Do Australian and American consumers differ in their perceived shopping experiences?

Abstract

Purpose-The purpose of this paper is to present findings from an experiment designed to test the impact of crowding perceptions (both human and spatial), emotions (positive and negative) and shopping values (utilitarian and hedonic) on shopper satisfaction. Culture is explored as a moderating variable with the expectation that it systematically affects perceptions and values, which, in turn, influence the shopper's experience with the store. Design/methodology/approach-Data were collected via a 2 £ 2 £ 2 full factorial between subjects design with two variables, one manipulated and one measured. The two manipulated variables were spatial density (high versus low) and human density (high versus low). The measured variable was country of origin, where subjects were coded as either American or Australian. Findings-Culture moderates the effects of perceived spatial crowding as well as both hedonic and utilitarian shopping values on shopper satisfaction. Specifically, the adverse effect of perceived spatial crowding on shopper satisfaction is less pronounced for Australians than is the case for Americans. With respect to both utilitarian and hedonic shopping values, the positive relationship between shopping values and shopper satisfaction is greater for Australians than for Americans. Originality/value-Shopping has been generally described by Rintamaki et al. as "relativistic, because it involves preferences among objects, it varies among people, and it is specific to the context". This paper demonstrates that culture clearly affects shopper's perceptions and shopping values, which in turn affect shopper satisfaction. It is reasonable to speculate that these effects would be even more pronounced had countries with greater cultural distance been examined.

The relationship between density perceptions and satisfaction in the retail setting: Mediation and moderation effects

“…Most of the previous studies on crowding also underline the central role played by antecedents/conditions that may affect the intensity of the negative affective evaluations to density (crowding) in the retailing environment (Baker & Wakefield, 2012;Jones et al, 2010). However, as they solely focus on the moderating effects of these variables on crowding, and not density, the results mainly stress a potential reduction of dissatisfaction.…”

“…Customer-customer interactions in the service experience are often drivers of the overall customer satisfaction/dissatisfaction (Jones, Vilches-Montero, Spence, Eroglu, & Machleit, 2010;Zeithaml, Bitner, & Gremler, 2006). In fact, the interaction between customers is generally described as noise or disturbance occurring during the service delivery (Whiting, 2009).…”

“…Expectations are described as anticipations of future consequences (Taylor, 1994) or comparison standards (Oliver, 1989). They form the cornerstone of the satisfaction literature based on the expectancy-disconfirmation model (Arnold, Reynolds, Ponder, & Lueg, 2005;Jones et al, 2010). In this model, consumers use comparative standards to assess their satisfaction level (Burns & Neisner, 2006;Falk, Hammerschmidt, & Schepers, 2010;Tse and Wilton, 1988).…”

Supermarket consumers and gender differences relating to their perceived importance levels of store characteristics

“…Additionally, other research compared cultural differences in satisfaction levels of Australian shoppers in general, but did not specifically address supermarket shopping or how gender influences choice (Jones et al, 2010). Internationally, there has been a steady stream of consumer behaviour studies that point to the growth and presence of male shoppers in food shopping since the 1980s (Davis and Bell, 1991;Piper and Capella, 1993;Polegato and Zaichkowsky, 1994;Mazumdar and Papatla, 1995;Otnes and McGrath, 2001;Torres et al, 2001;Richbell and Kite, 2007).…”

Effects of Utilitarian and Hedonic Shopping Value and Consumer Satisfaction on Consumer Behavioral Intentions

“…We use goods as symbols of status (hedonic) and simultaneously as instruments (utilitarian) to achieve some end-in-view. " Consumers' shopping values are affected by several factors such as rationality level (Carpenter et al, 2005;Ariely and Carmon, 1997), mood (Donovan et al, 1994;Rook and Gardner, 1993), feelings (Spangenberg et al, 1997), shopping habits (Bellenger et al, 1978), gender (Underhill, 2004;Jackson et al, 2011), age (Schiffman and Sherman, 1991), income (Allard et al, 2009), social and cultural surroundings (Hugstad, 1987;Griffin et al, 2000;Bacock, 2005;Jones et al, 2010). Thus, the objectives of this study were (1) to examine consumers' shopping values regarding apparel shopping experiences by using the concepts of utilitarian and hedonic value; (2) to investigate the impact of each shopping value on consumer satisfaction; and (3) to identify the impact of each shopping value on consumer behavioural intentions such as 'recommend to store' , and 'come back to store".…”