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The predominant role played by large-scale retailers in consumer goods markets has led to substantial changes in the promotion and advertising flows of companies operating in this sector. Manufacturing companies are in fact investing an increasingly larger share of their resources in communication strategies managed by retailers by way of in-store communications, taking advantage of both traditional and digital media. As a result, besides being a place of purchase, the point of sale has become an environment where customer relationships are being built and developed over time. In this book chapter, we take a closer look at current in-store communications via cutting-edge digital media solutions designed to boost customer experience and brand loyalty. To gain a better understanding of these new forms of communication, we have also conducted a qualitative case study on “The Supermarket of the Future,” a new retail format recently launched by Coop Italia in Milan, using data from different sources, including internal and external document reviews and in-store observations. Overall, this study outlines an innovative customer relationship format consistent with an omni-channel approach and informative in-store communications integrating traditional and new digital media.

Current food consumption patterns contribute negatively to greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and climate change. Positioned at the interface between producers and consumers, retailers have the potential to reduce this problem through informing their customers on the consequences of their actions. The purpose of this paper is to understand the variety of ways European retailers go about informing their customers on the linkage between food choice and climate change as well as which actions they advocate in-store to reduce the problem.

In-store walkthroughs lasting between 40 minutes and 1.5 hours were carried out at 30 grocery stores in five European countries to identify climate mitigating communications. The observations targeted any message produced and transmitted by the retailer where links between food and climate change were drawn.

The diversity in climate mitigating food communication we expected to find across Europe did not materialize. Only four out of the 30 retailers visited transmitted to their customers any information showing a direct link between food consumption and climate change. Indirectly, the authors found some retailers communicating food choices believed to lead to GHG reduction without linking them to climate change. Finally the authors found several retailers communicating what the authors argue are ambiguous messages to their customers where sustainability issues were confounded with climate ones. The dearth of climate mitigating food communications reveals the complexity in informing customers on such issues but also a possible lack of interest on the part of both parties.

This research contributes empirically to knowledge of how retailers communicate climate mitigating food consumption to consumers.

Commonly, supermarkets are perceived as more sustainable than discount stores, which are accused of following an aggressive price and no-frills approach. Therefore, the purpose of this paper is to investigate whether supermarkets and discounters differ substantially in their sustainability communication.

Sustainability reports and in-store communication are two important channels for retailers’ sustainability communication. To analyze both communication channels, the authors use a multi-method approach with data triangulation, analyzing sustainability reports and store observations of eight German retailers (two supermarket chains, six discount chains).

The study reveals no major differences between supermarkets and discounters regarding the readability of sustainability reports and the number of key figures on sustainability presented. However, supermarkets perform significantly better in translating sustainability to the store level than discounters. Furthermore, the results indicate that poor quality in the readability analysis is reflected in fewer concrete data provided in the sustainability reports and poorer translation of sustainability to the retail store.

This paper presents an empirical analysis of how well German retailers communicate about sustainability on both the report and the store level for the interest of academia and retail managers. It reveals different performance qualities among retail chains and retail formats and identifies the shortcomings within current reporting legislation with a clear indication toward policy makers.

The aim of this research work is to consider the relevance of corporate social responsibility (CSR)-related social media communication in franchise networks, with a focus on the perceptions and expectations of franchisors and franchisees and franchisors and franchisees' customers.

Three studies were conducted as part of this research: two qualitative studies with franchisors and franchisees in the first instance (N = 39) and franchisors and franchisees' customers in the second instance (N = 13), as well as an online ethnographic study of customer reactions (N = 871) to different CSR communications from the networks already interviewed.

The results show that CSR communication remains very important in a context characterised by a growing interest in CSR commitment in companies in general and in franchise networks in particular. However, different conditions of effectiveness of this CSR communication have been identified. The different conditions can avoid CSR's detrimental effects and increase CSR's credibility.

In franchise networks, the task of communicating about CSR is complex. This requires the integration of franchisees, which are very important to CSR's success. CSR communication also requires integrating customers by studying their expectations at this level. This study gives the basic keys to the success of CSR communication in franchise networks, from the point of view of franchisors, franchisees and the customers of franchisors and franchisees.

This study focusses on a topic that has received very little attention, particularly in franchise networks. The various studies conducted allow us to better understand the particularities of CSR communication, particularly in the context of tripartite franchisor–franchisee–customer relations.

This study focuses on memorable customer shopping experience design in the sporting goods retail setting. It aims to identify the phygital customers' needs and expectations that are satisfied through in-store technologies and to detect the in-store strategies that use these technologies to make the store attractive and experiential.

This exploratory study adopted a qualitative research methodology, specifically a multiple-case study, by performing semi-structured interviews with sporting goods store managers.

Sporting goods retailers use various in-store technologies to create a phygital customer shopping experience, including devices, mobile apps, wireless communication technologies, in-store activations, support devices, intelligent stations, and sensors. To improve the phygital customer journey and the phygital shopping experience, retailers meet customers' needs for utilitarian, hedonic, social, and playfulness experiences. Purely physical or digital strategies, as well as phygital strategies, are identified. This research also proposes a model of in-store phygital customer shopping experience design for sporting goods retailers.

Sporting goods managers can invest in multiple technologies by designing a physical environment according to the customers' needs for utilitarian, hedonic, social, and playful experiences. In addition, they can improve the phygital customer shopping experience with specific push strategies that increase customer engagement and, in turn, brand and store loyalty.

