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Despite the increasing relevance of seamless shopping experience in an omnichannel context, research on how seamless shopping experience affects customers’ word of mouth on social media (sWOM) remains scant. Based on the attribution theory, this study aims to investigate the effects of seamless shopping experience types on customers’ sWOM intentions from the perspective of smart-shopping feelings and validated the moderation role of shopping orientation.

Using a data set of 301 omnichannel customers, three scenario-based experiments were conducted to address the research questions.

An efficient and interconnected experience is more likely to positively affect sWOM intentions than an inefficient but interconnected experience. Furthermore, smart-shopping feelings were found to have a significant mediating effect. For experiential-oriented shoppers, the positive relationship between an efficient and interconnected experience, smart-shopping feelings and sWOM intentions was significantly strengthened.

This research contributes to the sWOM and omnichannel service experience literature by investigating the influences of seamless shopping experience types on customers’ sWOM intentions. This research also provides recommendations for designing and delivering a superior, seamless shopping experience for omnichannel shoppers.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the effects of anthropomorphism and identify factors related to adopting voice shopping on smart speakers.

Progress in partial least squares structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM) approach is used to test the proposed research framework regarding anthropomorphism and user perceptions on voice shopping via smart speakers. Individuals' responses to questions about attitude and intention to use voice shopping via smart speakers were collected and analyzed.

The results showed that anthropomorphism had a positive influence on satisfaction, which, in turn, had a positive impact on intention to adopt voice shopping, and customers had positive opinions regarding smart speakers.

This study only reflects a younger perspective on smart speaker voice shopping. This study identified the characteristics of smart speakers that increase customers' intention to purchase, which can be used to formulate sales strategies and management guidelines.

This research provided a new perspective to enable practitioners to promote smart speakers for voice shopping. Smart speaker manufacturers can utilize the findings of this research to improve the system design of smart speakers to further facilitate voice shopping.

Unlike previous studies, which focused on product attributes of smart speakers or voice shopping experiences, this study provided a clear picture of how the anthropomorphic feature of smart speakers affects customers' intention to adopt voice shopping.

The advent of digitalization and the trend of social distancing coincide with the individualized lifestyle that is emerging among contemporary shoppers. This study explores the unique market of “smart solo shoppers”. Two empirical studies are conducted, which aim to identify the major dimensions of multi-channel shopping activities that are engaged by the shoppers (Study 1, n = 64) and to differentiate the shoppers' valuation of time invested in the distinct dimensions under different cultural influences (Study 2, n = 519).

A survey questionnaire is used for data collection, and data are analyzed using structural equation modeling.

Results reveal that the shopping activities converge into four principal dimensions: offline shopping, online shopping, post-shopping delivery and product return activities. Shoppers who perceive offline shopping activities as a time burden and online shopping and delivery activities as venues of value creation are more strongly self-identified as smart solo shoppers. Furthermore, smart solo shoppers who are under a strong influence of individualistic culture are found to spend time on multi-channel shopping to make the right purchase the first time, whereas shoppers perceiving being in a weak individualistic culture prefer to engage online channels while being prepared to return the unwanted purchases.

This study highlights an emerging research field in the nexus of solo consumption and smart shopping. Emphasizing the utility-driven and ego-expressive nature of smart solo shoppers, the authors provide an initial profile of these shoppers based on their time-valuation patterns and the contextual impacts of individualistic culture.

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.

The purpose of this study is to gain a better conceptualization and measurement of smart shopping. The specific objectives are to: investigate consumers' perceptions of the term smart shopping; develop a measure of smart shopping; and validate the measure of smart shopping.

The research includes a comprehensive literature review, focus group interviews, and in‐depth interviews for initial item generation and instrument development. Scale development consists of a pilot test (n=100), a pretest (n=237), and main study (n=1,474).

The findings indicate that smart shopping includes consumers seeking to minimize the expenditure of time, money, or energy to gain hedonic or utilitarian value from the experience.

In‐store shopping was examined based on shopping for clothing, grocery, or electronics; therefore caution must be used when applying the smart shopping scale to other shopping contexts or product categories.

Gaining a better understanding of the smart shopper will enable retailers to more accurately target this consumer group. Focus could be placed on saving time or saving energy in addition to the traditional emphasis on saving money. Retailers could also provide a combination of utilitarian and hedonic experiences for consumers.

This study conceptualizes and tests the term smart shopping from a broader perspective than previous studies that primarily focused on monetary savings in the grocery shopping context. Smart shopping includes the desire for efficient shopping but emphases on the components of an efficient trip may differ from traditional theories.

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.

Webrooming (i.e. searching information online and making the final purchase in a physical store) has become a popular shopping practice, but remains insufficiently studied. To address this, a research framework encompassing online and offline channel attributes (i.e. online review diagnosticity, online search convenience, expected price loss, offline purchase effort and offline after-sales service convenience), consumer traits (i.e. anticipated regret) and shopping experience (i.e. smart-shopping perception) as determinants of webrooming continuance intention is proposed.

The proposed model was validated by conducting a questionnaire-based survey that yielded 354 useable responses. The data was subjected to partial least squares structural equation modelling and importance-performance map analysis.

According to the obtained results, online review diagnosticity, offline after-sales service convenience and anticipated regret are the vital antecedents of webrooming continuance intention, while smart-shopping perception acts as the mediator.

The current study adds significantly to the body of knowledge about webrooming by validating the inter-relationships between online review diagnosticity, after-sales service convenience, anticipated regret, smart-shopping perception and webrooming continuance intention.

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.

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.

Previous studies have considered customers' psychological responses to intelligent retail technology adoption, but have not considered how technology integration systems could promote the relationship between retailers and consumers. Based on the Stimulus–Organism–Response framework, this paper proposes a customer engagement model in a fully intelligent retail environment. The concept of the quality of intelligent experience is constructed from the perspective of customer experience, and the effect of the mechanism of smart retail on the customer engagement relationship is discussed.

Using two surveys, this study analyzes 201 (in study 1) and 321 (in study 2) questionnaires by using structural equation model in partial least square software.

The analysis shows that the human–machine interaction, intelligent systems and the product content of the quality intelligent experience significantly impact customer engagement on smart retail.

This research was designed for general retail products, without distinguishing between different product types. Thus, it did not consider the moderating effect of product types.

The findings enrich the intelligent retail technology field and provide operable guidance to help smart retailers improve customer relations.

This paper proposes a customer engagement model to describe how technology integration systems promote the relationship between retailers and consumers.