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It is well known that online shopping is growing, but recent reports have indicated that e‐retailers are failing to deliver. In this paper, the authors consider aspects of shopping and shopping styles, comparing e‐shopping with bricks and mortar. First, a small exploratory pilot study comparing Internet vs an exemplar shopping centre, and comparing the centre with an “ideal” centre is reported. In this initial stage, the respondents were selected as the “shoppers of tomorrow” – sixth‐form students – more Web‐literate than older age groups. Second, the results of a further small exploratory pilot study are reported with slightly more mature shoppers – university students. The qualitative findings from this stage of the research form the basis for our conclusions. Finally, we speculate on the possible future of shopping.

Using a continuous dataset, the purpose of this study is to explore the evolution of retailing in the historical city centre of Utrecht between 1974 and 2003.

Following an evolutionary framework entropy statistics and sector analysis are used to investigate the structural changes that have occurred over this period.

The results indicate important changes over time. First, there is a decline of shops selling daily and space consuming goods. Second, the expansion of some sectors and the emergence of new sectors has compensated fully for the loss of these shops. The success of some of these sectors is related to the rise of recreational shopping. Despite increased competition of “out‐of‐town” retailing and other forms of retailing, Utrecht's historical city centre has remained on top of the retail hierarchy in The Netherlands by transforming itself into an attractive location for recreational shopping.

The results indicate that new policies should encourage retail entrepreneurship to adapt to ever changing socio‐economic and spatial contexts. Furthermore, in most sectors that are under pressure, possibilities exist to shift to related categories through what may be called upgrading.

In the main, the data investigate sector dynamics. Future research on the evolution of retail locations using time‐series, therefore, should try to include more variables, like floor space, organisation type, etc. which can also provide explanations for the patterns of structural change.

The paper has introduced entropy statistics as a new technique to analyse sector variety dynamics of retail locations, since it captures both the number of sectors and the skewness of distribution.

A current technological trend, which has gained even more traction recently due to the COVID-19 pandemic, is the use of augmented reality (AR) in shopping environments. AR is addressing contemporary challenges rooted in online shopping (e.g. in terms of experientiality and try-on) and is fundamentally reshaping consumers' experiences. The purpose of this study is to provide a synthesized and structured overview of the state-of-the-art research focused on AR shopping.

The authors conduct a systematic literature review of the empirical academic corpus focused on shopping via AR technology.

The review reveals the diverse psychological (cognitive, affective, and social) as well as behavioral outcomes related to the use of AR in the shopping context. The authors integrate the results into a framework for AR induced consumer behavior in shopping, thereby providing an important overview of the dynamics in AR-related shopping and the factors influencing the adoption of the technology by consumers. Specifically, the authors encountered that the technological abilities of AR (e.g. in terms of interactivity, vividness, informativeness, etc.) are a source for enhanced utilitarian and hedonic shopping experiences that can support intentions to purchase a product, reuse an AR app, or recommend it to others. Importantly, our review reveals the demand for several avenues for future research.

The authors provide an overview and synthesis of how and where AR is employed in shopping contexts, what theories and technological characteristics of AR are commonly analyzed, and what psychological and behavioral outcomes AR has been found to evoke. Based on our findings, the authors derive a framework that illustrates the dynamics in AR shopping and give an in-depth discourse on 13 future research agenda points related to thematic, theoretical, methodological, and technological matters.

To investigate web‐shopping behaviour in Hong Kong: identification of the general attitude towards web‐shopping; relationships between past web‐shopping experience, attitude towards web‐shopping, adoption decisions, search behaviour and web‐shopping intentions; and influences of promotional offers and product categories on web‐shopping intentions.

Relevant hypotheses were constructed and a web‐based questionnaire survey was than conducted using technically educated subjects. The proposed hypotheses were statistically tested and principal components analysis and structural equations were used to produce a structural model.

Web‐shopping intentions are directly affected by web‐search behaviour and web‐shopping adoption decisions, and are indirectly affected by web‐shopping attitudes, past web‐shopping experiences and past experience with the web. Web‐search behaviour was a stronger factor than adoption decision in terms of influencing web‐shopping intentions. The presence of promotional offers had a positive effect on web‐shopping intentions, and web‐shopping intentions were different for different product categories.

The sample employed was composed of technically educated undergraduates and graduates and thus limiting generalizations to a higher levels.

