Exploring phygital omnichannel luxury retailing for immersive customer experience: The role of rapport and social engagement

Omnichannel retailing has revolutionized the way retailers create strategies for engaging customers in making purchase decisions. Phygital is a new-age transformative form of omnichannel retailing that emphasizes combining the physical and digital elements, with a particular focus on the human touch to satisfy social and symbolic consumer needs. Extant research has not fully addressed the role of phygital in luxury fashion retail. We explore the research question regarding how human interactions with experienced salespeople add value to the phygital experience. In doing so, we contribute to the luxury marketing literature by addressing the research gap by elucidating the role of phygital functionality in enhancing rapport building, social engagement, and developing trust and commitment, which results in a seamless customer experience, along with enhanced loyalty and patronage. Through 18 in-depth qualitative research interviews conducted with luxury retail managers and senior retail leaders, we provide guidelines to managers and practitioners at retail firms, to create actionable growth-oriented strategies focused on leveraging phygital capabilities.     

Bad behavior and conflict in retailing spaces: Nine suggestions to ease tensions

This article builds on years of work studying territoriality and conflict issues between customers and employees in retail and service settings. The key contribution of this research is to illustrate the bad behaviors and conflicts that take place in retail spaces between customers, between customers and employees, and between employees. Using multi-methods of data collection—critical incident technique, interviews, mystery shoppers, and surveys—the authors outline these bad behaviors and conflicts for managers and offer nine solutions to help retailers handle these behaviors and conflict in retail spaces.     

The end of the world as we know it? The influence of online channels on the luxury customer experience

Luxury brands claim to offer consumers pleasure and prestige and deliver high profits to retailers. While the global demand for luxury goods is increasing, consumers expect that the purchasing process these goods will accommodate their preferences on how, where, and when they want to purchase them. The changing nature of luxury markets and customers' purchasing behavior makes it necessary to understand why customers would choose an online channel to purchase luxury offerings. What are the features that make so appealing, attracting consumers towards them? Our study explores customers' motivations, the benefits and the experiences they are expecting and perceiving from the Online Luxury Experience (OLX). We examine the OLX and establish three corresponding luxury customer segments using online channels to purchase their luxury goods and services: the purists, opportunists, and e-lux. We highlight the differences between the segment's customer journeys and the implications for theory and luxury customer experience management.     

Customer satisfaction and retail sales performance: an empirical investigation

We measure the links between store attribute perceptions and customer satisfaction, and between customer satisfaction and sales performance. Our data set consists of six waves of customer satisfaction and sales data for about 250 retail outlets over the period 1998-2001 for a publicly held supermarket company. We construct a statistical model to address nonlinearities and asymmetries in the satisfaction-sales performance links, and we illustrate how retailers can affect store revenues by managing customer satisfaction. Contributions of our study include the analysis of behavioral consequences of customer satisfaction in the food retail sector, the accommodation of complexities in the satisfaction-sales performance links based on an empirical model of first differences, and a discussion of how managers can employ the results for customer satisfaction policies.     

Transformation of Metrics and Analytics in Retailing: The Way Forward

The retail industry is undergoing tremendous changes that are driven by technology, changing consumer tastes, economic pressures, competition, stakeholder relationships, environmental concerns, and governmental regulations. Our article explores analytics as a capability that helps retailers excel in this dynamic environment. We identify the reasons behind the trends in the retail industry and provide guidance for retail managers on how to improve customer relationship management using appropriate metrics and effective analytics. Our guidance to retail managers emphasizes the importance of brand recognition, explores tactics for enhancing customer experience, recommends establishing superior customer engagement, forging social connections among consumers, and rendering service and support to customers, and highlights a data-oriented approach to retailing. We conclude with suggestions for future research in this domain.     

