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The aims of this paper are to establish: a typical women's apparel store environment as a realistic base for measuring the effects of changes; effective environmental stimuli levels; and the effect of repeated exposure on affect.

A schema of typical stimuli is developed through literature, observing 212 stores, and surveying 39 women's fashion retail GMs. An experiment (n=489) establishes the set of stimuli and effective levels for creating affect for a women's fashion store. Shoppers (n=62) were repeatedly exposed to combinations of the two sets (industry standard and “ideal”) to examine whether decay in affect occurs, and whether changes can mitigate this.

Interactions between sensory stimuli have a significant effect on fashion shoppers’ affect for a store. Fashion retailers are less differentiated in their use of sensory stimuli than they could be to achieve the responses they expect. Stagnation from repeated exposure can diminish affect for the store whereas small changes in stimuli levels can revitalise and increase affect.

A model of sensory stimuli‐based relationships with shopper affect should incorporate interactions. Empirically, different stimuli can easily be added or substituted within a dimension to test its effect within a factorial design. A model of fashion store atmosphere is likely to require a mediating influence of repeated exposure.

It is worthwhile getting the “correct” package of stimuli for a fashion store's atmosphere. This does not necessarily require wholesale changes; rather small changes in stimuli level can enhance a store.

The paper presents the only study to use a holistic approach to store atmosphere and base effectiveness measures against the fashion industry norm, and consider the effect of repeated exposure.

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.

Despite the extensive stimulus–organism–response (SOR) literature, little attention has been paid to the role of marketing activity as a key environmental stimulus, and there is a dearth of research examining the interplay between emotions and cognition on consumer behaviour, as well as the sequential effects of emotions on cognition. To address these gaps, this study aims to develop a revised SOR model by incorporating Kahneman’s fast and slow thinking theory to investigate the impulse buying of affordable luxury fashion (ALF).

The authors use outlet stores at Bicester village (BV) in England as the research context for ALF shopping. Partial least squares structural equation modelling was used to analyse a survey sample of 633 consumers with a BV shopping experience.

The authors find that impulse buying of ALF arises from the interplay of emotional and cognitive factors, as well as a sequential and dual process involving in-store stimuli affecting on-site emotion and in-store browsing.

This study reveals that brand connection has a significant and negative influence on the relationship between on-site emotion and in-store browsing, advancing the SOR paradigm and reflecting the interactive effect of human emotion and reasoning on the impulse buying of ALF items.

Insights into consumers’ impulse buying offer practical implications for luxury brand management, specifically for ALF outlet retailers and store managers.

The results suggest a robust sequential effect of on-site emotion towards in-store browsing on impulse buying, providing updated empirical support for Kahneman’s theory of System 1 and System 2 thinking.

In a world where customer empowerment is continuously increasing and changing the service landscape, retailers must provide memorable shopping experiences to retain and attract new customers. When customers decide to go shopping in physical stores, they expect to enjoy their visit, experiencing cognitive, affective, social, and physical responses evoked by in-store stimuli. The purpose of this paper is to propose and validate a scale to measure in-store customer experience (ISCX).

This study’s theoretical review of customer experience (CX) demonstrates that a formative model provides the best structure for measuring the construct ISCX. Furthermore, the study follows the guidelines for rigorous construction of a formative scale, which include three main stages: generation of items, scale purification, and assessment of scale validity and reliability.

The results provide evidence that a formative third-order scale with a reflective second-order dimension (social experience) and three reflective first-order dimensions (cognitive, affective, and physical experience) has satisfactory psychometric properties. The findings also provide useful information on the effect of the ISCX scale on key performance variables such as satisfaction and loyalty to the store.

The ISCX scale proposed constitutes a useful multi-concept diagnostic tool for use by retailers to create fully experiential shopping environments with differential value for the customer. By providing a complete, robust, precise measure of CX in a retail environment, the scale gives researchers a structured way to examine the causes and consequences of CX in retail.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the impact of sales promotion display on customer intentions to purchase and repurchase, focusing on the moderating roles of perceived product quality and price fairness.

This study employs a descriptive, quantitative, non-experimental research method using a cross-sectional design with a self-administered questionnaire. In total, 415 department store customers responded to the survey through an online research panel provider in Australia.

The results indicated that sales promotion display significantly affects the purchase and repurchase intentions. The findings also highlight the moderating role of perceived product quality and price fairness on customer shopping intentions. Lastly, it is confirmed that the joint moderating effects of perceived product quality and price fairness in the relationship between sales promotion display, purchase and repurchase intentions are significant.

Based on the study findings, managers could drive customer purchase and repurchase intentions using suitable visual objects in sales promotion and their appropriate in-store placement.

