Entertaining Shopping Experiences: An Exploratory Investigation

Abstract

Previous research has provided much evidence to support the notion that shopping can be entertaining. In addition, many retailers are continually seeking new ways to entertain their customers. Although several studies have identified the existence of entertaining shopping experiences, few studies have investigated the factors important to the creation of these experiences. Using the critical incident technique, 724 incidents were collected and two broad groups including nine unique factors were found to be characteristic of entertaining shopping experiences. The two broad groups were retailer factors and customer factors. Retailer factors include selection, prices, store environment, and salespeople, while customer factors include social, task, time, involvement, and financial resources. Interestingly, customer factors were mentioned more often than retail factors in respondents’ descriptions of entertaining shopping experiences.