How artificial Intelligence will affect the future of retailing. Guha, Grewal, Kopalle, Haenlein, Schneider, Jung, Moustafa, Hedge & Hawkins


Artificial intelligence (AI) will substantially impact retailing. Building on past research and from interviews with senior managers, we examine how senior retailing managers should think about adopting AI, involving factors such as the extent to which an AI application is customer-facing, the amount of value creation, whether the AI application is online, and extent of ethics concerns. In addition, we highlight that the near-term impact of AI on retailing may not be as pronounced as the popular press might suggest, and also that AI is likely to be more effective if it focuses on augmenting (rather than replacing) managers’ judgments. Finally, while press coverage typically involves customer-facing AI applications, we highlight that a lot of value can be obtained by adopting non-customer-facing applications. Overall, we remain very optimistic as regards the impact of AI on retailing. Finally, we lay out a research agenda and also outline implications for practice.

Evolution of retail formats: Past, present, and future. Guarin, Jindal, Ratchford, Fox, Bhatnagar, Pandey, Navallo, Fogarty, Carr & Howerton. 2021. Journal of Retailing.

In this paper, the authors review current literature on retail formats and propose a new customer-centric framework for retailers to focus on as they continue to innovate and evolve. Specifically, they review the literature on how formats compare in their attributes and compete with each other; the role of customer behavior in format choice; and developments in multichannel and omnichannel retailing. They propose a framework for retail formats suggesting two paths – either reduce friction in the customer journey or enhance customer experience. They discuss the challenges faced by offline (physical store-first) and online (digital-first) retailers and elaborate on strategies each type of retailer is pursuing to address these challenges. Finally, they offer directions for future research in this domain. They conclude by calling for newer digital-first and physical-first players to continue coming up with different customer-centric formats, which they predict will slowly morph into integrated retailers, leaving space for newer players to enter the market and hence keep the wheel of retailing spinning.

Ep. 18 - Going Online for Groceries: Drivers of Category-Level Share of Wallet Expansion. Campo, Lamey, Breugelmans & Melis, 2021. Journal of Retailing

Some grocery product categories may be more successful than others in terms of stimulating consumers to increase their share of wallet (SoW) when they start buying through the online channel of a grocery chain. This study explores the circumstances in which online and multichannel marketing mix instruments determine the extent of category-level SoW expansion. To do so, the authors use U.K. household scanner panel data, covering online and offline purchases by 3,311 households in 59 categories of four multichannel retail chains. The results indicate that the effectiveness of online and multichannel marketing mix instruments for stimulating expansion is moderated by category characteristics, such that a selective approach to making decisions about the online price, online assortment breadth, online/offline assortment integration, and online national brand proliferation, tuned to account for category differences, can increase category-level SoW for the online-visited chain.

Understanding retail experiences and customer journey management. Grewal & Roggeveen, 2020. Journal of Retailing.


Customer journey management (CJM) and understanding the role of customer experiences at each stage of the journey is of paramount importance to retailers and manufacturers to survive and thrive in this technology intensive environment. In this special issue we have focused on the following themes: the role of technology, the importance of social, cultural and political factors, and the role of retail environment, numeric information, merchandise, and packaging. We also highlight that the customer journey can be both looping and nonlinear in nature and involves cognitive, emotional, and behavioral responses.

As emerging markets open, they attract large domestic and international retailers, which compete with traditional local small stores. This study investigates whether this influx of large stores is inevitable, by focusing on consumers' motivation for selecting a retail store, and the association between these motivation dimensions and the shopping patronage. The results from an empirical study conducted in Mexico indicate that consumer's preference for small stores is positively motivated by functional benefits and familiarity with small stores; and negatively associated with the functional benefits offered by large stores. These motivational dimensions are also positively associated with the share of wallet spent at small stores. While gender exhibits mixed effect on preference for small stores and the share of wallet, women do feel that large stores provide better functional benefits and support for the local economy. Finally, the study details the research and managerial implications of the findings.