The impact of reverse logistics process coordination on third party relationship quality: A moderated mediation model for multichannel retailers in the fashion industry

Multichannel retailing is a widely adopted strategy in the fashion industry. Companies in this industry find it a source of competitive advantage to invest in reverse logistics infrastructure. However, limited empirical studies investigate the enablers of the relationship quality between the retailers and their reverse logistics service providers. This study quantifies the impact of reverse logistics process coordination between retailers and logistics service providers on relationship quality. Moreover, it tests the mediating role of reverse logistics service quality and the moderating role of conflict frequency in this relationship. Data were collected through a survey using a purposive sample of 241 retail store managers from the fashion retail industry of Pakistan. For this purpose, a self-administered questionnaire was developed using a five-point Likert Scale to gauge the responses. Conditional process analysis was used to evaluate the moderated mediation model. The findings showed a significant positive impact of reverse logistics process coordination on the relationship quality with a logistics service provider, a significant positive mediation effect of reverse logistics service quality, and a significant moderation effect of conflict frequency on the indirect relationship. However, conflict frequency, contrary to the hypothesis in the study, strengthened the indirect relationship. Furthermore, the moderation effect of conflict frequency on the direct relationship was insignificant. This study will help managers better understand the best practices leading to effective management of reverse logistics processes, particularly product returns.     

Do Mystery Shoppers Really Predict Customer Satisfaction and Sales Performance?

Mystery shopping (MS) is a widely used tool to monitor the quality of service and personal selling. In consultative retail settings, assessments of mystery shoppers are supposed to capture the most relevant aspects of salespeople’s service and sales behavior. Given the important conclusions drawn by managers from MS results, the standard assumption seems to be that assessments of mystery shoppers are strongly related to customer satisfaction and sales performance. However, surprisingly scant empirical evidence supports this assumption. We test the relationship between MS assessments and customer evaluations and sales performance with large-scale data from three service retail chains. Surprisingly, we do not find a substantial correlation. The results show that mystery shoppers are not good proxies for real customers. While MS assessments are not related to sales, our findings confirm the established correlation between customer satisfaction measurements and sales results.     

Do Retailers Benefit from Deploying Customer Analytics?

Prior research has documented a general positive relationship between the deployment of customer analytics and firm performance. In this research we focus on the retailing industry, an industry characterized by tight margins that lead to careful scrutiny of all business investments. Using survey data from 418 top managers based in the Americas, Europe Middle East and Africa (EMEA) and Asia, we show that of the eight industries in the study, firms in the retail industry have the most to gain from deploying customer analytics. However, we also find that not only do many retailers not perceive this potential gain, they do not invest in customer analytics at an economically appropriate level. Thus we identify a gap between perception and reality concerning the potential for customer analytics in the retail industry that has both theoretical and practical implications.     

The Showrooming Phenomenon: It's More than Just About Price

This paper examines the factors that influence competitive showrooming, whereby consumers visit an offline retail store to gather information but make their purchase online at a competing retailer. We survey 556 respondents to study how the benefits and costs of showrooming influence the consumer's decision to showroom. Not surprisingly, we find that expected average price savings from showrooming are positively associated with showrooming. In addition, however, the perceived dispersion in online prices is also positively related to showrooming. Moreover, we find that non-price factors play a key role in consumers' showrooming decisions: perceived gains in the quality of the product purchased when showrooming (measured as the fit with a consumer's need) and waiting time for service in the brick-and-mortar store are positively associated with showrooming. Online search costs are negatively related to showrooming. Time pressure that consumers face when shopping is negatively associated with their propensity to showroom. We discuss implications for researchers and retail managers. For example, managers of offline retail stores can curtail showrooming by increasing the number of sales personnel available in-store instead of providing currently employed personnel with more training. To encourage showrooming, managers of online retailers should make it easier for the customer to search online.     

