Mobile Use In-store: Understanding Customer's Intrinsic Motivations based on the Self-Determination Theory

It is in a context of strong desire to enhance customer experience that Zara, brand of the Inditex group, has invested about 1.7 billion $ in 2022. Customers entering in-store can now directly find out if the desired product is available in their size ("click and go"), geolocate it in the store ("click and find") and reserve a fitting room in one click ("click and try"). For the customer, the interest is therefore functional since the path-of-purchase is made easier and more fluid, but also hedonic through a more playful and personalized in-store experience (Burke, 2002; Collin-Lachaud & Vanheems, 2016; Pantano & Naccarato, 2010). For retailers, mobile services create the desire to buy customers and improve their knowledge and experience. Most research has focused on the impact of these kind of mobile application on retail's performance (Grewal & al., 2018) or on the drivers of mobile usage in-store (Broeckelmann & Groeppel-Klein, 2008). However, literature based on mobile in-store appears to be underdeveloped (Grewal & al., 2018) and there is still notably a lot to be understood about how it is used by customers and therefore their motivations. Obviously, the literature has been more interested in retailer's own technology, such as Self-Service Technology (SST) (Bitner & al., 2000; Djelassi, 2018; Meuter & al., 2000), intelligence artificial-based technology (Hildebrand & Bergner, 2021; Shankar, 2018), augmented reality-based technology or robots (Blut & al., 2021). Regarding to mobile use in-store, several authors have called for a better understanding of the general use of mobile in-store and the impacts for retailers (Grewal & al., 2018; Shankar & al., 2016). In this respect, the understanding of customer's motivations in-store deserves to be better understood. Indeed, research was mainly interested in the extrinsic motivations of the customer thanks to persuasive communication strategies through the use of coupons or promotions (Kowatsch & Maass, 2010), without considering their intrinsic motivations. To this end, this study aims to understand how the customer use mobile in-store and what are its intrinsic motivations? For retailers, this better understanding of mobile use can allow them to better adapt their mobile services, enhance customer experience and therefore translate into better performance. In this purpose, we focus on the Self-Determination Theory (Deci & Ryan, 2000) to better understand customer's intrinsic motivations when using mobile in-store. Indeed, the Self-Determination Theory considers three key elements, which are congruent with intrinsic motivation: (1) feelings of autonomy, (2) perceived competence and (3) the need to belong. Our exploratory qualitative study, based on in-depth interviews with customers, shows that these three dimensions have been highlighted by the respondents. Nevertheless, our results also show that these three dimensions don't have the same impact since, when 3/4 of the respondents highlight the need for competence, a little less than half mention the need for autonomy and only one third mention the use of the mobile for interaction needs. This observation leads us to consider the limits of our study and the resulting research avenues.