Sales impact of servicescape’s rational stimuli: a natural field experiment

Abstract

Environmental psychologists suggest that people feelings and emotions determine what they do and how they do it. We used the stimulus organism respons model (SOR) as an inspiring theoretical basis for our empirical contribution. We conducted a natural field experiment in six stores, settled in six different Italian cities, of a Swedish-founded Dutch-based multinational group, that designs and sells ready-to-assemble furniture, kitchen appliances and home accessories. We provided empirical evidence about the effects of a rational-functional stimulus, i.e. the availability of a new tool for collecting items that is more comfortable and less cumbersome for consumers. Through both a non-parametric and parametric testing, we found a positive effect of the stimuli in terms of sales