Retail Luxury Strategy: Assembling Charisma through Art and Magic

Luxury retail strategy differs from other retail strategies not merely in distinctive formulations of product, price, distribution, and appeals to customer distinction. Instead, it increasingly stands or falls on the legitimacy of a charismatic creative director. The director offers an aesthetic brand ideology. Luxury retail draws on the principles of art and magic to assemble the charismatic persona of the creative director and to diffuse his aesthetic ideology to the brand. Moreover, luxury retail strategy enlists magical and aesthetic principles within and without the store to achieve these ends. Finally, retail luxury is producer rather than consumer oriented and seeks to generate awe rather than community. This strategy appears to be to some extent a response to legitimacy crises provoked by recent strategic extensions of luxury brands into mass marketing. We offer some implications for marketing in which the charisma of a key personage is at stake.     

Making working in retailing interesting: A study of human resource management practices in Danish grocery retail chains

This paper discusses how five retail chains in the Danish grocery industry attempt to make low-wage, low-status store-level retail jobs as checkout operators and sales assistants interesting. It does so from the perspective of both retailers and employees. Following analysis of the social and institutional context of Danish grocery retailers, we identify three types of retail employees (transitional workers, core employees and career seekers), who have different motivations and aspirations for working in grocery retailing. The central challenge for retailers is to make store-level retail jobs interesting to the different employee types. Although retailers mainly focus their attention on career seekers, we find that working in retailing is interesting for all employee types because the retailers are currently able to meet their respective motivations and aspirations. Nevertheless, we identify several areas in which retailers can improve their practices.     

Relationship marketing in A B2C context: The moderating role of personality traits

More and more, retailers are investing in relationship building as a strategy for enhancing customer retention in the business-to-customer (B2C) context. However, some marketing scholars have expressed concern over the usefulness of relationship marketing under certain conditions. As such, this study investigates the moderating role of personality traits on the relationship between satisfaction-driven relationship quality and behavioral loyalty. Based on a sample of 158 retail shoppers, we find that customers’ overall satisfaction with the retailer leads to quality customer–firm relationships and ultimately, behavioral loyalty to the retailer. We also found that the impact of relationship quality on behavioral loyalty depends on the consumer's personality traits, i.e., consumer innovativeness, variety seeking, and relationship proneness. These findings extend the extant relationship literature by showing that the value of relationship marketing is not universal, thereby refining our understanding of the relationship between customer behavior and relationship marketing. Implications for academics and managers are discussed.     

How luxury retail will change forever – The role of atmospherics in the digital era

This article expands the seminal works of Jean-Charles Chebat on retail atmospherics to propose an alternative perspective on consumer behavior in a multi-channel luxury retail context. Building upon Klaus's (2020) work exploring the drivers for online luxury consumption, the research highlights which aspects of retail atmospherics are influencing the overall luxury retail customer experience. We discuss the implications this has for luxury retail management in detail and propose a complementary view on how the luxury CX will drive a distinct luxury retail design.     

Challenging the "integration imperative": A customer perspective on omnichannel journeys

Omnichannel literature largely assumes that retailers should integrate touchpoints across channels to promote seamless experiences. This paper challenges this assumption by exploring how perceived journey integration affects customer experience in omnichannel retailing. A qualitative study reveals that two dimensions of journey integration—consistency and connectivity—interact to form four patterns of omnichannel journeys, each prompting distinct experiences. When looking at this phenomenon through the customer’s perspective, we find that there are cases in which low consistency or connectivity can trigger positive experiences, contradicting extant literature. We then formulate research propositions that challenge the “integration imperative” in the omnichannel literature and provide managerial implications for retail firms that want to improve their customers’ experiences.     

Understanding Luxury Disposition

This article aims to provide a conceptual foundation for luxury disposition behavior in relation to luxury customer value and switching costs. The results of a study involving 398 luxury consumers in South Korea demonstrate the distinct typologies of luxury customer values and switching costs in cognitive (financial) and emotional (relational) dimensions as well as luxury disposition behavior as four different types. In addition, the conceptual framework on luxury disposition behavior reveals how luxury customers recognize customer value of luxury goods in perceiving switching costs upon disposition, which leads to different choices in disposition behavior. Theoretical and managerial implications are discussed for marketers or retailers in luxury fashion industry.     

