The purpose of this study is to investigate the nature of customer experience (CX) in the context of retail, as well as its determinants in a psychological context. Based on a comprehensive literature review we identified 45 relevant articles. Major results are: First, we identified 41 factors operationalizing CX. Bearing the vast amount of conceptualizations in mind, it follows that today we observe significant diversity in how CX is operationalized. Second, we identified 27 determinants of CX. A customer's psychology always plays a role during consumers' interaction with companies. Hence, we classified the identified factors into two categories. First, predominating psychological CX determinants which can hardly be, or not at all, influenced by companies. Second, interactive CX psychological determinants which can only be measured during or after an interaction with a company; moreover, these determinants can, at least partly, be influenced by a company.

Consumers can choose to buy products through various retail channels (e.g., online or in-store), resulting in a need for retailers to provide a well-integrated shopping experience. However, individual factors, such as a customer’s personality, can influence how a channel is perceived and, as such, can alter their subsequent behavior. Thus, it is critical for retailers to better understand personality-related influences and how these can affect a customer’s purchase channel decision. Against this background, the purpose of this structured review is to analyze the extant literature on the influences of personality traits on purchasing channel decisions. After extensive initial screening, 24 papers published in 2003–2021 were included in the analysis and synthesis phase of this literature review. The results show how personality traits (including Big Five factors and more fine-grained factors like playfulness) influence the choice of retail purchasing channels. Among other results, we find that online shopping intentions have been studied most as an outcome variable and that, in contrast to people high in openness to experience, people high in agreeableness are less likely to shop online. While we synthesize findings in the domains of mobile commerce, social commerce, mall shopping, and augmented and virtual reality as well, little research has compared the effects of personality traits on multiple channels. Based on our findings, we discuss managerial implications as well as directions for future research which are described in the form of a research agenda.

In the digital age, retailers compete through various sales channels, both online and offline, with the effect that the customers' experiences have increasingly gained attention in the omnichannel era. Specifically, customer emotions have become an important topic, because they affect attitudes towards products and services as well as purchase decisions. While the phenomenon of customer experience is widely researched, surprisingly, to the best of our knowledge, no peer-reviewed journal publication exists that has studied the phenomenon from a NeuroIS angle. Against this background, we conducted a short literature review to obtain an overview of NeuroIS methods used to study customer behavior in a shopping and retailing context. Further, we outline a brief research agenda, thereby addressing the possible use of NeuroIS approaches in the context of customers' emotional experiences in retail.

Nowadays, customers can utilize both online and in-store retail channels. Consequently, it is crucial for retailers to understand the possible drivers of retail channel selection, including customers’ personalities, degrees of trust, and product touch preferences. Unfortunately, current omnichannel research only scarcely addresses the effects of personality, trust, and desire to touch a product before purchasing it on willingness to purchase and how those effects vary between online and in-store shopping. Thus, we conducted an exploratory study. Our analysis of survey data (N = 1,208)—which controls for respondents’ age, gender, and education—reveals that across both the willingness to purchase in-store and online, a higher level of e-vendor trust is a significant, positive predictor. However, we also identify several channel-related differences, including that Trust Propensity, as well as the Big Five traits of Extraversion, Agreeableness, and Conscientiousness are significantly positively related to in-store, but not online, purchase willingness. We also find that Instrumental Need for Touch (defined as goal-motivated touch of a product) is positively related to in-store, but negatively related to online, purchase willingness. Finally, we highlight opportunities for future research and discuss how retail managers might enhance customer experiences in their physical and online stores.

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