Retail Encounters Research Articles

Managing the co-creation of accessible and inclusive family recreation retail encounters: A critical incident analysis

Entertainment and recreation are pull factors for retail shopping malls and supercentres. For families in particular, recreation is a relevant part of their retail visits. However, families with children with disabilities (FCwD) continue to face access challenges in retail service environments. In this paper, we empirically explore how a value co-creation process undertaken with FCwD can enhance their perception of an accessible and inclusive family recreation retail visit. Our findings are based on a collaborative research project conducted in 2019 with a major shopping mall in the city of Barcelona, Spain. The methodology consisted of focus groups with stakeholders, ethnographic techniques and interviews with 20 FCwD using a constant comparative technique. The research design included two studies: Study 1, on the design of accessible and inclusive recreation retail encounters for FCwD, and Study 2, on the design of accessible and inclusive recreation retail encounters with FCwD. Using critical incident techniques (CIT), we found that the families perceived the recreation retail encounters in Study 2 to be more inclusive and accessible. From this research, we provide retail managers with recommendations for the successful design of inclusive family recreation retail opportunities in shopping malls.

How and why (imagined) online reviews impact frontline retail encounters

This research examines how frontline retail employees respond to customers whom they think might write an online review about their experience. Across six experiments (one field and five online) we show that when employees identify potential online review authors, often by what the customer says or does, it catalyzes them to deliver better service. This ensues because they experience a rise in determination to do well, motivated by the prospect of being associated with a positive review, which they believe will impress the retailer. Thus, they go ‘above and beyond’. However, determination is tempered by two boundary conditions. When employees (i) do not consider that being associated with an online review is beneficial (i.e., not goal relevant) or (ii) feel poorly equipped to serve the customer (i.e., low in self-efficacy), then a better service delivery will not occur. We also show that retailers can enhance customer service through internal championing of the importance of online reviews, so long as this is framed as promotional rather than punitive.

The moderating influence of brand image on consumers' adoption of QR-code e-wallets

In a post-pandemic era marked by thriving digital payments and e-commerce transactions due to physical distancing norms, the growth of mobile payments or E-wallets is expected to expand in tandem with the global trend toward cashless payment solutions. However, it is unclear whether this momentum would be sustained for over-the-counter (OTC) retail payments, particularly QR-code E-wallets, that are more affordable and accessible to merchants and customers than NFC-based (near field communication) systems in emerging markets. This study aims to model the interaction effects of brand image in shaping consumers’ E-wallet usage intentions. Incorporating a consumer-brand relationship element (i.e., brand image) should improve the understanding of consumers’ digital service experiences in proximity-based retail encounters. The research model was empirically tested using 305 responses from QR-based E-wallet users in the Klang Valley, Malaysia. Statistical analysis was performed using structural equation modeling (SEM) to test the hypotheses. An empirical examination of the model revealed effort expectancy, social influence, hedonic motivation, and perceived value as significant positive predictors of consumer usage intention. Furthermore, brand image was found to significantly strengthen the positive effect of perceived value and weaken the positive impact of hedonic motivation on the outcome. The study’s key contributions include reaffirming the crucial contingent role of brand image in consumer technology adoption studies and investigating consumer perceptions of QR-based E-wallets, which are expected to gain traction, especially in emerging markets. E-wallet providers should reinforce their value propositions by providing seamless, engaging, and easy-to-use experiences that improve users' brand perceptions.

Rapport building during retail encounters with embarrassed clients

In this paper we use qualitative data to identify how pharmacy frontline sales employees try to build rapport toward embarrassed clients using nonverbal interpersonal communication (NVIC). Upon doing so, we build on a conceptual framework where NIVC can create rapport in embarrassing situations, with the client usually preferring the salesperson who, through expressive similarity, connects himself/herself with the client’s emotion and behaves discreetly, preserving the client from unnecessary exposure. Four methods were triangulated, including the critical incident technique. Results show that rapport building on the part of these salespeople by means of NIVC toward embarrassed clients is eminently amateurish, as these employees do not receive any prior training to perform in a more professional way. A relevant academic contribution comes from challenging the preconception that the categories of rapport are mutually exclusive and exhaustive, allowing the initial conceptual framework to be reconfigured as a new category of rapport is included. In practical terms, this research is also distinctive, since it suggests that, as a peculiar locus for embarrassment, pharmacies take these clients’ emotion in a more serious way, searching for ways to mitigate it through better training of salespeople, as this effort may translate into higher customer satisfaction and loyalty.