The influence of task characteristics and job-related characteristics on retail salesperson selling orientation

This study examines the influence of task characteristics and job-related characteristics on the level of customer orientation exhibited by retail salespeople. The task characteristics examined are task variety, task autonomy, task identity and feedback. The job-related characteristics included in the study are job satisfaction, work motivation, organizational commitment, job involvement, role conflict, and supervisor–employee relationship. A survey using a self-administered close-ended questionnaire was conducted on retail salespeople from five major retailers in Singapore. Pearson correlation analysis revealed that the above factors, with the exception of role conflict, have significant influence on the customer orientation of retail salespeople. The six most important predictors of the customer orientation of retail salespeople identified by multiple regression analysis were task identity, organizational commitment, autonomy, education level, job satisfaction, and supervisor–employee relationship.     

The effect of a limited-edition offer following brand dilution on consumer attitudes toward a luxury brand

This research examines the impact of a luxury limited-edition offer in the face of core brand image dilution of a luxury brand. Through utilizing two millennial subgroups (college- vs. post-college age) as research participants in two studies, the findings suggest that in a brand dilution condition, the limited-edition product enhances consumers’ attitudes toward the luxury brand and that these effects are more pronounced for consumers with a higher self-presentation motive. We also find that college-age millennials are more strongly influenced by social influences than post-college age millennials. The implications for academic researchers and luxury brand retail managers are discussed.     

Retail Food Failures and Recovery Strategies in Switzerland

Abstract

Food retailers risk a loss of image or even a loss of the customer if they do not learn to react effectively to failures and improve their service strategy. First of all, the present research develops a typology of retail failures and recovery strategies for the food retail market in Switzerland. In the second step, the importance of the failures and the effectiveness of the recovery strategies employed by retailers are examined. Finally, three practical recommendations are given to retail managers in order to improve the service policy in food retailing.     

The Geometric Law of Annual Halving

We propose and test an empirical generalization: the probability that a customer will be active in a future window is reduced by half for every additional year the customer is inactive. We test this model over 6 nonprofit organizations and 30 B2C retail companies, and find that it fits very well. No significant differences in the decay constant were found between nonprofits and retailers, different customer groups defined by the frequency of previous purchases, or the length of the future period. The effect of frequency on the probability of future activity is empirically shown to follow the exponential learning curve. Norms are provided for asymptote, intercept and steepness coefficient.     

Management of sustainable fashion retail based on reuse– A struggle with multiple logics

ABSTRACT

In scholarly conversations, reuse is one of the common suggested strategies to render fashion retail sustainable. Previous research has stressed the complexity of fashion reuse and the importance of a well-organized system. The complexity stems from processes that involve many actors as well as products hard to evaluate. Consequently, it is challenging to organize reuse-based fashion retail, and studies are needed to further develop knowledge regarding how to manage such systems. Hence, the purpose of this paper is to highlight the complexity in the management of such an initiative, by identifying and explaining obstacles as well as implications. With institutional logics as a framework, three local logics (shopping mall, reuse, and work integration) are used to analyze the management of a reuse-based mall. Despite the mall’s success in getting sufficient donations and creating publicity, it has struggled to establish itself as viable reuse-based fashion retail. The findings illustrate the complexity created by the interplay of different logics and how the complexity influences both the daily and strategic management of the mall. Further, the outcome of this interplay depends largely on which rationality is enacted by involved actors. The study also extends literature on institutional logics, showing that differences in individual actors’ attention, knowledge, skills, coordination, and material conditions influence how logics are enacted and managed. We suggest that there are inherent managerial contradictions in the sustainable practices in fashion retail. Thus, in scholarly conversations, it is important to discuss what different divergent sustainability dimensions imply when seeking solutions for sustainable retail. In practice, there is a need to acknowledge and balance the presence of multiple logics, making it crucial to have competence in all logics. Also, managers of reuse-based fashion retail must consciously and continuously scrutinize their own strategies and actions to avoid an imbalance between the logics.