Linking Retail Strategy, Atmospheric Design and Shopping Behaviour

A piece of feedback I got from Meg yesterday was to undertake more research and begin to look at academic pieces to create a basis for how I design my space for the community. An element I am interested in how atmospheric design influences shopping behaviour. I wanted to look into this further so that it could hopefully help influence my design for the site that will attract the community to my site. 

I wanted to look at what atmospheric conditions and elements best influence strong buying behaviour and entertain customers to keep them interested in staying in the retail environment for longer. Thus it is more likely that this will result in increased browsing behaviour, leading to increased impulse purchasing.

In an attempt to broaden my knowledge and influence my design decisions, I have read:

'Linking Retail Strategy, Atmospheric Design and Shopping Behaviour'
By L.W. Turley & Jean-Charles Chebat

which was published in the 'Journal of Marketing Management, 2002' pg. 125-144. This blog post is summing up the key points I have taken from this article which I feel I need to consider and / or implement into my designs:

• Retail image can be described as “the way a retailer is defined in a shopper’s mind, partly by its functional qualities and partly by an aura of psychological attributes”

• "The effect of scents on sales have also been documented in a recent study undertaken in a shopping centre where the average purchase of shoppers was significantly increased (from Canadian $48 to $59) with the use of an ambient citrus scent (Chebat and Michon 2001). This scent positively and significantly affected the perception of the shopping centre and the perceptions of product quality, which in turn enhanced sales and purchasing behaviour." 

The central point associated with Figure 1 is that retail executives implement retail strategy for how they want consumers to respond to an atmosphere through their designs. 

• There are three emotional states, pleasure, arousal and dominance which are often referred to as the PAD dimensions. These emotional states mediate approach-avoidance behaviour.
• Designing with these three emotional states in mind will help decrease customers avoiding the approach to my retail booths.

• "Several studies have found variant reactions to environments by individuals in different market segments. For example, Yalch and Spangenberg (1988) found that younger shoppers reported spending more time shopping with background music conditions while older shoppers perceived they spent more time in the store when foreground music was played through the store’s p.a. system. In this study, background music was defined as music with no lyrics while foreground music conditions utilized music with lyrics."

• "In a similar study, Gulas and Schewe (1994) also found age-linked effects between in-store music and shopping behaviour. They reported that baby boomers purchased at significantly higher rates when classic rock was played inside the store and that this type of music had a negative effect on older consumers."
• Therefore for this public space to work and appeal to all age groups, I must create a mixture of live music that incorporates a range of different genres and 'foreground/background' music.

• "Action oriented shoppers, those with well defined goals prior to beginning shopping, were less likely to have purchase behaviour influenced by displays, than state oriented shoppers, those who possess cognitive orientation that is more strongly guided by emotional and social influences."
• This emphasises the fact that this not only needs to be a retail space, it needs to be a public space. It needs to be a space in which people want to come and spend time in, not just for a purpose and then leave.

• Adding to the above point, for many consumers, "particularly those who are state directed shopping is an experience which should be a “fun” activity. These consumers seek excitement and arousal from the environment of a retail store and spend more money in these types of environments."

• "Many facility designers and even top marketing managers often fail to appreciate that an environment meant to elicit particular behaviour from consumers during a relatively short stay may have very different effects on store personnel who are spending much longer time periods in the store."
• As Uli expressed in our panel discussion last week, I must make everyone happy. This means designing for the people who's job it will be to work in this space not just the audience.

• "Atmospheric elements which can be used to entertain consumers include music, in-store televisions, interactive displays and kiosks, live performances by a variety of artists, product use demonstrations and seminars and in-store restaurants. Most of these attempts at entertaining customers recognize that keeping shoppers in stores longer is likely to result in increased browsing behaviour, which in turn is likely to cause increased impulse purchasing (Beatty and Ferrell 1998)."

I will try and consider all points above in order to design a space that people 'want' to be in and spend time in. However further research is needed.