Multi-Channel Shoppers

Decker Marketing has some good thoughts about the cause and effect relationship between multi-channel retailing and the amount customers spend. With all the hoopla about the fact that multi-channel customers are bigger spenders, the real issue is getting lost. Decker rightly asks:

Does a customer spend more because the company has multiple channels? Or do the best customers use multi channels?

This has been on my mind for a while. If all the additional business from multi-channel shoppers were incremental, then the overall sales increases/decreases would be making bigger headlines. I look forward to seeing more analysis of this phenomenon, but my hunch is that good multi-channel customers are simply a new subset of a retailer's existing customer base. Perhaps they are more profitable. Perhaps they are more satisfied and loyal due to the experience. And, yes, they may have already been the best customers.

More than anything, I'm looking forward to learning about how multi-channel shoppers affect market share. Specifically, I'd like to know if there are certain elements of multi-channel strategy that are much more successful than others. If so, how is this affecting consumer behavior in general? Who are the winners and losers?