Experienced internet users and experienced web‐shoppers are more likely to be potential future web‐shoppers. Those who have a general dislike for shopping and who tend to buy in a great haste when the purchase becomes absolutely necessary may eventually be another group to become web‐shoppers.

The primary value of this paper lies in extending the understanding of Hong Kong web‐shopper behaviour, and in developing an empirical model that can partly explain the processes leading to web‐shopping intentions.

The purpose of this paper is to identify the representations, figures and processes of shopping/commerce in books published in France that are aimed at three to seven-year-olds.

A semiotic analysis of nearly 50 books published over the past 60 years.

These books reveal a broad diversity in the images of shops given to children (ranging from the traditional shop, a source of pleasure and creator of social ties, to the hypermarket/megastore, a symbol of stress and overconsumption) and the wealth of information that is given to children to help them assimilate the process of a shopping transaction.

The originality and richness of this research lies in its methodological approach. Indeed, it is perfectly aligned with a recent academic trend that calls on researchers to mobilise and compare new data collection tools to apprehend current and future consumer behaviour. Consequently this research is based on an immersion in children’s books that depict the world of commerce in one way or another.

There have been recent calls for research into the impulse shopping behaviours of adolescent consumers – an important topic because adolescents are: an increasingly important market segment; a segment which has recently been empowered by the availability of easy credit; and which is increasingly targeted by strategic marketing collateral. This paper responds to the call by aiming to focus on the impulse shopping behaviours of adolescents.

The research is qualitative in nature and utilises lengthy mini focus group interviews of both adolescent and adult consumer shoppers. The verbatim transcriptions are then subjected to both manual and automated textual analysis to derive conceptual and thematic maps of each group's discussions in relation to impulse shopping.

Consistent with recent neuropsychological literature on adolescents, the findings show clear differences between adolescents and adults in relation to impulse shopping. Significant differences were found in the areas of antecedent moods, shopping purpose, and the range of perceived constraints which may moderate impulse shopping behaviour. The research also shows that impulse buying among adolescents is a behaviour which is undertaken often in response to stress and/or a need for mood amelioration and further that their conceptualisation of impulse shopping is only distantly related to a deficient set of perceived constraints when compared to adult shoppers.

This improved understanding of the bases of adolescent impulse shopping will assist in the design of educational programs to reduce the frequency of adolescent financial problems.

There may be a reduction in the number of adolescents facing resultant financial hardship.

This is the first such study which reports the belief structures of adolescent impulse shoppers versus adults.

Retail shopping behaviour is one of the major tenets of the retail marketing literature. The purpose of this research is to presents the empirical findings of two quantitative studies of Estonian and Canadian university students' interpretation and perceptions of retail shopping behaviour.

Paper and pencil questionnaires administered in Estonia and Canada. The data was analysed from two perspectives. The first was to determine if the retail service quality construct differed between the two samples, and secondly to use using confirmatory factor analysis, and regression analysis to test a model of shopping behaviour and to make comparisons between the shopping behaviour of university students in the two countries.

The results indicate a level of commonality in retail shopping perceptions, as well as non‐trivial differences in how shopping practice in terms of the construct structure, and individual service drivers, should be theorized. The Canadian sample indicated a greater focus on retail service quality perception at the sub‐dimension level while the Estonian sample indicated a greater focus on retail service quality at an overall or integrated level.

The findings are limited as to the consumer type (university students) selected. This limitation is lessened as the university age sector represents one of the most dynamic and growing segments of the Estonian retail market.

Retail sales per capita within Estonia, and the other Baltic states, represents the fastest growing region in the European Union. Thus, there is a need for empirical and academic research that attempts to highlight the transferable (i.e. western) and the solely domestic consumer knowledge that will allow this growth to continue. Caution needs to be taken when simply implementing best retail practices from the West as erroneous conclusions may be drawn. It may not be the practices from the West that are fuelling the retail success, and thus research such as this helps to draw attention to the need to understand the more sustainable localized nature of retail shopping behaviour.

This paper represents an initial focus on an unknown area of retailing research.

Consumers are spending more on leisure, and retailers and shopping centre developers are seeking ways to make shopping more of a leisure pursuit. This paper deals with the questions: what is leisure shopping, who are leisure shoppers, what is leisure retailing, and how are shopping centres providing for them?

