Change in technology-enabled omnichannel customer experiences in-store

This paper explores changes in technology-enabled omnichannel customer experiences in stores over a five-year period (2014–2019). It contributes to the omnichannel-experience-management literature through customer technology-enabled touchpoints within fashion retail. Adopting an exploratory qualitative approach, primary data were obtained using semi-structured interviews with millennial consumers. The findings demonstrate the growing importance of implementing and integrating in-store technologies to improve customer experience. From these, two models are developed: “technology-induced customer experience in-store”; and “technology-enabled customer shopping journey in-store”.     

Consumer shopping value: An investigation of shopping trip value,in-store shopping value and retail format

Although delivering value is the key for retailers to create new competitive advantages, the literature on consumer shopping value is fragmented and findings are inconsistent. This study aimed to understand consumer shopping value in-depth by examining consumer shopping processes and experiences in two retail formats: mass merchandisers and department stores. This study conceptualizes consumer shopping value as having two components: shopping trip value and in-store shopping value. Shopping trip value is originated by fulfillment of general shopping motivations, and in-store shopping value stems from retail elements that create in-store shopping experiences that consumers have in specific retail contexts. Five shopping trip value dimensions and six in-store shopping value dimensions are identified from the in-depth interviews. The findings highlight how consumer shopping value is a complex and context specific construct.     

The Influence of Consumers’ Cognitive and Psychographic Traits on Perceived Deception: A Comparison Between Online and Offline Retailing Contexts

In this article, we examine the role of several consumers’ cognitive and psychographic traits in their perceptions of retailers’ deceptive practices (perceived deception) and the different effects on perceived deception associated with online vis-à-vis in-store shopping. Building on theoretical models of persuasion in consumer behavior, we hypothesize that the antecedents of perceived deception in traditional settings are the same as those on the Internet, while the intensity of the impact of these antecedents differs between the online and the offline environment. Results suggest that the effects of individual’s cognitive traits (Internet-based information search and perceived Internet usefulness) and risk aversion on perceived deception are more relevant when consumers shop online than when they purchase from traditional stores. Conversely, psychographic traits (shopping enjoyment and materialism) play a more important role in explaining perceived deception in the traditional shopping context as compared to the online channel. Several theoretical and managerial implications are derived from these findings.     

Impact of movie-watching on cross-selling revenue in shopping malls: Implications for post-pandemic recovery

The COVID-19 pandemic has prompted consumers to postpone in-store purchases and shift to online shopping, decreasing overall retail spending. As the global lockdown eases and shoppers return to offline stores and malls, shopping malls seek to facilitate in-store consumer experiences at entertainment facilities. Given the importance of entertainment facilities to the cross-selling revenue of shopping malls, we investigate the relationship between consumers' movie-watching and subsequent (hedonistic) grocery purchases. Our analysis of a panel database that includes transaction details at the consumer level shows that movie-watching is negatively correlated with consumer spending. Furthermore, consumers’ psychological states induced by content and contextual factors moderate the negative effect of movie-watching; after watching a fantasy (as compared to thriller) genre or watching a movie in a less crowded theater, consumers are more likely to make hedonic purchases at the supermarket. These findings provide theoretical and managerial implications for retail operators exploring cross-selling opportunities post-pandemic.     

Female consumers: Decision-making in brand-driven retail

This article is a theory-building exploratory study conducted to investigate how female shoppers make meaning in a branded-retail store shopping experience. This study extends research on retail consumers' decision-making and the retail shopping experience using hermeneutic phenomenology. The authors conducted in-depth interviews with respondents, who were self-identified customers of a leading intimate apparel retailer. The results suggest that consumers' retail shopping decision-making incorporates a complex set of interactive components that are brand-driven and simultaneously affect and are affected by the interaction of in-store shopping and retail setting. The findings show a rich understanding of the consumer decision-making process is achievable by including the actual in-store experience, consumers' prior contextual experiences and expectations regarding retail visits.     