Prestige of products and code-switching in retail encounters

ABSTRACTThe study examined code-switching in retail encounters involving sales personnel of cars, credit cards, beauty products, and food products with a Chinese customer. Altogether 27 retail encounters were audio-taped and transcribed. Analysis of the 14,944-word corpus was conducted using Gumperz’s [(1982). Discourse strategies. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press] model of conversational code-switching. The results showed that English and Hokkien were the main base languages for retail encounters involving a Chinese customer who could not speak Mandarin. English marked prestige of products, notably car and credit card, whereas beauty and food products were promoted in Hokkien or Malay. The main code-switching functions were referential functions and interjections (41.57% and 39.36% of 907 instances, respectively). The most common referential function was product description. Reiteration accounted for 9.92% of the code-switching instances but message qualification, personalisation versus objectivisation, address specification, and situational code-switching were minimally present. Product type did not influence frequency of code-switching for interjection but it affected referential functions and reiteration. Referential function was the least frequent in credit card retail encounters and reiteration was the most frequent in food retail encounters. The findings on the high frequency of reiterations and the minimal use of code-switching for personalisation showed that clarity is more important than solidarity in retail encounters.

New retail versus traditional retail in e-commerce: channel establishment, price competition, and consumer recognition

The concept “new retail” in e-commerce is to establish an offline channel and integrate it with the online retail channel. The development of new retail encounters three main problems: locations of the offline stores, the price competition with the traditional online retail, and the difficulty in consumer recognition in the two channels. In this paper, we present a duopoly model consisting of a new retail firm and an online firm, which sell the same product in two periods. The two firms compete for the market share using the behavior-based pricing (BBP), which means that in the second period each firm offers different prices to consumers with different purchasing histories/behaviors in the first period. We also solve the benchmark pricing model, where the histories/behaviors are not considered. The results of this paper provide valuable insights to the development of new retail in e-commerce. In the Nash equilibrium, each price of the new retail firm is higher than the corresponding price of the online firm due to a higher channel cost for the offline stores and high-speed deliveries. Under certain condition, the new retail firm will establish an offline channel with a larger hassle cost, which is a measure of the easiness of reaching the offline stores by the consumers, in the BBP model than that in the benchmark model. Interestingly, the difficulty in consumer recognition results in that the new retail firm occupies more market share and may obtain higher profit.

Epic Aspects of Retail Encounters: The Iliad of Hollister

Much has been written about myth and the marketplace. Consumer research has added immeasurably to academics’ appreciation of the myths that inhere in fabulous flagship stores and experiential retailing more generally. Studies of consumer mythopoeia, however, have tended to muffle the martial side of retailing, the heroic struggles that some customers undergo in-store. This article argues that the epic offers valuable insights into martial matters, and more. Although epic and myth overlap, they are far from identical. The former is characterized by conventions that can help illuminate consumers’ quests, not least their disturbing journeys through the underworld. These are considered in relation to Hollister (HCo), a phenomenally successful retail chain that’s renowned for its antithetical atmospherics and inky interior design. A qualitative study of Hollister lovers and haters casts light on the epic in action and adds to scholars’ understanding of immersive retailing experiences.

Trust during retail encounters: A touchy proposition

Adopting an interpersonal communication perspective, this study examines the propositions that a salesperson's touch increases trust, which increases product evaluations and purchase intention. These relationships are evaluated in a contact and non-contact culture, with need for touch (NFT) examined as an additional moderator. An exploratory series of in-depth interviews provides an initial understanding of these relationships, followed by a 2 (touch/no touch condition)×2 (consumers in France/Germany) experiment with wine serving as the example category. The findings indicate that touch does not uniformly instill trust in customers. Instead a salesperson's touch relates to greater trust only when consumers have an inherent NFT or when they are from a culture where personal touching behavior is less prevalent. Trust, in turn, relates positively to evaluations of product attractiveness, quality, and to purchase intention.

Retail and Service Encounters: The Inter-Cultural Tourist Experience

This study explores consumer perceptions of inter-cultural retail and service encounters. Previous research has shown that culture influences perceptions of service received. This research builds on what is known with the use of a consumer ritual research framework that involves the use of a semi-structured, thick-description method to examine similarities to and differences from what is considered a typical tourist encounter. The themes identified provide evidence of a “culture cushion” that serves an insulating role in reducing the potential negativity relative to overall perceptions and evaluations of the experience.

