IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/joreco/v35y2017icp27-35.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Comfort in brick and mortar shopping experiences: Examining antecedents and consequences of comfortable retail experiences

Author

Listed:
  • Ainsworth, Jeremy
  • Foster, Jamye

Abstract

This paper explores the comfort construct in brick and mortar retail settings. As a psychological construct, consumer comfort reflects a sense of ease and peace of mind during a shopping experience. Previous research suggests comfort carries a number of positive consequences for managers, such as strengthening customer relationships and increasing customer satisfaction (Gaur and Xu, 2009). However, these studies take a more interpersonal relationship theory approach and have not considered the impact of non-social aspects of retail environments on consumers' comfort. Moreover, these extant studies have not considered how comfortable environments create value for consumers. Consequently, this study examines how atmospheric elements contribute to creating consumer comfort, and how comfort impacts consumers' perceptions of shopping value. Findings from survey data demonstrate that not all atmospheric elements influence consumers' comfort levels. Moreover, comfortable environments were found to increase both utilitarian value and hedonic value. The implications of the findings for academics and managers are discussed.

Suggested Citation

  • Ainsworth, Jeremy & Foster, Jamye, 2017. "Comfort in brick and mortar shopping experiences: Examining antecedents and consequences of comfortable retail experiences," Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, Elsevier, vol. 35(C), pages 27-35.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:joreco:v:35:y:2017:i:c:p:27-35
    DOI: 10.1016/j.jretconser.2016.11.005
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S096969891630577X
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.jretconser.2016.11.005?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Foster, Jamye & McLelland, Melinda A., 2015. "Retail atmospherics: The impact of a brand dictated theme," Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, Elsevier, vol. 22(C), pages 195-205.
    2. Blackston, Max, 2000. "Observations: Building Brand Equity by Managing the Brand&s Relationships," Journal of Advertising Research, Cambridge University Press, vol. 40(6), pages 101-105, December.
    3. Babin, Barry J & Darden, William R & Griffin, Mitch, 1994. "Work and/or Fun: Measuring Hedonic and Utilitarian Shopping Value," Journal of Consumer Research, Journal of Consumer Research Inc., vol. 20(4), pages 644-656, March.
    4. Stacy Wood, 2010. "The Comfort Food Fallacy: Avoiding Old Favorites in Times of Change," Journal of Consumer Research, Journal of Consumer Research Inc., vol. 36(6), pages 950-963, April.
    5. Alba, Joseph W & Hutchinson, J Wesley, 1987. "Dimensions of Consumer Expertise," Journal of Consumer Research, Journal of Consumer Research Inc., vol. 13(4), pages 411-454, March.
    6. Borghini, Stefania & Diamond, Nina & Kozinets, Robert V. & McGrath, Mary Ann & Muñiz, Albert M. & Sherry, John F., 2009. "Why Are Themed Brandstores So Powerful? Retail Brand Ideology at American Girl Place," Journal of Retailing, Elsevier, vol. 85(3), pages 363-375.
    7. Sharma, Arun & Stafford, Thomas F., 2000. "The Effect of Retail Atmospherics on Customers' Perceptions of Salespeople and Customer Persuasion:: An Empirical Investigation," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 49(2), pages 183-191, August.
    8. Samuelson, William & Zeckhauser, Richard, 1988. "Status Quo Bias in Decision Making," Journal of Risk and Uncertainty, Springer, vol. 1(1), pages 7-59, March.
    9. Rook, Dennis W & Fisher, Robert J, 1995. "Normative Influences on Impulsive Buying Behavior," Journal of Consumer Research, Journal of Consumer Research Inc., vol. 22(3), pages 305-313, December.
    10. Johnson, Eric J & Russo, J Edward, 1984. "Product Familiarity and Learning New Information," Journal of Consumer Research, Journal of Consumer Research Inc., vol. 11(1), pages 542-550, June.
    11. Ratneshwar, Srinivasan & Shocker, Allan D & Stewart, David W, 1987. "Toward Understanding the Attraction Effect: The Implications of Product Stimulus Meaningfulness and Familiarity," Journal of Consumer Research, Journal of Consumer Research Inc., vol. 13(4), pages 520-533, March.
    12. Stoel, Leslie & Wickliffe, Vanessa & Lee, Kyu Hye, 2004. "Attribute beliefs and spending as antecedents to shopping value," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 57(10), pages 1067-1073, October.
    13. Jones, Michael A. & Reynolds, Kristy E. & Arnold, Mark J., 2006. "Hedonic and utilitarian shopping value: Investigating differential effects on retail outcomes," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 59(9), pages 974-981, September.