Internet or store? An ethnographic study of consumers' internet and store-based grocery shopping practices

Drawing on practice theory, this paper develops an understanding of the interrelationships between where and when consumers shop (the internet, stores, and their preferred retailers), and what they purchase (via the internet and in-store). Ethnographic case studies are presented of two consumers’ internet and store-based shopping practices, and how these intersect with their everyday lives, using data generated from multiple, complementary methods over an eighteen-month period. To this end, the paper contributes to the extant internet grocery shopping literature by offering a wider understanding of internet usage, as well as to broader debates surrounding retail change and shopping practices. The managerial implications of internet shopping on the contemporary retail grocery environment are also described and discussed.     

Online shopping continuance after COVID-19: A comparison of Canada,Germany and the United States

The COVID-19 pandemic brought about an increase in online shopping because of government-imposed restrictions and consumer anxiety over the potential health risk associated with in-store shopping. By end of 2021, many health concerns had been alleviated through efforts such as vaccinations and reductions in hospitalizations in certain countries. Some governments started to relax their restrictions and consumers started to return to in-store shopping, creating the possibility that the volume of online shopping would decrease once stores reopened. However, consumers may continue to shop online more than they did prior to the pandemic because of their experience during the lockdown. This study seeks to understand the factors that explain the potential of online shopping continuance. A novel model is constructed by extending ES-QUAL, and adding hedonic motivation, social shopping and health susceptibility as mediators. Empirical data is collected from Canada, Germany and the US. We find that convenience and efficiency, as well as security for some females, are important factors contributing to online shopping's perceived usefulness and, ultimately, intentions to continue shopping online. In addition, creating an enjoyable online shopping experience adds to these continuance intentions.     

When nature calls: The role of customer toilets in retail stores

The scarce previous literature indicates that the customer toilet facilities influence shopping value and should be a concern for retailers. However, customer toilets are often inadequately capitalised in retail stores. This study aims to provide a scientifically robust argument about the critical role of customer toilets in retail stores. The explanatory survey data (n=655) from a Finnish out-of-town department store is examined to explore (1) the importance that consumers place on the customer toilets and (2) the effect of toilet usage on actual shopping behaviour. The results support the assumptions of previous literature by suggesting that customer toilets are considered as an important store attribute and, more importantly, the use of toilets is associated with prolonged in-store time which, in turn, increases spending. The findings offer both academic and managerial contribution and encourage academics and practitioners to regard customer toilets as more than mere an unwanted property expense and discover their full marketing potential.     

Examining the antecedents and consequences of perceived shopping value through smart retail technology

This study examines the antecedents and consequences of perceived shopping value through smart retail technology. Specifically, we propose that perceived complexity, perceived advantage, perceived novelty and perceived risk of using smart retail technologies determine consumers’ perceived shopping value, which, in turn, influences their store loyalty and intentions to adopt smart retail technology. Further, we propose that consumer innovativeness moderates these relationships. Survey responses from 338 actual shoppers with prior experience of smart retail technology were used to test the research model, while structural equation modelling was used to develop the proposed hypotheses. The present study offers a better understanding of consumer adoption of smart retail technology that may help managers to develop adoption strategies for successful implementation of smart retail technology in-store.     

Consumer-computer interaction and in-store smart technology (IST) in the retail industry: the role of motivation,opportunity, and ability

ABSTRACT

Recent advances in technology have led to the emergence of smart technology systems in brick-and-mortar stores. This study aims to explore the factors that influence customer adoption of in-store smart technology in a retail setting. By adopting the motivation, opportunity, and ability framework, the present study examines the role of relative advantage, perceived complexity, flow experience, enjoyment, retailer support, perceived attractiveness, technology readiness, and self-efficacy in customer perception of shopping effectiveness, which in turn, impacts their adoption intentions. By adopting a quantitative approach, a survey questionnaire was used to collect 747 responses from Australia and Indian retail shoppers. The results show that the motivation, opportunity, and ability framework provided a very insightful way for understanding customer adoption of IST. Specifically, we find significant differences in the role of flow, retailer support, and perceived attractiveness in determining customer evaluation of in-store smart technology for Australia and India. Findings have important managerial implications.     

