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Design is an important construct in the retail environment literature. Yet, the measures used for design have not followed appropriate scale development procedures. The purpose of this study is to provide a conceptual definition and then develop a scale for retail environment design (RED).

Interviews with both consumers and marketing researchers are used to generate a potential list of items. Using four different studies, these items are refined, and the RED scale is offered.

This study develops and validates the four-dimensional RED scale to measure the design of retail environments. The dimensions are functional, aesthetic, lighting and signage.

The newly developed RED scale will allow retailing researchers to measure lighting and signage qualities as part of retail design, measure design of retail environments more accurately and allow different studies to be compared.

The newly developed RED scale will allow retailers to better understand customers’ perceptions of the four dimensions of design. Retailers spend significant time and money designing and redesigning retail environments. The RED scale will enable managers to ensure these significant investments create competitive advantages and an appropriate return on investment.

A scale to measure retail environment design is developed. The scale includes two dimensions (lighting and signage) that are not typically investigated.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the determinants of users’ simulated experience in a virtual store and to show the subsequent impact of that experience on engagement. The outcome of that engagement is examined in relation to enjoyment, satisfaction and purchase intentions.

The method comprised an experiment comparing users’ perceptions of a standard 2D online clothing store with an enhanced, immersive one that aimed to provide shopping value approaching that of a traditional store by using a 3D experience where participants wore special glasses and a data glove.

Results demonstrate the major role of telepresence components in simulated experience and the critical role of that experience, along with hedonic and utilitarian values, in engagement. Purchase intention is influenced by satisfaction, which is in turn influenced by enjoyment and engagement. Engagement in turn is influenced by utilitarian and hedonic value and the experience of product simulation or telepresence, which is composed of control, colour and graphics vividness, and 3D authenticity. In the immersive, 3D environment, experience is more associated with engagement and enjoyment, leading to greater purchase intention. The immersive, 3D environment, thus, has the potential to rival traditional shopping in terms of experience, resulting in higher sales for retailers and satisfaction for consumers.

This work has evaluated a robust model of purchase intention and demonstrated it to hold not only in a 3D environment on a conventional computer platform, but also in an immersive one, where participants wear special glasses and a data glove.

Guided by the Stimulus-Organism-Response (S-O-R) model, this study aimed to investigate direct and indirect effects of apparel store environmental characteristics and consumers' positive emotional responses to the environment on impulse buying behavior. Also, this study sought to examine how situational variables interact with consumers' positive emotional responses in influencing impulse buying behavior.

Survey data were collected using a store intercept method from 118 female consumers of an outdoor retail store in the western region of the USA.

The study found direct effects of ambient/design characteristics on consumers' positive emotional responses and direct effects of consumers' positive emotional responses to the retail environment on impulse buying behavior. Money availability and task definition moderated the relationship between consumers' positive emotional responses and impulse buying behavior.

The conceptualization of a theoretical framework of impulse buying behavior for apparel resulted from this study.

Managing appealing store design characteristics may increase consumers' positive emotions and impulse purchases. Displays designed to attract impulse purchasers should target browsers without restricted budgets.

This study expands the application of the S-O-R model in the context of apparel by including situational factors as moderating variables.

Research suggests that women demonstrate higher levels of shopping satisfaction, recommendation, return intentions, and hedonic shopping than men. However, is it possible to reduce the effects of gender on shopping behaviour? The purpose of this paper is to explore how the interaction between gender and emotions affects consumers’ shopping behaviour outcomes.

Two studies show the effects of gender and emotions on shopping behaviour outcomes. Study 1 is a field experiment that tests the effects of gender and emotions (positive vs neutral) on consumer satisfaction, recommendation, and return intentions. Study 2 is a laboratory experiment that explores the effects of gender and emotions (positive, neutral, and negative) on hedonic shopping.

Results demonstrate that positive (vs neutral) emotions increase shopping behaviour outcomes for men, to reach the same level as for women. The findings also indicate that retail environment perception mediates the effects. Moreover, the results show that positive emotions increase levels of hedonic shopping for men and that negative emotions reduce levels of hedonic shopping for women.

This paper helps retailers enhance shopping behaviour outcomes in retail environments. From a managerial perspective, the findings also provide insights on how to improve shopping behaviour outcomes for male consumers.

This paper shows how to reduce gender effects on consumer shopping behaviour outcomes by activating specific emotions in retail environments. This research also demonstrates the mediating role of retail environment perception.

While there have been numerous studies on the antecedents and consequences of service quality, there has been little investigation of the moderators of service quality. The purpose of this study is to demonstrate the effects of two moderators: service convenience and the social servicescape. The moderating effects are tested in two service settings: retail and hedonic (concert).

A survey of 270 customers at kitchen display showrooms and 320 concert‐goers was undertaken. The results were analysed using regression analysis.

The results show support for ten of the 12 hypotheses. Service convenience moderated the relationships between perceived service quality and its three sub‐dimensions (interaction, environment, and outcome quality), differently in different settings (retail vs hedonic). This supports the authors' general argument that the outcome dimension tends to be more important to customers in a retail setting, while interaction and environment quality dimensions tend to be more important in hedonic service consumption.