Small Independent Merchants and Transnational Retail Encounters on Main Street: Some Insights from Bangkok

The aggressive expansion of retail transnational corporations is changing the face of much of emerging Asia's urban environment and prompting policy-makers to consider responses. Using cross-sectional survey data from 30 districts in Bangkok, this paper explores two issues: the impact of transnational, large-format retail on small, independent merchants; and, the ways in which the latter are attempting to cope with the stress associated with the arrival of the former, based on self-reported subjective measures of immediate marketing responses, sustained marketing efforts and organisational performance. The findings suggest that surviving incumbent merchants compete in different and mostly unfavourable environments compared with the status quo ante, with the overwhelming majority of these incumbents reporting negative impacts. In addition, the various responses of many of the incumbent independent merchants suggest that the latter may be unable to reverse the impact of the large retailers' arrival.

The bargaining genre: A study of retail encounters in traditional Chinese local markets

This article characterizes a spoken genre, bargaining, found in retail encounters in traditional markets in southern China. Analysis of substantive acts in 38 tape-recorded interactions shows that verbal and nonverbal actions within the event carry a small set of illocutionary forces germane to negotiating price and quantity. Analysis of ritual acts that mark boundaries of the event shows that participants behave primarily as outgroup persons seeking to transact business. Bargaining hence constitutes a primary genre (Bakhtin 1986), a textual form that shows domination of a transaction frame over a consultation and a valet frame, and a communicative purpose that is tightly circumscribed around the exchange of commodities and not relationship. A socially oriented form of genre analysis is apt for elucidating the speakers' strategic use of generic resources, as well as investigating development in retail marketing in the PRC, marked by growing popularity of new retail outlets and changing consumer attitudes.

Identity, Ethnicity and Gender: Using Narratives to Understand their Meaning in Retail Shopping Encounters

This paper examines the ways in which two women (Sweetie and Desiree) experience a dissatisfying retail encounter. Citing data derived from memory-work methodology, we illustrate how stories can be used to gain a detailed insight into the complexity of consumption experiences and give voice to women consumers. By allowing women to write about, and critically reflect on their experiences, we show how consumers attach meaning to retail encounters and how we, as researchers can offer alternative interpretations of consumer behavior to those commonly reported in the literature. In this paper we use memories of "nasty" retail encounters to illustrate how social constructs related to identity, such as ethnicity and gender, have meaning in shopping experiences. Because of the new understandings possible via this method, we argue for using reflexivity in our research and analyses informed by feminism.

Customers’ perspectives on service quality and relationship quality in retail encounters

This paper examines the relationship between service quality and overall relationship quality on two levels of retail relationships (employee and company level). Responses were received from 1,261 shoppers in a retail chain departmental store setting in Victoria, Australia. Findings indicate that there is a positive and direct relationship between service quality and relationship quality. The results show that empathy is the most significant contributor to relationship quality at both the employee and company levels. Implications for the management of customer relationships are discussed, while limitations and future research directions are proposed.

Warmth during non-productive retail encounters: the hidden side of productivity

Productivity in retailing usually has been narrowly defined in short term economic performance. Although this is important, underlying salespersons' decisions are at work. As the core encounter of the entire value adding process from beginning to end, the interaction between salespeople and customers in the final step before consumption must be vital to understand the underlying human factors at work. We argue that this `soft' side (human factor) determines the `hard' productivity outcomes and that the dynamics of the service delivery process must be understood. Therefore, in this paper the point of sale has been studied second-by-second from the customer perspective to simulate how evaluations and perceptions vary during the encounter. By mapping the dynamic aspects we attempt to unravel the hidden side of how productivity is generated. The results obtained in two different `non-productive' retail encounters show that there is a substantial correlation between perceived warmth during the service encounter as a measure of perceived relationship and likeability, perceived service quality and loyalty.

Older Salespeople's Role in Retail Encounters

The study investigated the role of older salespeople for serving older customers, specifically within the retail sales encounter, in two phases (Phase I of focus group interviews and Phase II of survey research). For each phase of the study, differences in customers' attitudes toward older and younger retail salespeople were examined. In general, older customers had more favorable attitudes toward older retail salespeople than toward younger salespeople. The study also demonstrated that greater favorability is not felt for younger sales personnel by younger customers. In fact, both older and younger customers indicated that older retail sales personnel showed more interest in helping them, were more likely to provide clothing information, and showed more respect for them as customers.