Store Atmospherics: A Multisensory Perspective

Abstract

Store atmospherics affect consumer behavior. This message has created a revolution in sensory marketing techniques, such that across virtually every product category, retailers and manufacturers seek to influence the consumer's “sensory experience.” The key question is how should a company design its multisensory atmospherics in store to ensure that the return on its investment is worthwhile? This paper reviews the scientific evidence related to visual, auditory, tactile, olfactory, and gustatory aspects of the store environment and their influence on the consumer's shopping behavior. The findings emphasize the need for further research to address how the multisensory retail environment shapes customer experience and shopping behavior.

Touch forbidden, consumption allowed: Counter-intuitive effects of touch restrictions on customers’ purchase behavior

“…The results reported in this paper may explain why many retailers make displayed merchandise difficult to touch -a fact that has previously been met with surprise by scholars in psychology and marketing (Spence, Puccinelli, Grewal, & Roggeveen, 2014).…”

“…Nevertheless, given that product touch has been found to increase purchase likelihood (reviewed in Spence et al, 2014), the current finding -that restricting rather than encouraging product touch has the most positive impact on customers' purchase behavior -warrants further consideration. Future research could attempt to address these inconsistent results.…”

Conquering new frontiers in research on store atmospheres: Kinetic and synesthetic qualities

“…Böhme himself is greatly influenced by Schmitz (Grant, 2013;Julmi, 2015) and also highlights the atmospheric relevance of kinetic and synesthetic qualities (Böhme, 1995(Böhme, , 2006(Böhme, , 2013. Beyond considering synesthetic qualities as such, the concept of multisensory store atmospherics introduced by Spence, Puccinelli, Grewal et al (2014) perhaps comes closest to the study of synesthetic characters regarding store atmospheres, although the interaction of different senses is still not the same as considering one quality (e. g., warm) being relevant for different senses. The importance of congruency for multisensory store…”

“…First, molecular perspectives on atmospheres are criticized as inappropriate as store atmospheres cannot be understood on a sense-by-sense basis ( Spence, Puccinelli, Grewal et al, 2014). Accordingly, research designs pursuing molar perspectives on store atmospheres that consider the situative embeddedness of atmospheres are encouraged.…”

The Consumer’s Experience Concept in Fashion Retail Outlet: Proposal for a Measurement Scale

“…Thus, we can consider the context of the experience put in place by the retail industry as a simple platform allowing consumers to create their own experience (Carù & Cova, 2007). In the same vein, Spence et al (2014) also made a focus on the impact of sensory cues on cognitive and affective consumer behaviour that strongly influence his shopping experience. Sensory cues also affect the utilitarian and hedonic values experienced by consumers like entertaining, escape and self-gratification (Chebat et al, 2014;Ballantine et al, 2015) highlighted how the holistic atmospheric cues encountered in a retail environment contribute to the creation of a retail experience.…”