Benefits and risks associated with time choice of innovating in retail settings

Purpose- The innovation success requires a deep understanding of risks and benefits of the process, as well as of the best moment for innovating. The aim of this paper is to explore the current retailers’ choice of innovating in terms of being the first innovator imitating competitors’ innovations, by declining the benefits and risks associated with the both strategies. Design/Methodology/Approach- Building on qualitative data from retail industry, with emphasis on fashion (including clothes, jewellery, and accessories), our investigation provides an empirical contribution to the emerging area on innovation management in retailing through its in-depth investigation of the strategies of eight case retailers who introduced technological innovations in the last three years, and by mapping the patterns between strategy and outcomes. Findings - Our analysis revealed how pioneers and followers acted their strategies for achieving benefits and reducing the encountered risks. In particular, findings identify to what extend pioneers act according the technology push and followers according to the demand pull. Originality/value- The research starts from the definition of the time choice of innovating, and the subsequent choice of being the first innovation adopter or the imitator. Our insights support scholarly exploration of innovation management by offering a new marketing management perspective, and providing practitioners with a better understanding on the time choice for innovating in retailing and also in broader empirical settings

Engaging consumer through the storefront: evidences from integrating interactive technologies

Although previous studies identified the importance of storefront windows on consumer’s entry decision, there is still a lack of research on engaging consumers at the storefront through the integration with interactive technologies. The purpose of this study is to carry out an exploratory investigation into the consumers preference for a certain store based on the storefront windows (in terms of entry decision), with emphasis on the current most attractive interactive technologies. Thus, we examine the extent to which an exploratory sample of consumers is influenced by storefront interactive technologies. Emotional aspects emerge as the most influencing ones in the case of traditional storefronts, while both emotional and functional aspects emerge as the most influencing factors while considering the integration of interactive technologies. In particular, our results shed light on the way these elements can be managed for the design of future attractive storefront windows, by providing important insights for scholars and practitioners

Innovation in consumer-computer-interaction in smart retail settings

Editorial introducing the special issue of Computers in Human Behavior on Innovation in consumer-computer-interaction in smart retail settings

Exploring the origin of retail stores in Europe: evidence from Southern Italy from the 6th century BCE to the 3rd century BCE

Retail literature reports considerable research on the role that technology has played in retailing as an enabler of change, with emphasis on the shifting of power from retailers to consumers. While scholarly attention has been paid mainly to investigating the current scenario in order to predict future trends and preview retail settings for the coming years, the origins of the retail process, in terms of physical space for selling activities and history of retailing as discipline of business history, is less investigated. Using qualitative data gathered through historical documents and archaeological findings, the present study goes back beyond modern retail settings to explore the origins of points of sales as early as the Magna Graecia period (600 BCE – 300 BCE). Such historical analysis not only offers an insight into the origin of the modern retailing, but also cast broader questions about the degree to which historical interpretations of the growth of retailing have been evolved, by emphasising that after 2000 years, there are still similarities. To the authors’ knowledge, this current study is the first to extend the baseline for such an understanding back a further millennium or so

Exploring the forms of sociality mediated by innovative technologies in retail settings

The retail setting is characterized by an increasing usage of advanced and interactive technologies (i.e. mobile apps, Near Field Communication, virtual and augmented reality, etc.) based on high connectivity, ubiquitous and contactless systems that enhance and support consumer shopping experience. As a result of the consumers’ interaction with technology while shopping, technology-enriched stores provide new experiences and enable different forms of sociality. The aim of this paper is to explore the forms of sociality mediated by innovative technologies in retail settings. To achieve this goal, we use a qualitative approach involving 20 young consumers in the London-based market, where technology use by this group of consumers is growing. Findings show that digitally-mediated in-store activity mainly responds to a need for advice and trust, and the forms of sociality deployed around it are essentially ephemeral, low-intensity and publicity-oriented modes of interaction that echo the principles of “network sociality” described by critical media theory

The effect of mobile retailing effect on consumption experiences: a dynamic perspective

