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The purpose of this paper is to investigate the influence of a shopping companion on mall brand experience.

The quantitative multi-group structural equation model study contrasts three shopper types: those shopping alone; those shopping with friends; and those shopping with family. Two categories are shoppers in a group. Nine hypotheses evaluate the impact of shopping with a companion.

The results show that companions enhance the emotional brand experience. Further, shoppers with family companions are most able to enhance brand evaluation from mall brand experience. Shopping companions help co-create the shopping brand experience.

The findings are limited to Australian shoppers and contrast with Canadian studies, emphasizing friends. Alone shoppers place priority on price and only the alone shoppers are price-sensitive. The findings help address the gap in the literature, namely, understanding focal retail consumers in a group situation.

Retailers and mall managers in planned shopping centers could consider developing different retail strategies and brand experiences, which address the specific types of customer groups or alone shoppers.

The paper is explicitly about social influences.

This original research contributes new perspectives to understanding the role of companion shoppers as co-creators of the focal shopper’s mall brand experience.

This paper aims to examine mall consumer brand meaning through understanding consumer brand associations of shopping malls.

Building on the literature, a quantitative methodology is applied. A large sample (n = 755) of an Australian shopping mall is surveyed, and the data are analysed using structural equation modelling.

The first set of findings is that mall atmosphere and mall merchandise are the main determinants of consumer mall satisfaction. In turn, consumer mall satisfaction and mall merchandise are the main determinants of consumer mall brand attitudes.

The study is the first known study to measure consumer-based mall brand meaning quantitatively. This discovery gives a more holistic understanding of the mall brand. Additionally, the study highlights that mall branding is essentially experiential branding.

The study provides sound guidance for mall managers by suggesting priorities in shaping the mall brand, the emphasis on mall atmosphere and the criticality of tenant mix. Some malls spend hundreds of millions of dollars on refurbishments, enhancing mall atmosphere, consistent with the emphasis of this paper.

More effective experiential branding could influence community well-being.

This original research pioneers the discovery of customer-based mall brand meaning. Additionally, the study adds to the experiential branding literature. Sensory experiences are not sufficient to examine brand experiences; additionally, the core product (mall merchandise in our context) enhances the total (mall) brand experience.

The transition from multichannel to omnichannel retailing requires a better conceptualisation, especially for customer experience in smart shopping malls. Therefore, this study aims to propose a theoretical model that captures customers’ omnichannel experiences in smart shopping malls in terms of personal interaction, physical environment and virtual environment encounters. It examines the mediating role of flow experience on the relationship between the three types of encounters and customers’ intention to revisit smart shopping malls.

The study draws on four key theories: the service encounter model, trust-commitment theory, flow theory and experiential value theory. A total of 553 completed questionnaires were collected from customers (millennials) in the United Kingdom (UK). The data was analysed using partial least squares-structural equation modelling.

The findings show that physical environment encounters and personal interaction encounters play a significant role in customers’ omnichannel experiences in smart malls. Also, of significance are the following aspects of virtual environment encounters: interface design, personalisation, trust, privacy, consumer–peer interaction and relationship commitment. The findings highlight the significant mediating role of flow on the relationships between these three types of encounters and intention, and the effect of flow on omnichannel service usage in smart shopping malls.

The research contributes to the existing literature by proposing a conceptual model: the smart shopping mall omnichannel customer experience (SSMCE) model. The findings offer practical guidance to shopping malls and retailers who wish to enhance the customer omnichannel experience.

The majority of past studies on the physical store environment have focused on the impacts of distinct store environmental cues like music, crowding and décor on consumers' responses. However, recent research posits that consumer is more likely to experience several cues in a combination, rather than in isolation, i.e. different categories of store environmental cues are likely to impact consumer psychology holistically. Hence, our study aims to identify the relevant factors of store atmospheric cues impacting consumer's attitude in physical retail store context and validate scales to measure such factors.

