Abstract: Online and offline channels are complementary, and they positively affect new customer retention. As for online platforms, does the competition among them have a positive or negative impact on new customer retention? To this end, this paper constructs the SMC model and random-effects model, conducts empirical analysis based on a firm's new customers' multi-platform channel transaction data. The results show that, unlike competition among homogenous offline channels that reduce new customer retention, cross-platform purchase increases the overall retention rate and will not cause customers to churn from the new platform channel. Furthermore, as a mediator, customer retention increases new customers' value. After cross-platform purchasing, the retention rate of light customers increases more than that of heavy customers, while the latter could produce more value for the firm. Based on the empirical findings, this study puts forward the horizontal trust transfer to explain the underlining mechanism. From the perspective of the asymmetric structure of the horizontal trust transfer efficiency between online and offline context, it theorizes the general phenomenon that firms set up homogeneous stores on multiple online platforms. This study transforms the research on customer retention strategy from a static perspective to a dynamic one, and it promotes the research on the liquidity nature of online customers across platform channels.

Key words: new customer, cross-platform purchases, customer retention, multichannel, trust