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• Explain what a smart consumer is through Generation Z views

• Understanding the nature of decision-making process with the use of smart technologies

Explain what a smart consumer is through Generation Z views

Understanding the nature of decision-making process with the use of smart technologies

Disruptive retailing technologies improve productivity and cost optimization, but there is a lack of academic literature about their effects on shoppers’ perceptions and behaviors. This paper aims to develop and test a conceptual model regarding the effects of retail technology on store image and purchase intentions and to measure how human interaction services (HIS) moderate this relationship. Two relevant retail technologies are explored.

The results of this study indicate that retailing technology has notable influences on consumer perceptions. Thus, shopping technologies improve store image perceptions and increase purchase intention, moderated by HIS.

Future field experiments in actual stores should attempt to corroborate the results of this study and offer greater internal validity.

The results should help reduce retailers’ resistance to technology adoption. In-store technology can help retailers leverage their store image and increase purchase intentions. HIS could offer a bridge between consumers and new technology.

This paper is an original research paper, given that few research papers are experimentally based to measure consumer’s reactions to new technology implementation.

Las tecnologías disruptivas de ventas al por menor mejoran la productividad y la optimización de costes, pero hay una falta de literatura académica sobre los efectos de estas tecnologías en las percepciones y actitudes de los compradores. Este artículo desarrolla y prueba un modelo conceptual de los efectos de la tecnología minorista en la imagen de la tienda y las intenciones de compra y mide cómo los servicios de interacción humana moderaron las relaciones. Este artículo explora dos tecnologías comerciales relevantes para investigarlo.

Un total de 480 personas participaron en los tres experimentos en un laboratorio y utilizaron las etiquetas electrónicas de estanterías (ESL) y el carro inteligente de la misma manera que podían usarlo en las tiendas.

Los resultados indican que la tecnología de venta al por menor tiene influencias notables en las percepciones de los consumidores. Por lo tanto, las tecnologías de compra mejoran la percepción de la imagen de la tienda e incrementa la intención de compra moderada por los servicios de interacción humana.

Es una contribución original porque pocos trabajos de investigación se basan en experimentos para medir las reacciones de los consumidores debido a la implementación de la nueva tecnología.

Los experimentos de campo en tiendas reales deben intentar corroborar estos resultados y ofrecer una mayor validez interna.

Los resultados deberían ayudar a reducir la resistencia de los minoristas a su adopción. La tecnología en la tienda puede ayudar a los minoristas a aprovechar su imagen de tienda y aumentar las intenciones de compra. Los servicios de interacción humana podrían ser un puente entre los consumidores y las nuevas tecnologías.

The omni-channel strategy provides a holistic experience during shopping by integrating online and offline channel services. In this digitalized realm, customers are more dependent on online elements for shopping. However, physical stores are still their first choice for apparel shopping. The introduction of interactive technology is one of the key elements to provide an online experience in the physical store. The purpose of this paper is to identify the impact of interactive technologies on purchase intention and its role.

This study has been conducted in Delhi using 573 customers who are using interactive technologies for shopping. A self-developed questionnaire was used to collect the data. Data was analysed using structural equation modelling through smart partial least square 3.

The results show that 46% change in purchase intention was due to mobile point of sale/digital wallet, tablet/i-pad/digital signage, smartphone and click and collect/ship from store technology. However, there was no impact of the smart mirror and in-store Wi-Fi technology on purchase intention.

This study focuses on various technologies which provide online experience at physical stores. This study offers new insights for the theoretical and business framework of omni-channel brands. These technologies could be used as key performance indicators of omni-channel retailing in future.

Digitalization is revolutionizing the retail sector as today's consumers prefer a seamlessly integrated, fluid and irritation-free shopping experience enhanced with artificial intelligence (AI)-powered technologies. Literature highlights gaps in the understanding of the shopping experience in an omnichannel context, involving aesthetic, cognitive and affective experience dimensions. This research highlights the direct effects and the mechanism triggered in the presence of such device.

A sample of 259 consumers was interviewed at the point of sale. Data have been collected after a shopping experience in two concept stores belonging to the same fashion brand: (1) not equipped with AI-powered technology and (2) equipped with these tools. The measurement scales were validated through ANCOVA analysis and causal relationship analysis with structural equation modeling.

