Guest editorial

Citation

de Faultrier, B. (2016), "Guest editorial", International Journal of Retail & Distribution Management, Vol. 44 No. 11, pp. 1082-1083. https://doi.org/10.1108/IJRDM-08-2016-0130

Future trends

The contributions to this double issue in issues 10 and 11 are the best papers presented at the second international colloquium on Kids and Retailing held in June 2015 in Budapest at the initiative of ESSCA’s Research Laboratory in Retailing and NovaChild Innovation Network for Children. Budapest, at the crossroads between Europe and the Orient, was an ideal setting to present and discuss current and relevant research in the topical subject of Kids and Retailing. The theme was “Future trends” based on the view that children are young people engaged in a moving world shaping them as consumers while retailing is reinventing itself. This issue focuses on contributions under the heading “Children in their retail context” and reflects the general view of the shopping environment in which the children participate.

Children in their retail context

This issue includes contributions that focus on children and their surroundings in a retail context in four perspectives of family, technological environment, edutainment centre and price variable.

This second issue includes contributions that focusses on children and their surroundings in a retail context in four perspectives of family, technological environment, edutainment centre and price variable. For children the context of retailing is first the family which is investigated through mothers shopping for their kids then through the impact of child on family provisioning related to sustainability. The submissions include also the context of technology leading to the experiences of children with retail mobile applications and their participation in massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPGs) leading to virtual retail shopping. Then the role of the edutainment centre as a socialisation agent is explored. The last component of the surrounding examined in this issue is the price of the products.

The first contribution by Silhouette-Dercourt and Lassus (de) investigates the motivations of mothers in purchasing luxury apparel for their pre-adolescent children through a semiotic interpretation of 21 mothers’ discourses. Young mothers fluctuate between four identity positions, identification, idealisation, transmission and creation. These results show a new research avenue like the exploration of the children’s response to their mothers’ identity motivations in relation to accessible luxury retail.

The second study by Ritch and Brownlie investigates the influence of children on the mothers’ decision making in household provisioning. Totally, 28 in-depth interviews exploring a range related topics with a group of working mothers with a profesional occupation lead to the findings that children influence sustainability, moving beyond heath implications to educate children to be responsible consumers through play and authentic experiences. The desire of mothers to act sustainably can be reinforced and restricted by the children’s influence.

The third paper by Muzellec, Feenstra, Faultrier (de) and Boulay explores the nature of branded mobile application experience for children and analysed how those experiences and applications are perceived by the parents. The sample consisted of 20 children aged 6-12 who, using an I-Pad tablet, were asked to select from retail brands applications (retailer in games, toys and entertainment and retail brand in clothes and accessories). Children primarily valued the emotional experience of the application when the parents appreciated their children’s cognitive experience of the mobile app.

Continuing in the technological environement, the fourth research by Hota and Derbaix examines whether children’s online play and participation in MMORPGs is leading to the development of virtual retail shopping motivations and behaviours. The analysis of data providing from two focus groups and ten in-depht interviews with 20 children aged 8-12 shows that it is the case through the purchase of virtual tools and accessories by all children using virtual in-game money. But these motivations are gender specific, unlike adults.

The aim of the fifth paper by Arthur and Sherman is to investigate a marketer-sponsored edutainment centre as a consumer socialisation agent. Totally, 16 children were interviewed as well as one of their parents prior, after and one week following a part-day visit to Kidzania. The study demonstrates the value of this participatory form of marketing communication in achieving brand objectives (brands preferences, brands knowledge, etc.) while fostering the consumer socialisation of children.

The last contribution by Muratore studies the relationships between the positive and the negative role of price in teens’ impulse buying. The test of the hypotheses has been achieved on a sample of 325 teens aged 14-18 using MANOVA. It appears that teens as impulsive buyers possess more prestige sensitivity, price quality schema, price mavenism, sale proneness and less price consciousness and value consciouness than no impulsive buyers.