    14. Ainsworth, Jeremy & Ballantine, Paul W., 2014. "That׳s different! How consumers respond to retail website change," Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, Elsevier, vol. 21(5), pages 764-772.
    15. Turley, L. W. & Milliman, Ronald E., 2000. "Atmospheric Effects on Shopping Behavior: A Review of the Experimental Evidence," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 49(2), pages 193-211, August.
    16. Fournier, Susan, 1998. "Consumers and Their Brands: Developing Relationship Theory in Consumer Research," Journal of Consumer Research, Journal of Consumer Research Inc., vol. 24(4), pages 343-373, March.
    17. Foxall, Gordon R. & Greenley, Gordon E., 1999. "Consumers' Emotional Responses to Service Environments," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 46(2), pages 149-158, October.
    18. Gerald J. Gorn & Amitava Chattopadhyay & Tracey Yi & Darren W. Dahl, 1997. "Effects of Color as an Executional Cue in Advertising: They're in the Shade," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 43(10), pages 1387-1400, October.
    19. Chris Janiszewski & Andrew Kuo & Nader T. Tavassoli, 2013. "The Influence of Selective Attention and Inattention to Products on Subsequent Choice," Journal of Consumer Research, Journal of Consumer Research Inc., vol. 39(6), pages 1258-1274.
    20. Chebat, Jean-Charles & Chebat, Claire Gelinas & Vaillant, Dominique, 2001. "Environmental background music and in-store selling," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 54(2), pages 115-123, November.
    21. Chebat, Jean-Charles & Morrin, Maureen, 2007. "Colors and cultures: Exploring the effects of mall decor on consumer perceptions," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 60(3), pages 189-196, March.
    22. Rajesh Bagchi & Amar Cheema, 2013. "The Effect of Red Background Color on Willingness-to-Pay: The Moderating Role of Selling Mechanism," Journal of Consumer Research, Journal of Consumer Research Inc., vol. 39(5), pages 947-960.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Marc Becker & Dominik Mahr & Gaby Odekerken-Schröder, 2023. "Customer comfort during service robot interactions," Service Business, Springer;Pan-Pacific Business Association, vol. 17(1), pages 137-165, March.
    2. Jing Zhu & Muhammad Awais Shakir Goraya & Yu Cai, 2018. "Retailer–Consumer Sustainable Business Environment: How Consumers’ Perceived Benefits Are Translated by the Addition of New Retail Channels," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 10(9), pages 1-22, August.
    3. Maier, Erik & Dost, Florian, 2018. "The positive effect of contextual image backgrounds on fluency and liking," Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, Elsevier, vol. 40(C), pages 109-116.
    4. Kumar, Prashant & Utkarsh,, 2023. "Effects of in-store information quality and store credibility on consumer engagement in green retailing," Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, Elsevier, vol. 71(C).
    5. Bonnin, Gaël, 2020. "The roles of perceived risk, attractiveness of the online store and familiarity with AR in the influence of AR on patronage intention," Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, Elsevier, vol. 52(C).
    6. Shuvam Chatterjee & Pawel Bryla, 2023. "Mapping consumers’ semi-conscious decisions with the use of ZMET in a retail market setup," DECISION: Official Journal of the Indian Institute of Management Calcutta, Springer;Indian Institute of Management Calcutta, vol. 50(2), pages 221-232, June.
    7. Li, Mengyi & Ma, Qin-hai, 2022. "“Do not impose on others what you desire.†Research on the influence of service Personnel's interactive orientation on customer comfort," Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, Elsevier, vol. 65(C).
    8. Rayburn, Steven W. & Anderson, Sidney T. & Zank, Gail M. & McDonald, Imani, 2022. "M-atmospherics: From the physical to the digital," Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, Elsevier, vol. 64(C).
    9. Elmashhara, Maher Georges & Soares, Ana Maria, 2022. "Linking atmospherics to shopping outcomes: The role of the desire to stay," Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, Elsevier, vol. 64(C).
    10. Page, Bill & Trinh, Giang & Bogomolova, Svetlana, 2019. "Comparing two supermarket layouts: The effect of a middle aisle on basket size, spend, trip duration and endcap use," Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, Elsevier, vol. 47(C), pages 49-56.
    11. Waites, Stacie F. & Stevens, Jennifer L. & Hancock, Tyler, 2023. "Trauma's effects on shopper choice confusion: The role of psychological hardiness and retailer strategies as mitigating factors," Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, Elsevier, vol. 72(C).
    12. Radia, Karan Nilesh & Purohit, Sonal & Desai, Shachi & Nenavani, Jitendra, 2022. "Psychological comfort in service relationships: A mixed-method approach," Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, Elsevier, vol. 64(C).