The impact of “e-atmospherics” on physical stores

Marketing literature abounds with discussions of the importance of environmental and atmospheric variables for determining the consumer shopping experience. Through a field a study conducted in a toy brand flagship store, this research studies the effects of using two technologies in a physical toy store (magic mirror with augmented reality, interactive game terminals) on holistic perceptions of store atmospherics, affective reactions, and perceived shopping values, which should have consequences for satisfaction and patronage intentions. These results offer an initial exploration of the effect of new technologies on shopping experiences in physical stores; they confirm that digital in-store technologies and generalized multichannel consumer behaviors reduce boundaries between classical in-store atmospherics and e-atmospherics.     

The effects of in-store themed events on consumer store choice decisions

Retailers are increasingly using in-store events to provide shoppers with unique experiences that will enhance shopping value and help differentiate their stores from competitors. However, relatively little is known about how consumers respond to experiential retail events in terms of their store choice decisions. The purpose of this research was to find out how in-store retail events affect consumers in terms of their store choice decisions. The paper presents findings from a discrete choice experiment that manipulated the presence of different types of in-store themed events in a do-it-yourself (DIY) category. Participants were 312 randomly recruited residents of Melbourne, Australia, who had recently shopped at a hardware store. The experiment was implemented as a mail-back survey. Using logit models the authors assess the effects of the in-store events along with those of various traditional store attributes, including store appearance, price image and distance, on consumer store choice decisions.     

Investigating the impact of shopper personality on behaviour in immersive Virtual Reality store environments

The increasing availability of immersive Virtual Reality (VR) hardware in private households has opened up significant opportunities for innovations in online retailing. Online retailers can develop realistic, albeit simulated, three-dimensional retail environments that use immersive elements to create a more exciting online shopping experience. Nevertheless, to date, very little is known about how observed shopper behaviour in immersive VR store environments compares to existing knowledge in the physical or other online retail research literature. To that end, this paper focuses on human personality traits and whether these translate to familiar observations of in-store shopper behaviour. Specifically, the research examined the ‘Big Five’ personality traits – agreeableness, conscientiousness, extraversion, neuroticism, and openness to experience, and their impact on purchase behaviours such as product inspection time, proportion of private label purchases, and impulsive buying. It is further investigated how the purchase behaviours impact the outcomes of the shopping trip. The results revealed a variety of expected relationships between purchase metrics and the outcomes of the shopping trip; however, in stark contrast to the findings of extant studies, shopper personality did not show any impacts on the investigated purchase behaviours. Further research is needed to determine whether this failure to replicate past studies of shopper personality was, in fact, due to differences in the store environment or rather due to the moving from survey-based method of shopper data collection to naturalistic observation. Nonetheless, this finding has important implications for e-retailing strategies and market research practices.     

In-store music and aroma influences on shopper behavior and satisfaction

Retail markets are increasingly competitive and retailers continuously look to differentiate their retail offering. One way to differentiate is by providing a pleasant and exciting shopping ambience. This paper experimentally tests the effects of music (volume high or low) and aroma (vanilla scent present/absent) on young fashion shoppers in a real retail setting. Results show that volume of music and the presence of a vanilla aroma both have a significant impact on shoppers' emotions and satisfaction levels. Additional analysis reveals that the arousal induced by music and aroma results in increased pleasure levels, which in turn positively influences shopper behaviors, including time and money spend, approach behavior, and satisfaction with the shopping experience. Direct effects of arousal on behaviors as well as an interaction effect between music and aroma on pleasure and time spent in the store are also present. The paper contributes to the better understanding of shoppers' emotions and shopper behaviors in response to in-store atmospherics and offers retailers practical insights into how to create competitive advantage by customizing the atmosphere in their stores.     

Substitution or complementarity? How the Internet changes city centre shopping

The rapid expansion of the Internet has spawned a growing body of literature on the impact of online shopping (here called e-shopping) on physical shopping. This paper explores the impact of e-shopping on shopping at city centres in the Netherlands for 25 retail categories, using a sample of 3200 Internet users. Results indicate that in the short run, e-shopping is unlikely to have a significant effect on purchases at city centre stores. In the long run, however, e-shopping may well substitute for going to actual stores. Furthermore, consumers today frequently consult the Internet before making a purchase from a store, and the city centre constitutes a source of information before an online purchase is made. The impact of these events, however, differ largely among the various retail categories and types of Internet shoppers.     

