Post-Pandemic Retail Design: Human Relationships with Nature and Customer Loyalty—A Case of the Grand Bazaar Tehran

Abstract

This article examines how human relationships with nature in the design of the Tehran Grand Bazaar can impact customer loyalty, and how this impact has been affected by the recent pandemic. As one of the most popular retail settings of the ancient Silk Road, the Grand Bazaar has a long history of micro-scale retailing and customer loyalty. This article reviews international guidelines of sustainable design using content analysis, identifying the most frequent guidelines related to human relationships with nature. It then defines customer loyalty in terms of various important non-financial measures of micro-scale retailing. The present article describes the development and collection of a structured survey conducted before the pandemic (March 2019), during the pandemic (March 2021), and after the pandemic (March 2023). The analysis shows a moderate to high relationship between sustainable design elements of the Bazaar (in terms of human relationships with nature) and customer loyalty before the COVID-19 pandemic. While this relationship fell to a moderate level in the middle of the pandemic, it rose dramatically to 89% by the end of the third year when governments eased public health and safety protocols. The results reveal that by adapting sustainable strategies that enhance human relationships with nature, designers and stakeholders can create post-pandemic retail settings that generate high customer loyalty.