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Foster, Jamye & McLelland, Melinda A., 2015. "Retail atmospherics: The impact of a brand dictated theme," Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, Elsevier, vol. 22(C), pages 195-205.
    2. Terblanche, Nic S. & Kidd, Martin, 2021. "Exploring an in-store customer journey for customers shopping for outdoor apparel," Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, Elsevier, vol. 63(C).
    3. Morone, Andrea & Nemore, Francesco & Schirone, Dario Antonio, 2018. "Sales impact of servicescape's rational stimuli: A natural experiment," Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, Elsevier, vol. 45(C), pages 256-262.
    4. Massara, Francesco & Liu, Sandra S. & Melara, Robert D., 2010. "Adapting to a retail environment: Modeling consumer-environment interactions," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 63(7), pages 673-681, July.
    5. Peter H. Bloch & Omid Kamran-Disfani, 2018. "A framework for studying the impact of outdoor atmospherics in retailing," AMS Review, Springer;Academy of Marketing Science, vol. 8(3), pages 195-213, December.
    6. Ainsworth, Jeremy & Ballantine, Paul W., 2017. "Consumers’ cognitive response to website change," Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, Elsevier, vol. 37(C), pages 56-66.
    7. Ben Mimoun, Mohammed Slim & Poncin, Ingrid, 2015. "A valued agent: How ECAs affect website customers' satisfaction and behaviors," Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, Elsevier, vol. 26(C), pages 70-82.
    8. Morone, Andrea & Nemore, Francesco & Schirone, Dario Antonio, 2018. "Sales impact of servicescape’s rational stimuli: a natural field experiment," MPRA Paper 85113, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    9. Sinha, Piyush Kumar & Uniyal, Dwarika Prasad, 2016. "Impact of Store format on Shopping Involvement," IIMA Working Papers WP2016-06-01, Indian Institute of Management Ahmedabad, Research and Publication Department.
    10. Vilnai-Yavetz, Iris & Gilboa, Shaked & Mitchell, Vince, 2021. "Experiencing atmospherics: The moderating effect of mall experiences on the impact of individual store atmospherics on spending behavior and mall loyalty," Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, Elsevier, vol. 63(C).
    11. Haoying Han & Noman Sahito & Thuy Van Thi Nguyen & Jinsoo Hwang & Muhammad Asif, 2019. "Exploring the Features of Sustainable Urban Form and the Factors that Provoke Shoppers towards Shopping Malls," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 11(17), pages 1-20, September.
    12. De Nisco, Alessandro & Warnaby, Gary, 2014. "Urban design and tenant variety influences on consumers' emotions and approach behavior," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 67(2), pages 211-217.
    13. Feenstra, Florence & Muzellec, Laurent & de Faultrier, Brigitte & Boulay, Jacques, 2015. "Edutainment experiences for children in retail stores, from a child’s perspective," Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, Elsevier, vol. 26(C), pages 47-56.
    14. Bonnin, Gaël & Goudey, Alain, 2012. "The kinetic quality of store design: An Exploration of its influence on shopping experience," Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, Elsevier, vol. 19(6), pages 637-643.
    15. El-Adly, Mohammed Ismail & Eid, Riyad, 2016. "An empirical study of the relationship between shopping environment, customer perceived value, satisfaction, and loyalty in the UAE malls context," Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, Elsevier, vol. 31(C), pages 217-227.
    16. Gopalkrishnan R. Iyer & Markus Blut & Sarah Hong Xiao & Dhruv Grewal, 2020. "Impulse buying: a meta-analytic review," Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science, Springer, vol. 48(3), pages 384-404, May.
    17. Chandan Parsad & Sanjeev Prashar & Vijay Sai Tata, 2017. "Understanding nature of store ambiance and individual impulse buying tendency on impulsive purchasing behaviour: an emerging market perspective," DECISION: Official Journal of the Indian Institute of Management Calcutta, Springer;Indian Institute of Management Calcutta, vol. 44(4), pages 297-311, December.
    18. Lo, Ada & Qu, Hailin, 2015. "A theoretical model of the impact of a bundle of determinants on tourists’ visiting and shopping intentions: A case of mainland Chinese tourists," Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, Elsevier, vol. 22(C), pages 231-243.
    19. Davis, Lizhu & Hodges, Nancy, 2012. "Consumer shopping value: An investigation of shopping trip value, in-store shopping value and retail format," Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, Elsevier, vol. 19(2), pages 229-239.
    20. Jinsoo Hwang & Seongseop (Sam) Kim & Insin Kim & Seulgi Park, 2023. "Factors Affecting the Memorable Experiences of Chinese Customers in Duty-Free Shopping," SAGE Open, , vol. 13(4), pages 21582440231, October.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:joreco:v:35:y:2017:i:c:p:27-35. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.journals.elsevier.com/journal-of-retailing-and-consumer-services .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.