When non-store meets in-store: mobile communications technology, servicescapes, and the production of servicespace

Abstract

This interpretative research contributes to the current literature on retailing by borrowing from an alternative conceptualisation of space, one grounded in Henri Lefebvre's spatial analysis. This new conceptualisation sheds a new light on the relative importance of both the built servicescape (e.g., the physical settings of a shopping mall) and mobile communications technology (e.g., cell phones) in the shaping of an individual's overall retail experience. An exploratory fieldwork reveals that shoppers leverage their mobile device to produce a customised lived space, within wich the servicescape is only one dimension of a multidimensional servicespace. Consequences for the role of the servicescape as a site of social centrality are discussed. This study also introduces the Day-In-A-Life (DIAL) protocol, a qualitative methodology adapted to the exploration of contemporary marketplaces, i.e., marketplaces where the online and the offline (i.e. brick-and-mortar) experiences are increasingly interweaved.