Shopping preparation and new dimensions of Shopper Marketing

Environmental changes, specifically the economic crisis and the growing penetration of digital technologies, have produced significant changes in shopping habits designed to gradually reduce the effectiveness of instore marketing levers in influencing shopping behavior. On one hand, due to the global economic downturn and the associated diminished disposable income, more shoppers are now searching more information before entering a store and evaluating more alternatives before to decide where and what to shop. On the other hand, the deep penetration of technological developments such as digital media and mobile devices among the population has opened up new opportunities to influence shopper attitudes and behavior, particularly in the retail environment. Shoppers are now able to use internet and mobile devices to search for information (about products, brands, retailers) and evaluate the alternative before entering a store and, consequently, they arrive to the time of shopping much more prepared than in the past, with a clear idea about their needs and the products or brands that could satisfy them. A new scenario seems to be opening up where a more planning and preparation for shopping is carried out before customers entering the store. In this new environment, to formulate and execute effective shopper marketing strategies, managers need to better understand the complete picture of how online, offline, mobile and in-store marketing influence shoppers in the path-to-purchase-and-beyond cycle. Starting from recent research avenues, our work intends to explore the relationship between pre-shopping behavior and shopping behavior in-store, with the aim to understand how pre-trip activities have influenced shopping behavior instore. Our findings could suggest retailers and manufacturers new ways to innovate the practice of shopper marketing considering that marketing levers can not still affect consumers' decisions in-store as in the past.