The results show that the presence of an in-store AI-powered technologies in a connected store generates a higher aesthetic reaction when visiting the store, a higher absorption when shopping through the flow and a higher intent to purchase. The authors further investigate the underlying mechanism triggered by the presence of this technology, which enables the authors to outline their consequences regarding purchase intention.

The study, conducted within an actual connected store in France, explores the impact of AI technology in connected retail environments on consumer responses. It is an early research in this field, shedding light on a rarely explored area. The authors’ research addresses a significant gap, providing insights into AI-driven retail experiences.

The aim of the study presented in this paper is to investigate the interrelationships among technologies in retail, webrooming and showrooming purchase intentions and customer experience.

The study was conducted in the fashion industry in three fashion groups: LPP, CCC and Inditex, which declare to use omnichannel solutions in their supply chains. The study focusses on 825 customers drawn from the emerging market in Poland. The research follows the partial least squares path model procedure.

Based on the study, it was concluded that out-store technologies are positively associated with omnichannel purchase intentions and also positively associated with cognitive and affective customer experience. This study proves that the boundary between traditional and online stores is beginning to blur, and thanks to new technologies, customers can experience traditional shopping resembling online shopping, and vice-versa.

Although the results provide several major contributions to theory and implications for practitioners, the study still demonstrates some methodological constraints. More specifically, although the study employs a relatively large research sample of 825 shoppers, it still focusses only on a selected group of customers in three fashion groups, LPP, CCC and Inditex, and is limited to investigating a particular type of customer experience solely in the fashion industry.

The results of this study not only verify the theoretical concepts and assumptions of technologies supporting omnichannel retail but also offer a practical roadmap for creating omnichannel solutions providing the best customer experience.

This study develops the idea of smart retailing, exemplified in innovative, technology-enriched retail services as part of service-oriented strategies. In particular, the purpose of this paper is to provide a new integrated framework to understand the emerging retail scenario based on the smart usage of technologies to improve retail service and develop innovation management strategies. This framework will provide a comprehensive understanding the basic forms of smart retailing as the current competitive scenario.

As a viewpoint, this paper employs an interdisciplinary approach, drawing upon the actual challenges in retailing, to propose a new perspective, the smart retailing one, to describe the new competitive scenario and formulates an emerging research agenda.

The present paper contributes to research on innovation and technology management for retailing by examining the key dimensions of smart retailing, which aims to enhancing retail service quality and retailers’ performance.

The paper clearly explains how current retailing is moving to a smart perspective, and how retail management should be adapted to successfully perform in the current service-dominant logic scenario, as consequence of the increasing consumer involvement in service co-production and the rapid growth of digital technologies.

Recently, smart retail technology has emerged as an innovative technology that can improve consumer motivation and behavior in smart stores. Although prior studies have investigated factors influencing the adoption of smart retail technology, to the authors’ knowledge, no previous work has investigated the determinants of purchase intentions. The ultimate goal for retailers should be shopping, not technology adoption. However, traditional brick-and-mortar stores and theories focus on investing in utilitarian factors to attract customers. This study proposes that hedonic motivation should also play an important role, as new technologies may arouse customer curiosity and increase pleasant experiences. Therefore, the purpose of this study is to explore utilitarian and hedonic motivations that promote customers' purchase; intentions in smart stores. Specifically, the authors address the research questions: (1) What are the constituents of utilitarian motivation? (2) What are the constituents of hedonic motivation? (3) What are the factors that influence customers' purchase intentions? By answering the questions, the findings help retailers understand how to motivate customers to make purchases in smart stores.

To investigate consumer motivation and purchase intentions, the customers who made purchases in smart stores were invited to participate in the questionnaire survey. This study collected 307 data in smart retail settings. Partial least squares (PLS) software was used to assess the reliability, validity and the paths and significance of all hypotheses.

The results show that perceived ease of use directly and indirectly influences purchase intentions through utilitarian and hedonic motivations. Utilitarian motivation is a formative second-order construct comprised of merchandise price, merchandise quality, location convenience, speed of shopping and product recommendation. Hedonic motivation is a reflective second-order construct composed of control, curiosity, joy, focused immersion and temporal dissociation. The findings provide insights into the successful implementation of smart retail technology and offer retailers to better understand consumer motivation and purchase intentions in smart stores.