These findings suggest that managers need to use different service management tactics in retail and hedonic service settings. Specifically managers in retail settings need to pay more attention to service convenience to achieve service quality and managers in hedonic settings should concentrate on the social servicescape.

This paper is the first to test the moderating factors of service convenience and social servicescape on service quality.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the dynamics of the relationships between sales and internal and external environmental drivers in a retail company using a systems perspective in order to support retail management decisions with nonlinear methods.

The research and results are presented in two parts: the collection and explorative analysis of the data; and discussion of the managerial implications following a systems perspective. The exploratory analysis is conducted using a statistical comparison of linear and nonlinear models of sales data from a retail company. The data, which comprise two data sets, come from 45 retail stores located in different regions of the USA.

Specifically, nonlinear models provided a better explanation of variation in retail activity (R²=46 per cent) than linear models (R²=16 per cent). In such a situation, the nonlinear analysis captures the influence of internal and external environmental drivers on retail sales.

With a limited variety of external and internal drivers, the exploratory analysis aims to describe a general situation in which retailers are managing activities in complex environments as opposed to reflect on a particular retail chain.

The systems perspective is used to interpret the managerial implications of the nonlinear analysis fits, particularly in cases where retail decision-makers are adapting, transforming and restructuring sources of competitive advantage in complex environments.

The paper provides an alternative perspective (the systemic one) of how retailers could interpret the relationships between internal and external variables in the dynamic environment of the retail chains with nonlinear models.

The purpose of this study is to investigate older shopper behavior in a retail environment. The study focused on how the environment elements of supermarket stores influence older customers to interact with other customers when they shop for groceries.

Various qualitative research techniques were undertaken, including interviews with retail architecture experts, store employees, a psychologist and a gerontologist; in addition, five interviews followed by three focus groups were conducted with older shoppers in Brazil.

Customer-to-customer interactions that are related to the environment elements of supermarkets tend to influence the shopping experience of the older shoppers, which has an impact on satisfaction. Although some customers may value social contact, some interactions can involve discomfort and embarrassment.

The study sheds light on the understanding of the influence of the environment elements of supermarket stores on customer-to-customer interactions, and it proposes such interactions to be a relevant strategy that is used by older customers to maximize their satisfaction, although such strategies can also lead to dissatisfaction.

The findings provide insights regarding the specific needs of older customers in a supermarket context, associated with the design and ambient elements of the store environment, which can be valuable for retailers and policy-makers.

Considering the limited understanding of older shoppers and their experiences, this study provides a thorough understanding of how the retail environment can influence customer-to-customer interactions that involve older shoppers. Moreover, the study captures how interactions, which are influenced by the retail environment, can result in dissatisfaction; however, such interactions can also be used by older customers to modify their satisfaction with the shopping experience.

This study aims to identify the irritating aspects in the mall environment that impact shoppers with disability and explore the opportunities to design inclusive mall environments.

A mixed-methods design was used in which data collected using a survey (n = 1,434 shoppers with and without disability) were analyzed by structural equation modeling (SEM) and repeated-measures two-way ANOVA. In addition, qualitative data were obtained from critical incident technique (CIT) stories (n = 521) from shoppers with and without disability.

Mall environmental irritants evoke feelings of irritation that mediate the impacts of “inconvenient ambient conditions,” “the annoying socialscape” and “overwhelming design and atmospherics” on decreased mall-visit frequency. Compared with shoppers without disability, shoppers with disability suffer more from these irritating aspects of the mall environment, as evidenced by significantly greater high-activation unpleasant emotions. The “poor access and accessibility” category of irritants mainly affects the mall experiences of shoppers with disability.

Based on the findings, this study offers spatial-, temporal-, social-, material- and virtual-oriented recommendations for the design of inclusive retail spaces. The authors suggest that people with disability have a unique “lived experience” perspective on retail environments and that solutions should be co-created based on ongoing consultations with shoppers and employees with disability.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this study offers the first systematic, comprehensive comparison of the impact of environmental irritants on shoppers with and without disability and extends the literature on irritating aspects of retail environments from individual stores to malls.

The purpose of this paper is to examine how consumers evaluate identical price offers in retail versus e‐tail environments. Within that context, it seeks to examine the likelihood of shoppers to continue searching for a better price within the same channel and their intentions to transit to another channel.

In total, 120 subjects provided information on gender and price knowledge and evaluated an advertised offer for a camera in one of two settings (retail or e‐tail). The offers in the two settings were identical in all respects. Then, subjects indicated the likelihood of finding a better price within the medium versus if they made a transition to a different medium.

Analysis reveals that consumers' evaluations and search behaviors are influenced by characteristics of the medium (retail versus e‐tail), but this effect is moderated by both gender and price knowledge. Females prefer a brick and mortar environment and are likely to seek information at such retailers, even when similar products are available online. However, males evaluate online offers better than identical store offers, and are less inclined to engage in channel transition. Finally, evaluations of online offers are positively related to price knowledge, whereas a reverse pattern of results is obtained for retail offers.

The findings shed light on how consumers evaluate identical online versus retail price offers, and their associated search intentions. These findings have practical implications for merchants who adopt a dual presence.