This research develops and validates psychometrically reliable scales to measure two broad store stimuli factors namely: attractive and facilitating store stimuli, following the scale development method suggested by Churchill (1979).

The study shows that attractive store stimuli predict affective and sensory store brand experiences. The facilitating store stimuli moderate the effects of attractive store stimuli on affective and sensory store brand experiences. Affective and sensory store brand experiences predict store satisfaction.

This research contributes to the existing body of store ambience research by empirically understanding the psychological mechanism through which customers perceive different store cues holistically leading to the elicitation of store satisfaction.

This study assessed the roles of atmospheric harmony, human crowding and sensation seeking towards hedonic value to determine re-patronage intention amongst mall consumers. Additionally, this study aims to investigate the moderating roles of past experience amidst mall consumers within the context of Pakistan.

The study data were collected from 334 mall consumers of Rawalpindi/Islamabad, Lahore and Karachi by using the judgemental sampling technique. Data analysis was performed using SmartPLS 3 via partial least squares structural equation modelling.

This study revealed that atmospheric harmony and human crowding displayed positive and adverse impacts, respectively, on hedonic value. The sensation seeking tendencies exerted by the consumers displayed no significant impact on hedonic value in light of mall habitat. The hedonic value exhibited a mediating role for the relationships of re-patronage intention with atmospheric harmony and human crowding. Besides, a significant interaction was noted between hedonic value and past experience in light of re-patronage intention.

The proposed model embeds hedonic value as a second higher-order construct, apart from amalgamating environmental and psychological factors of the mall shoppers to determine their re-patronage intentions. The study outcomes posit that mall re-patronage intention is built on several factors that offer mall managers an opportunity to enrich the hedonic consumption experience among mall consumers, aside from ensuring their re-patronage intention.

How can the situation of shoppers staying at home and being unable to experience malls prepare retailers for the new marketplace? The COVID-19 lockdown provides a unique opportunity to examine the value of mall experiences to shoppers. This study aims to suggest a new mall experiences loss (MEXLOSS) model for assessing the importance of mall experiences as the foundation of any future strategy for attracting shoppers back to the mall.

A total of 498 British shoppers completed an online survey during the May 2020 COVID-19 pandemic lockdown.

When the exchanges of resources manifested in mall experiences are absent, the perceived difficulty of substituting an experience increases shoppers’ longing for the experience, which in turn increases both willingness to pay and mall loyalty but decreases well-being. Using a conceptualization of four types of mall experiences, i.e. functional, seductive, recreational and social, the functional and recreational experiences are shown to be the most valuable.

In the new more careful service marketplace, shoppers’ preferences are increasingly oriented toward health, safety, sustainability, collaboration and digitalization. To improve their resilience and attractiveness, malls need to adjust their layout, retail mix, digitalization, activities and connectivity according to these trends and to the characteristics of each mall experience.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this study is the first to place a financial value on mall experiences and to use the absence of those experiences to assess their general and relative importance. The findings challenge previous assumptions about the superiority of online shopping and the decreasing attractiveness of malls.

• To identify the social elements that emerge from interactions with the virtual fitting room in e-retailing applications

• To debate the influence of the socialisation of the virtual fitting room (SVFR) in brand experience

• To discuss the implications of the SVFR for retailers, consumers and managers

• To envision the future of e-retailing brand experience through the SVFR

To identify the social elements that emerge from interactions with the virtual fitting room in e-retailing applications

To debate the influence of the socialisation of the virtual fitting room (SVFR) in brand experience

To discuss the implications of the SVFR for retailers, consumers and managers

To envision the future of e-retailing brand experience through the SVFR

The purpose of this paper is to understand the role played by emotional states in the relationship between entertainment and social interaction with salespeople and shopper satisfaction.

The proposed model was tested using a survey-based study, with a sample size of 318 mall shoppers.

