Effects of the in-store crowd and employee perceptions on intentions to revisit and word-of-mouth via transactional satisfaction: A SOR approach

This study investigates the relationship between in-store social atmospherics (crowd and employees), satisfaction, and intention to revisit the store and word-of-mouth. We propose a conceptual framework based on the SOR model, considering crowd and employees as the stimuli, satisfaction as the internal response, and intention to revisit and word-of-mouth as the response. We conducted a quantitative study and surveyed 422 Abercrombie & Fitch store customers, and we used a regression method. The results show that social atmospherics positively impacts satisfaction, relational variables and satisfaction mediating effects. Our contribution is to confirm the relevance of the SOR, the positive relationships between store employees and crowd on satisfaction, and between satisfaction and intention to revisit, word-of-mouth, and the mediating role of satisfaction.