In Sapiens, Professor Yuval Noah Harari spans the whole of human history, from the very first humans to walk the earth to the radical—and sometimes devastating—breakthroughs of the Cognitive, Agricultural, and Scientific Revolutions.

Coffee shop consumers’ emotional attachment and loyalty to green stores: The moderating role of green consciousness. Jam, Kim & Lee, 2014. International Journal of Hospitality Management.

This study examines the effects of green practices on the development of consumers’ store attachment in coffee shops and the role of consumers’ store attachment in predicting loyalty to green stores and green products. This study further investigates whether consumers with a high degree of green consciousness respond more positively to green practices than other consumers do. The researchers administered a survey to U.S. coffee shop customers and collected data from web-based online panel members using an online survey. This study employs structural equation modeling to test the hypothesized relationships. The findings showed that green practices had a significant influence on consumers’ attachment to a store. In addition, consumers’ attachment to green stores had a positive effect on store loyalty, and store loyalty was significantly associated with product loyalty. Further investigation of the moderating effects of green consciousness showed that in contrast to less green-conscious consumers, highly green-conscious consumers responded more positively to stores’ green cues, showing stronger store attachments and exhibiting greater loyalty to green stores and green products. The theoretical and managerial implications of these findings are discussed.

Ep. 13 - Creating consumer attachment to retail service firms through sense of place. Brocato, Baker & Voorhees, 2015. Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science.

Fostering attachment between consumers and organizations is developing into a cornerstone of relationship marketing strategy. However, little is known about how an organization can develop strong emotional ties with consumers. Our research addresses one aspect of this gap by showing that in atmosphere dominant service firms, sense of place leads to place attachment, which in turn plays a critical role in driving desirable customer behaviors. In Study 1 we demonstrate that sense of place influences the strength of consumers’ attachment to a service location, which ultimately has positive effects on consumers’ behaviors. In Study 2, we identify characteristics that influence the sense of place dimensions and extend the model to better account for the dynamics of social relationships that develop within a service firm. This research provides an initial investigation into how organizations can better manage the service place and provides a rich framework for future research on managing attachment with service consumers.

Loyalty formation for different customer journey segments. Herhausen, Kleinlercher, Emrich & Rudolph, 2019. Journal of Retailing.

The proliferation of new touchpoints empowers today’s customers to design their own journey from search to purchase. To address this new complexity, we segment customers by their use of specific touchpoints in the customer journey, investigate the association of several covariates with segment membership, consider the rise of mobile devices as potential “game changers” of existing segments, and explore how the relationships among product satisfaction, journey satisfaction, customer inspiration, and customer loyalty differ across segments. Based on anticipated utility theory and using latent class analyses on large-scale data from two samples of 2,443 and 2,649 journeys, we identify five time-consistent segments―store-focused shoppers, pragmatic online shoppers, extensive online shoppers, multiple touchpoint shoppers, and online-to-offline shoppers―that differ considerably in their touchpoint and mobile device usage, their segment-specific covariates, and their search and purchase patterns. The five segments remain unchanged in the two data sets even though the usage of mobile devices has increased substantially. Furthermore, we find that the relationships between various loyalty antecedents and customer loyalty differ between the segments. The insights from this paper help retailers develop segment-specific customer journey strategies.

Place Attachment in Commercial Settings: A Gift Economy Perspective. Debenedetti, Oppewal & Arsel, 2014. Journal of Consumer Research.

Place attachment is one's strong emotional bond with a specific location. While there are numerous studies on the topic, the literature pays little attention to commercial settings. This is because they are seen as too insipid to rouse attachment. Consumer research, however, suggests otherwise. To address this disparity, the authors investigate how people develop, experience, and act on place attachment in commercial settings. Findings from consumer in-depth interviews and self-reports conducted in France reveal that place attachment develops through perceptions of familiarity, authenticity, and security and evolves into experiences of homeyness. Consumers find these encounters of homeyness extraordinary and respond by engaging in volunteering, over-reciprocation, and ambassadorship toward the place. The authors further theorize these findings through a gift economy perspective and identify a tripartite exchange between the consumer, the proprietor of the place, and selected people from the consumer's social network.