The results indicate that pleasure and dominance are mediators in the relationship between entertainment and social interaction with salespeople and mall shopper satisfaction. Moreover, regarding the direct relations, entertainment directly influences satisfaction, while social interaction does not.

The results have practical implications for mall managers and mall developers. Specifically, entertainment can be used to attract shoppers and to enhance their satisfaction with the overall shopping experience. Practical suggestions to this end are offered.

This study’s contribution is twofold: first, this study adds to research by addressing the gap in research regarding shopper emotional states. Specifically, it addresses the mediating role played by emotional states of shoppers on the impact of entertainment and social interaction in satisfaction. Second, the study concentrates on the role of salespeople by focusing on the social aspects of the interaction.

Brand centrality is a religion-like brand–customer relationship, which refers to the extent to which a brand is in the center or heart of a consumer’s life. While its role in the fast fashion industry is prominent, its drivers and effects have not been comprehensively studied. This study aims to investigate the relationships between three psychological drivers (i.e. fashion-conscious, chronic shopping orientation and self-esteem), one behavioral driver (i.e. the average frequency of shopping), brand centrality and relationship quality in the fast fashion industry.

A survey of 250 fast fashion consumers was conducted and partial least squares-structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM) was used to analyze the data.

The study shows that fashion consciousness and chronic shopping orientation are positively related to brand centrality, whereas self-esteem is negatively related to brand centrality. The findings also show that shopping frequency moderates the relationship between fashion consciousness and brand centrality, and between chronic shopping orientation and brand centrality. Post hoc analysis indicates that brand centrality fully mediates the relationship between chronic shopping orientation and relationship quality.

This study is one of the first studies to investigate the psychological and behavioral drivers of brand centrality.

La centralidad de la marca es una relación religiosa entre marca y cliente que se refiere al grado en que una marca está en el centro o corazón de la vida de un consumidor. Aunque su papel en la industria de la moda rápida es destacado, sus impulsores y efectos no se han estudiado exhaustivamente. El presente estudio investiga las relaciones entre tres impulsores psicológicos (la conciencia de la moda, la orientación a las compras crónicas y la autoestima), un impulsor conductual (la frecuencia media de las compras), la centralidad de la marca y la calidad de las relaciones en el sector de la moda rápida.

Se realizó una encuesta a 250 consumidores de moda rápida y se utilizó (PLS-SEM) para analizar los datos.

El estudio muestra que la conciencia de la moda y la orientación a las compras crónicas están positivamente relacionadas con la centralidad de marca, mientras que la autoestima está negativamente relacionada con la centralidad de marca. Los resultados también muestran que la frecuencia de compra modera la relación entre la conciencia de la moda y la centralidad de marca, y entre la orientación de compra crónica y la centralidad de marca. El análisis post-hoc indica que la centralidad de la marca media totalmente la relación entre la orientación a las compras crónicas y la calidad de las relaciones.

Este estudio es uno de los primeros en investigar los impulsores psicológicos y conductuales de la centralidad de marca.

品牌中心性是一种类似于宗教的品牌-客户关系, 指的是一个品牌在消费者生活中处于中心或核心的程度。虽然它在快速时尚行业中的作用很突出, 但它的驱动和影响还没有得到全面的研究。本研究调查了三个心理驱动因素（即时尚意识、长期购物取向和自尊心）、一个行为驱动因素（即平均购物频率）、品牌中心性和快时尚行业的关系质量之间的关系。

对250名快时尚消费者进行了调查, 并使用部分最小二乘法-结构方程模型（PLS-SEM）来分析数据。

研究表明, 时尚意识和长期购物取向与品牌中心性呈正相关, 而自尊心与品牌中心性呈负相关。研究结果还显示, 购物频率分别调节了时尚意识以及长期购物导向对品牌中心性的影响。事后分析表明, 品牌中心性在长期购物取向和关系质量之间具有完全中介作用。

本研究是最早研究品牌中心性的心理和行为驱动因素的研究之一。