Store atmosphere impact on intentions to come back

Based on an article by Karim Errajaa, Sabrina Hombourger-Barès, Anne-Françoise Audrain-Pontevia published with the title "Effects of the in-store crowd and employee perceptions on intentions to revisit and word-of-mouth via transactional satisfaction: A SOR approach”, in the Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, 2022, 68.

Issue

Online sales have revolutionised the retail business, in particular since the Covid-19 pandemic. The reason that physical shops still clock up the most trade, with 83% of global retail sales, is because they play a key social role involving a strong interaction between the brand and its customers. This means that the atmosphere in the store, how busy it is, and the attitude of salespeople, are all factors that can influence customers’ visiting behaviour and their recommendations to others.

Research questions

Are the number of store visits, the intention to come back, and word-of-mouth influenced by the in-store crowd and the employees who work there?

Data and method

To answer this question, the study undertakes a stimulus-organism-response analysis. The stimulus is represented by the atmosphere in the shop (the busyness and the staff).

The responses are the intention to visit, and to come back, plus word-of-mouth. Satisfaction (cognitive and emotional) is the mediating variable between stimulus and response. The relations between these three types of variable are tested using econometric regressions, following a coding of the qualitative variables.
The study is based on data collected, in France, from 422 customers of Abercrombie & Fitch (A&F), a fashion clothing brand whose stores have distinctive features (darkness, loud music, model sales staff).

Key messages
  • A store’s atmosphere, in particular its busyness perceived positively by clients, improves the satisfaction derived from visiting the store.
  • However, the busyness itself has little impact on the intention to come back to the store, or on word-of-mouth recommendations. This result differs from results of other studies, mostly because the busy atmosphere at A&F stores is at least as much about fun as about practical intentions.
  • Staff have a key influence on customer satisfaction, and also on the intention to come back and recommend the store by word-of-mouth. This result is in line with previous studies.
  • The satisfaction derived from visiting A&F stores reinforces the effect of busyness and employees on the intention to visit, revisit, and promote the store by word-of-mouth. This mediating variable boosts the direct impacts of busyness and staff.
  • On a managerial level, this study underlines the importance of in-store atmosphere in the face of increased digitalisation of retail channels.

Key words: atmosphere, staff, store, shop, satisfaction, customer, word-of-mouth