This study highlights how the phygital customer experiential journey can be created through new technologies and improved with specific reference to the sporting goods stores.

The wide literature about healthy behaviours posits that a high level of self-control is required in order to make healthy choices. This work intends to demonstrate that retailers, through the management of in-store marketing levers, can influence shopping behaviour, no matter which is the individual tendency to engage in cognitive behaviours. For this specific purpose, we have considered participants' “Need for Cognition” as a proxy of self-control.

With reference to a specific category (cookies), we created a new display based on benefits (healthy eating) rather than products' attributes. A pre-test was conducted before the main experiment in order to assess the potential ability of the new nutritional display to help customers selecting healthier products, by testing participants' awareness and comprehension of the stimuli proposed. Then, an online between-subjects experiment was conducted by simulating the shoppers' expedition in the cookies' aisle inside a store with the aim to demonstrate that healthy choices can be also made on impulse.

Our findings showed that when both communication and visual cues are provided, people low in need for cognition (NFC) are more willing to select healthy products from the shelf, compared with people high in NFC.

While there is a wide literature explaining the mechanisms supporting healthy choices, fewer are the contributions about the role of retailers in promoting healthy eating through in-store marketing levers. More important, there is no contribution about how to promote health among people with low level of self-control.

The purpose of this paper is to propose and empirically test a research model encompassing marketing mix activities as antecedents of non-private label consumers’ switching intention, particularly from an emerging market perspective. The study also aims to test the moderating role of general neophobia and gender.

Focusing on non-private label consumers, the study analyzed a total of 211 questionnaire responses. Partial least squares structural equation modeling was used to test the research model.

The results suggested that marketing mix activities, particularly advertising, in-store communication, and monetary promotion positively influenced private label brand attitude. Attitude positively influenced switching intention. The proposed moderating effects of general neophobia and gender in the relationship between private label brand attitude and switching intention were supported.

This study provides empirical evidence to the effects of marketing practices on private label brand attitude from an emerging market perspective, complementing previous research which largely focused on developed market. The findings offer managerial ideas in targeting non-private label consumers. The test of moderating variables expands the understanding on attitude-intention link.

This study aims to extend the study of COVID-19 effects by identifying different consumer behaviors beyond panic buying during the pandemic.

A systematic review was based on Herjanto et al.’s (2020a) thematic analysis and Paul et al.’s (2021) 5W1H framework, and the authors analyzed 52 related papers.

The result findings indicated that during the COVID-19 pandemic, consumers fell into five different consumer behavior categories: health-related behaviors, consumption behaviors, ethical behaviors, behavioral intentions, and other related behaviors, and social connectedness behaviors. Findings show that consumer behaviors were increasingly complex and dynamic during the pandemic.

This systematic review will provide significant contributions to academia by offering general and technical insights and to practitioners by presenting guidelines on dealing with such different behaviors.

The increased acknowledgement of the problems associated with food waste has triggered a number of social and commercial initiatives for the re-distribution of suboptimal foods (SOFs). This paper aims to explore a variety of such initiatives and discuss their prospects, considering the commercial contingencies of the food supply system.

The exploration is based on a multi-country study of cases representing three initiatives related to the reduction of waste from SOFs, i.e. social supermarkets (SSMs), food banks and expiration date-based pricing practices. The collected data comprise expert interviews, store-check observations and secondary material; the data are analyzed from a marketing practice perspective.

The analyses indicate that the distribution and re-distribution of SOFs are moving toward normalization, that the diffusion of expiration date-based pricing through all food retailing formats is likely to continue, that food banks – despite reports of dwindling supplies of SOFs – are likely to increase their expansion and that SSMs face a variety of challenges, e.g. as regards their supply of SOFs and their customers’ preferences for stable assortments.

By synthesizing data from various European implementations of re-distribution practices, this article contributes to the understanding of the viability of such practices. Developing this understanding should benefit social and commercial entrepreneurs, as well as policymakers, when designing and implementing initiatives for the reduction of waste from SOFs.

Environmental concern is getting increasing importance in consumer shopping decisions. Nevertheless, to date, sustainable packaged foods are not always the first option when consumers go shopping. This paper analyses how environmental concern moderates the role played by external factors – preference towards sustainable retailers and trust in sustainable producers – in determining consumer purchase intentions for sustainable packaged foods. Consumer involvement in eco-friendly labels, increasingly present in food packages, is investigated as indirectly impacting pro-environmental purchase intentions.

An online survey administered to a sample of Italian food shoppers is used for the empirical analysis. A total of 278 structured questionnaires were modelled using a structural equation modelling approach.

Findings show that producers and retailers' policies in favour of sustainability are key in determining consumers' sustainable purchase intentions. Further, coherent uses of labels and logos in light of sustainability can support consumer purchase decisions. Relevant is the influence played by the environmental concern in both supporting pro-environmental purchase intentions and in amplifying the trust in sustainable producers-purchase intentions path.

This study contributes to the literature on sustainability showing how producers and retailers may together influence consumers' pro-environmental purchase intentions. Findings extend the retail literature on the impact of producers and retailers' policies on consumers' sustainable purchases. Further, environmental concern is investigated in its moderating role on the impact of external factors on consumers' pro-environmental purchase intentions.