Customer experience has changed dramatically throughout the history of retail, but the importance of it has stayed the same. Today, technology and digital services help shape consumer store experience, providing retailers with the potential to create a richer store experience for consumers. Keeping up with the pace of technological developments in retail can be a challenge as well as an opportunity for retailers (Nilsson 2022) and there is a constant need for new research and knowledge in the area. The International Review of Retail, Distribution and Consumer Research therefore invites papers for a special issue on how consumer store experiences can be enhanced through technology.
The special issue will focus on the consumer-facing technologies that consumers are exposed to and/or interact with in both physical and digital stores (Inman & Nikolova 2017; Lorente-Martinez, Navio-Marco & Rodrigo-Moya 2020; Shankar et al. 2020). Examples of consumer-facing technologies of interest to the special issue range from the mobile apps, virtual agents, chatbots, digital displays, in-store kiosks, self-scanning, and self-checkout solutions already implemented by many retailers, to more novel technologies using virtual reality, augmented reality, and AI, such as smart mirrors and service robots. Consumer-facing technologies in stores are often supplied or facilitated by retailers but can also include consumer in-store use of their own technology, such as mobile phones (Grewal et al. 2018). Retailer use of consumer-facing technologies is of course not limited to digital stores, but these technologies are increasingly used to enhance consumer convenience and experiences in physical stores (Dekimpe, Geyskens & Gielens 2019).
In all kinds of stores, consumer-facing technologies can be present throughout the customer journey, from the pre- to post-purchase phases (Roggeveen & Sethuraman 2020) to enhance consumer experience and create experiential value (Hoyer et al. 2020). Technology also plays an important part in contemporary in-store marketing, for example in digital displays. Virtual reality and augmented reality technology can also be used to convey sensory information about products that could otherwise not be inspected by consumers before a purchase (Heller et al. 2019). In-store service encounters are sometimes replaced with technology, and sometimes technology is added to the service encounter, where it can both act as a barrier and a benefit (Giebelhausen et al. 2014; Söderlund et al. 2022).
As research in this important field is still limited, we invite original manuscripts for the upcoming special issue on any research topic related to enhancing consumer store experiences through technology. Topics may include, but are not limited to:
- Consumer in-store use of consumer-facing technologies, such as for example AR, VR, AI, QR codes, and RFID tags
- The role of technology in providing sensory experiences and product information in physical and digital stores
- Consumer responses to in-store marketing employing consumer-facing technology
- Combining digital and physical in-store experiences in omnichannel retailing through for example digital kiosks or mobile apps
- Smart shopping carts and smart and/or cashierless registers
- Consumer behavior related to virtual agents, robots and chatbots
- Consumer responses to technology in service encounters
- Older and younger consumer responses to consumer-facing technologies in stores
Papers of interest to the special issue can either report qualitative or quantitative empirical studies or consist of conceptual papers, as long as all submitted papers address related topics and bring significant new knowledge to academia and practice.
Deadline for manuscript submission is June 6th, 2023. The plan is to publish the special issue in late 2023/beginning of 2024.
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