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.     

Buying Groceries in Brick and Click Stores: Category Allocation Decisions and the Moderating Effect of Online Buying Experience

The large majority of online grocery shoppers are multichannel shoppers who keep visiting offline grocery stores to combine convenience advantages of online shopping with self-service advantages of offline stores. An important retail management question, therefore, is how these consumers divide grocery purchases across the retailer's online and offline channel. We provide a comprehensive analysis of the impact of category characteristics on the allocation pattern of multichannel grocery shoppers and find that category allocation decisions are affected not only by marketing mix differences between the online and offline channel, but also by intrinsic category characteristics like perceived purchase risk and shopping convenience. In addition, we examine the effect of online buying experience. In line with expectations, we find that it can affect allocation patterns in different ways: (i) it attenuates the perceived risk of buying sensory categories online, thereby reducing differences in online category share, (ii) it reinforces marketing mix (assortment) effects, thereby making online category share differences more pronounced, and (iii) it has no effect for factors such as promotions that are easy to evaluate without experience, thereby leaving the online category share stable. In addition to different experience effects across allocation factors, we also observe variations in experience effects across consumer segments.     

Effectiveness of In-Store Displays in a Virtual Store Environment

This article examines in-store display effectiveness in an online grocery store and concentrates on two main issues. First, considering the more artificial and functional virtual store environment, we examine whether online in-store displays (ISD) produce a similar boost in sales as they do in offline stores. Second, we examine the moderating effect of display characteristics by comparing the effects of different display types. The results show that (1) online ISD can substantially increase brand sales and (2) ISD that preempt competition through a first-order and isolated position outperform ISD that attempt to make the product stand out in the shopping zone.     

Shopping intention at AI-powered automated retail stores (AIPARS)

Artificial Intelligence (AI) is transforming the way retail stores operate. AI-Powered Automated Retail Stores are the next revolution in physical retail. Consumers are facing fully automated technology in these retail stores. Therefore, it is necessary to scrutinize the antecedents of consumers' intention to shop at AI-Powered Automated Retail Stores. This study delves into this area to find the predictors of consumers’ intention to shop at AI-Powered Automated Retail Stores. It extends the technology readiness and acceptance model by the addition of AI context-specific constructs such as Perceived Enjoyment, Customization and Interactivity from the present literature. The proposed model is tested by surveying 1250 consumers & the data is analyzed using the PLS-SEM technique and empirically validated. The outcome of the study reveals that Innovativeness and Optimism of consumers affect the perceived ease and perceived usefulness. Insecurity negatively affects the perceived usefulness of AI-powered automated retail stores. Perceived ease of use, perceived usefulness, perceived enjoyment, customization and interactivity are significant predictors of shopping intention of consumers in AI-powered automated stores. This research presents insightful academic and managerial implications in the domain of retailing and technology in retail.     

Rethinking flow: qualitative insights from Mexican cross-border shopping

The purpose of our study is twofold: (1) to conceptualize the flow construct in the offline retail environment not only as a psychological phenomenon but also as a sociocultural phenomenon by exploring related cultural variables and (2) to adopt a qualitative approach as a means to provide broader coverage of the likely factors associated with flow. We follow a grounded theory approach to formulate a conceptual model about the phenomenon of interest. Data collection includes semistructured in-depth interviews and a focus group. For data interpretation, we applied semiotic and narrative textual analyses. We propose a model of the antecedents leading to flow experience in the offline retail environment, introducing macro (sociocultural) factors and advancing micro (psychological) factors. Key elements of flow require a more refined definition in the offline retail environment. Several macro (cultural) attributes that influence Mexican shoppers' propensity to experience flow while either just browsing or fulfilling their shopping goals were identified. Retailers' efforts should be directed to providing opportunities for flow experience by articulating the right communication strategies. Qualitative methods uncovered a unique perspective exploring sociocultural characteristics and redefining individual characteristics of the offline retail shopping experience.