested that factors such as attitude toward using technology, trust and performance expectancy are more important for offline buyers to decide to go online, while factors such as satisfaction, post-consumption expectation confirmation, performance expectancy and facilitating conditions are more valuable for online buyers continuance.