Shortsighted sales or long-lasting loyalty? The impact of salesperson-customer proximity on consumer responses and the beauty of bodily boundaries

Abstract

Purpose Previous research on salesperson-customer proximity has yielded mixed results, with some studies documenting positive proximity effects on shopping responses and others demonstrating the reverse. To reconcile such mixed findings, this paper aims to test whether and how salesperson proximity influences a series of key customer outcomes in actual retail settings using sample sizes that are considerably larger than most former investigations. Design/methodology/approach We conducted two high-powered field studies (N = 1,312) to test whether salesperson‐customer proximity influences consumers’ purchase behavior and store loyalty. Moreover, we investigated whether the short-term effects on purchase behavior were moderated by the extent to which the consumption context had a clear connection to consumers’ own bodies. Findings Salesperson proximity increased purchase incidence and spending in consumption contexts with a bodily basis (e.g. clothes, beauty, health), suggesting that consumers “buy their way out” in these contexts when a salesperson is violating their personal space. If anything, such proximity had a negative impact on consumers’ purchase behavior in contexts that lacked a clear bodily connection (e.g. building materials, furniture, books). Moreover, the link between proximity and consumer responses was mediated by discomfort, such that a salesperson standing close-by (vs farther away) increased discomfort, with negative downstream effects on shopping responses. Importantly, the authors found opposite proximity effects on short-term metrics (purchase incidence and spending) and long-term outcomes (store loyalty). Research limitations/implications Drawing on the nonverbal communication literature and theories on processing fluency, the current work introduces a theoretically relevant boundary condition for the effects of salesperson-customer proximity on consumers’ purchase behavior. Specifically, the bodily basis of the consumption context is discussed as a novel moderator, which may help to explain the mixed findings in this stream of research. Practical implications Salesperson-customer proximity may serve as a strategic sales tactic to improve short-term revenue in settings that are closely tied to consumers’ own bodies and characterized by one-time purchases. However, as salesperson proximity was found to be associated with lower store loyalty, irrespective of whether the shopping setting had a bodily basis, the risk of violating consumers’ personal space may have costly consequences from a long-term perspective. Originality/value The present field studies make three central contributions. First, we introduce a novel moderator for proximity effects in various sales and service settings. Second, we test the focal hypotheses with much higher statistical power than most existing proximity studies. Finally, we document that salesperson-customer proximity ironically yields opposite results on short-term metrics and long-term outcomes, thus underscoring the importance of not solely focusing on sales effectiveness when training frontline employees.

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“…, 2022), men who have purchased green products may subsequently seek to distance themselves from this form of consumption as a dissociative compensatory strategy (Mandel et al. , 2017; Otterbring et al. , 2023; White and Argo, 2009), and may instead opt for contrasting unsustainable alternatives that more strongly mirror the traditional meaning of masculinity.…”

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“…Next, Otterbring et al (2022) present two field studies that test whether salesperson–customer proximity influences consumers’ purchase behavior and store loyalty, and whether the short-term effects on purchase behavior are moderated by the extent to which the consumption context has a clear connection to consumers’ own bodies. Drawing on the nonverbal communication literature and theories on processing fluency, the authors find that salesperson proximity increases consumers’ purchase behavior in consumption contexts with a bodily basis (e.g.…”

“…As evidenced from the articles included in this special issue, field studies can be conducted in a wide range of shopping environments, capturing multiple key customer outcomes, including but not restricted to customer switching (de Mesquita et al , 2023), customers’ purchase likelihood and the amount of money spent in a store (Otterbring et al , 2022), clickthrough rates of online ads (Isojärvi and Aspara, 2023) and the number of online reviews written by customers (Yim et al , 2022). Moreover, such field-based investigations are not restricted to traditional physical commercial settings but can be effectively run in a variety of digitally enabled environments.…”