The emerging retail culture is characterized by the extensive use of mobile technologies, high connectivity, ubiquitous computing and contactless technologies, which enable consumers to experience shopping differently. In fact, innovative mobile technologies provide new tools (apps) which are able to separate the moment of purchase from the moment of effective consumption, by allowing consumers to make purchases by mobile phone and collect them at home or at a store (a pick-up boutique or collection point), in addition to the traditional in-store service (purchase in the store and collect/consume in the store). The aim of this paper is to understand the extent to which mobile technologies have an impact on consumer behaviour, with emphasis on the drivers motivating consumers to adopt the consumer experience of mobile shopping. To achieve this goal we used a qualitative approach involving 29 consumers in the Italian market, where mobile shopping is still at an early stage. The findings shed a light on the extent to which consumers are moving from e-channels to mobile channels and take into account the effect of these technological innovations in retail settings from a cognitive standpoint, where studies are limited. The implications for researchers and practitioners are then discussed, with emphasis on retailers need to develop new mobile service competences, and integrate and synthetize physical retail settings with mobile opportunities and functionalities

Engaging consumers on new integrated multichannel retail settings: challenges for retailers

The rapid diffusion of more channels for shopping posits new challenges for retailers, who need to compete in a complex environment for avoiding the problem of consumer cross-channel free riding. To discourage this behaviour, we propose a new environment where one retailer simultaneously handles more channels. The emerging integrated environment would engage more consumers if compared to the single handled channel, which in turn would avoid switching behaviours towards competitors’ channels. Our empirical research, based on the stimulus-organism-response paradigm, involves a sample of 237 consumers who were asked to explore the new retail settings simulated in a university lab. The results lead us to suggest the effective combination of multiple channels managed by one retailer as the new challenge for scholars and practitioners. We note that our participants showed positive emotional reactions towards the environment, which lead them to choose this environment for purchases

New technology and tourism industry innovation: evidence from audio-visual patented technologies

Purpose - Patenting behaviour in the tourism sector has received little academic attention due to a wider belief that innovation in tourism commonly involves improving the services in ways that are hardly patentable. The current study aims to address this oversight by focusing on patent analysis as means to evaluate the innovation trends in tourism. Design/methodology/approach - Building on an analysis of historical series of patents worldwide from 1996 to 2016, this paper explores the trends in the tourism sector by focusing on audio-visual technologies. The study used an evaluation of the 8,785 emerging patents, in terms of co-occurrences, applying hierarchical cluster analysis, factor analysis and multidimensional scaling. Findings - The findings suggest that there is a gradually increasing interest in innovation in tourism, which is growing faster than most of the other sectors explored here such as transportation and pharmaceuticals. The outputs also reveal the inventive effort of tourism industry in new technologies for developing utility models for tourists. Originality/value - The study contributes to tourism theory and practice by offering an overview of current/future applications of new technologies in tourism along with future trends, and mapping the main areas that these technologies might affect

Store buildings as tourist attractions: mining retail meaning of store building pictures through a machine learning approach

The aim of this paper is to understand the extent to which a store building can function as a tourism attraction, using a large luxury department store as case research. The study draws upon the idea that people complete a hermeneutic circle to create an extraordinary tourism experience to share with others. The data gathering is based on the collection of pictures posted online on Flickr and and analysed using a machine learning approach. A sample of 1,557 pictures related to a specific area in London (UK) were collected and analysed by means of a cluster analysis in order to determine which objects are most photographed. Findings reveal that the store building of a luxury department store is the central object in the majority of pictures within a 1km radius of the store main entrance, which demonstrates the role of store building attractiveness in tourism experience. The theoretical contribution is that this is the first paper adding the exterior of the building as attribute of the department store, and demonstrating the role of department stores in place attractiveness

Retail managers’ preparedness to capture customers’ emotions: a new synergistic framework to exploit unstructured data with new analytics

Although emotions have been investigated within strategic management literature from an internal perspective, managers’ ability and willingness to understand consumers’ emotions, with emphasis on the retail sector, is still a scarcely explored theme in management research. The aim of this paper is to explore the match between the supply of new analytical tools and retail managers’ attitudes towards new tools to capture customers’ emotions. To this end, Study 1 uses machine learning algorithms to develop a new system to analytically detect emotional responses from customers’ static images (considering the exemplar emotions of happiness and sadness), whilst Study 2 consults management decision-makers to explore the practical utility of such emotion recognition systems, finding a likely demand for a number of applications, albeit tempered by concern for ethical issues. While contributing to the retail management literature with regard to customers’ emotions and big data analytics, the findings also provide a new framework to support retail managers in using new analytics to survive and thrive in difficult times