This study is the first to examine how consumer motivation influences purchase intentions in smart stores. This study posits and verifies the extended hedonic system acceptance model (HSAM) to explain consumer motivation for shopping in smart retail settings. This study also models the original first-order utilitarian and hedonic constructs as second-order formative and reflective constructs, respectively. Utilitarian motivation regarding functional benefits is developed based on the 5Ps of marketing and situational factors, while hedonic motivation regarding pleasant experiences is proposed based on cognitive absorption.

In this digitalization age, smart technologies are on the cusp of changing all business sector including retailing. Today’s consumers desire to shop in a smart store where the physical products on display are connected to the internet world. This study aims to propose a model for investigating Generation Z (Gen-Z) consumers’ expectations towards the smart retail technology (SRT) in the Malaysian context through the application of the stimulus-organism-response framework.

By using a purposive sampling technique, a self-administered questionnaire was conducted. A total of 220 usable responses were collected from Gen-Z consumers who had experience in using SRT. The data were analysed using partial least square structural equation modelling (PLS-SEM).

This study underscores the role of perceived usefulness, perceived enjoyment and perceived value on Gen-Z consumers’ attitude and word-of-mouth (WOM). Expectations on usefulness, enjoyment and value provide some ideas on Gen-Z consumers’ value who put a high emphasis on functional value, fun value and value for money when adopting the SRT. On the other hand, the result also demonstrates the mediating role of consumers’ attitude in connecting perceived value and perceived enjoyment on WOM towards SRT.

The findings of this study provide beneficial insights for a retailer who desire to pursue a smart-related acquisition strategy. Retailers are recommended to embrace on the following three key features: innovative solution (high usefulness), reliable benefits (high perceived value) and fun experience (high enjoyment) to provide Gen-Z consumers with compelling experiences. Additionally, retailers are suggested to acknowledge the importance of managing consumers’ attitude in driving positive WOM evaluations.

This paper responds to Ting et al.’s (2018) call in uncovering values and lifestyles of generation in details. In Malaysia, retailers ought to incorporate of the high level of usefulness, value and enjoyment when designing their SRT to constitute the Gen-Z consumers’ expectations. Moreover, similar to Ting’s conclusion, this cohort members are very much into technologies and they tend to embrace SRT in their lifestyles.

This research analyzes how the dimensions of the customer experience derived from using a digital kiosk during the store visit influence shopping value, self-mental imagery and the behavioral intentions of buying and word of mouth. Mediation effects of utilitarian, hedonic and social shopping values are examined, as well as the mediating effect of self-mental imagery.

Two empirical studies were conducted to test the research hypotheses. A first analysis was carried out using a sample of 115 customers from several retail sectors. For the second study, 200 customers of one of the largest international sporting goods retailers were interviewed immediately after their store visit.

The results confirm significant influences of each dimension of the digital kiosk customer experience (sensorial, pragmatic, cognitive, social) on shopping value and self-mental imagery. They highlight strongest effects as well as the quasi-generalized mediating role of these values, and this self-mental imagery in the relations between the components of the experience and the behavioral intentions.

The studies were carried out in only one country (France). It would be also useful to consider variations in shopping motives and in involvement between retail sectors. Highlighted relationships should be deepened by experiments intended to identify the psychological mechanisms and emotions capable of mediating influences of customer experience on shopping value.

The results encourage both advice on the design of digital kiosks and the specifications of their content and several recommendations about the widespread introduction of kiosks or similar new technologies.

This research highlights influences of each of components of customer experience when using an interactive kiosk on shopping values and self-mental imagery, and central roles of these in understanding influences of the customer experience on behavioral responses.

Smart retail technology adoption models are largely focused on consumer perceptions of the technology and the characteristics of digital technologies. However, the impact of the prior-to-use knowledge of consumers on the adoption of the technologies has been understudied. This research examined to what extent social acceptance and consumer learning can facilitate consumer adoption of digital grocery shopping (DGS).

This paper builds on the innovation–decision model to develop a framework to examine the impact of social acceptance and consumer learning on DGS. The research tested a structural model based on data collected from 611 North American participants.

This study found that the social acceptance of DGS directly and consumer learning indirectly affects the appeal of grocery shopping to consumers and consequently increases their intention to adopt this new shopping method. Furthermore, the results indicated that both hypothesised directions are parallelly mediated by digital convenience, the consumer’s digital readiness and digital trust.

This study extends the understanding of consumer adoption of DGS by highlighting the influence of consumer knowledge about DGS on their behavioural intention. Several important theoretical and practical implications are provided to help retail managers to develop service strategies.