Co-creation of Experiences in Retail: Opportunity to Innovate in Retail Business

Abstract

What’s the best innovation strategy for retailers to differentiate from or to compete with their rivals and to achieve a sustainable and unique position in the very competitive retail marketplace? Should retailers engage customers and enhance affective customer loyalty by co-creating their experiences with them? An appropriate way to answer these questions is to create insight in and to understand customer experience and customer co-creation in retail business. In this chapter, we accomplish this by reviewing extant scientific research on customer experience, co-creation, and retail strategies and propose a conceptual framework for customer co-creation of experiences in retail business. We assert that the purpose of customer experience is to create and deliver value to both customers (via activities related to customer engagement and co-creation) and the retailer. Retailers can increase their competitive advantage by innovating with a focus on customer experience co-creation.