The present study introduced sales promotion display as a new dimension of store physical environment. This is the first study to investigate the relationship between sales promotion display and customer shopping intentions and incorporates customers' cognitive perceptions of price and quality in the conditioned effect of sales promotion display on shopping intentions. Moreover, this study brings up new insight into retailing literature by applying the classical conditioning theory in examining the links between sales promotion display and customer shopping intentions.

The study aims to examine fast fashion consumers' negative in-store experiences focusing on the effect of the two store environment factors, product overload and store ambiance, on their confusion and consequent shopping avoidance behavior.

A research model of fast fashion consumers' confusion and store avoidance behavior is proposed using the Stimulus–Organism–Response framework. A pretest and the main online survey with 281 samples are analyzed, and the structural equation modeling (SEM) is conducted to test the proposed model.

The SEM results support the proposed paths statistically. Consumers' confusion, measured with the two dimensions, inefficiency and helplessness, is significantly influenced by their perceived product overload and negative perception of store ambiance in the fast fashion shopping environment. Subsequently, fast fashion consumers' confusion results in less time spent in the store.

The study sheds light on utilitarian shopping value in the fast fashion shopping environment by focusing on the fast fashion consumers' confusion in association with overloaded information caused by too many products and store ambiance.

The study implies that improving fast fashion stores' inherent issues with too many products and store ambiance might help consumers mitigate their confusion and prevent customer attrition. However, the study includes only two factors. Future studies may include other various fast fashion store factors. Additionally, one of the dimensions of confusion, irritation, did not emerge in this study. More work is needed to investigate fast fashion consumers' confusion, such as using a multigroup analysis by age.

The purpose of this paper is to empirically investigate the role of the placement (i.e. location) of humanoid service robots (HSRs) for entertainment applications in retailing by inspecting a multitude of performance metrics along the point-of-sale conversion funnel.

The study was conducted using unobtrusive observations at a Belgian chocolate store. In total, 42 h of video observation material was collected and analyzed, with an even spread over three conditions: (1) an HSR placed outside, (2) an HSR inside the store and (3) a control condition (no robot stimuli). All passersby and their interactions with the robot and the store were systematically coded and compared.

The study found that the better placement of HSRs (inside or outside the store) is contingent on the goals the retailer prioritizes. When the goal is to create awareness and interest toward the store, the HSR should be placed outside, as it has double the stopping power. To induce consumers to enter the store, placement of the HSR inside the store is the better option. Ultimately, however, in terms of the number of transactions and total amount spent, outside placement of the HSR outperforms inside placement.

This study was not able to verify the internal emotional/cognitive state of the passersby, as the method relied on unobtrusive camera observations. A longitudinal research design would be desirable to exclude potential bias due to the novelty effect.

While research on robots in retail services is emerging, this study is the first to provide insights on how retailers can decide on the placement of robots inside or outside the store, depending on the particular goals they are aiming to reach at the point of purchase.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the relationship between personality factors (i.e. neuroticism, agreeableness, extroversion, conscientiousness and openness), cultural factors (individualism and collectivism) and store stimuli (window display and sales promotion) on impulsive buying behavior.

The sample size for the study was 350 with a response rate of 96 percent. The questionnaire was adapted from the established scale and measures. SmartPLS was used for statistical analysis. After reliability and validity analysis, the structural model was tested, and it fitted very well.

Of the nine hypotheses, five were accepted, and the other four were rejected. The results suggest that neuroticism, openness, individualism, collectivism and sales promotion significantly affect impulsive buying behavior. Marketers can use these results in developing appropriate marketing strategies.

Implications for managers were drawn from the results. In this study, only two cultural factors were considered. Future studies could use all the cultural factors in their model. Additionally, the developed model can be extended for comparative studies.

Impulsive buying behavior, on the one hand, is problematic for consumers, but, on the other hand, is used as a tool by retailers for increasing sales. Comparatively, this study examined the effects of personality factors, cultural factors and store stimuli on impulsive buying behavior. These three factors have rarely been used together in one study.

Online retailing has attracted a lot of attention in recent years due to its great potential and significant implications for buyers and sellers. This study adopts the stimulus-organism-response (S-O-R) framework to illustrate how store layout design and atmosphere influence consumers' shopping intention on the website.

The sample for this study comprised 626 respondents from the internet users. A structural equation model was employed to identify the interrelationships of store layout design, atmosphere, emotional arousal, attitude toward the website, and purchase intention.

The analytical results of this study indicate that store layout design has significant impacts on emotional arousal and attitude toward the website, and thus has a positive influence on purchase intention. In addition, atmosphere has a more influential effect on emotional arousal than store layout design.

This study provides new insights into the influences of store layout design and atmosphere on consumer online shopping intentions.