Brief reviews of key research domains establish various meanings for leisure shopping and give some indications of who leisure shoppers are. Recent developments in shopping centres are considered. The last section discusses conceptual models, building on earlier empirical work on the functioning of shopping centres which incorporate leisure activities.

Leisure shopping is not best conceptualized as part of a continuum from purposive to leisure oriented. Rather, it may exist in a variety of circumstances, dependent on individual characteristics, trip motivations, the social setting of the trip and the nature of the destination. Leisure centres are not a separate category of centre, but the classification of shopping centres should be modified to incorporate consideration of leisure. Catering may be the most important provision.

Shopping centre managers and owners should note the complexity of leisure shopping. The best unit of analysis may be the trip, rather than other forms of customer segmentation. Synergistic benefits for retailers from some forms of adjoining leisure activity may be small.

The paper provides two models which may be used to analyse both shopping activity and shopping centres from the leisure point of view.

This study aims to increase the understanding of the drivers of mobile shopping, by analyzing when and how two personality traits – value consciousness and shopping enjoyment – impact mobile shopping intention through usefulness and ease-of-use perceptions.

To test the conditioned indirect effects, path analysis is used.

The results indicate that both consumers’ value consciousness and shopping enjoyment have a positive indirect effect on mobile shopping intention. However, shopping enjoyment is related only through usefulness, whereas value consciousness is related via both usefulness and ease of use. The results also suggest the need to consider boundary conditions when examining the impact of personality traits.

Mobile retailers need to conduct market segmentation based on users’ personalities when trying to increase their customer base.

Despite the relevance of personality traits on individual behavior, studies on the effects that different aspects of personality have on the participation of individuals in mobile commerce are very scarce and show inconsistent results regarding their impact. Thus, this study tries to contribute to the mobile commerce research by analyzing the interplay between two customer characteristics and two mediating variables: ease-of-use and usefulness perceptions.

Esta investigación busca aumentar la comprensión de los antecedentes de las compras móviles, analizando cuándo y cómo dos rasgos de personalidad – conciencia de valor y disfrute por la compra – afectan a la intención de compra móvil a través de las percepciones de utilidad y facilidad de uso.

Para comprobar los efectos indirectos condicionados propuestos se emplea un análisis path.

Los resultados indican que tanto la conciencia de valor como el disfrute por la compra de los consumidores tienen un efecto indirecto positivo en la intención de compra móvil. Sin embargo, el disfrute por la compra se relaciona sólo a través de la utilidad, mientras que la conciencia de valor se relaciona tanto a través de la utilidad como de la facilidad de uso. Los resultados también sugieren la necesidad de considerar factores moderadores al examinar el impacto de los rasgos de personalidad.

Los minoristas a través del móvil que quieran aumentar su base de clientes necesitan segmentar el mercado en base a la personalidad de los usuarios.

A pesar de la relevancia que tienen los rasgos de personalidad en el comportamiento de los individuos, los estudios sobre los efectos de distintos aspectos de la personalidad sobre la participación de los individuos en el comercio móvil son muy escasos y muestran resultados inconsistentes. Así, este estudio intenta contribuir a la investigación sobre comercio móvil analizando la relación entre dos características del consumidor y dos variables mediadoras: las percepciones de facilidad de uso y utilidad.

The purpose of this paper is to uncover the motivational tensions underlying mobile shopping (m-shopping) behaviours. The authors focus on consumer motivations and the pursuit of life end goals with respect to m-shopping.

Based on the means-end chain theory, hard-laddering approach was used to elicit associations between attributes, consequences and values from 251 online participants. Content analysis was used to develop a hierarchical value map “mapping” these associations to uncover underlying values for m-shopping.

Mobile shoppers are motivated by their self-actualisation needs (self-focused) and/or social needs (other-focused). Participants’ response contradictions reflected internal complexities and ambivalences during their purchasing decisions. Decisions are based on their concerns around security, time, technological or financial.

This study provides managerial insights into retail marketing and strategies. Marketers should consider creating user-friendly applications by researching the customer journey experience, heightening security measures and ensuring that added-value offers are clearly communicated to meet consumers’ personal values and motivations.

The paper presents an original conceptual contribution of personal values related to m-shopping as desires for self-empowerment, altruism and relationships with others, self-fulfilment and hedonism and possible consumer internal conflicts.