Assessing Consumer Experience in the Retail Sector: Differences by Demographic Variables

Abstract

Nowadays, retailers have to try to differentiate themselves from their competitors through consumer shopping experience. The author distinguishes several experience dimensions and develop a shopping experience scale that includes six dimensions: sensory (tactile, scent, auditory, visual, taste), intelectual (through design and with employees), social, pragmatic and emotional. Analyzing the experiences by sectors of activity, our study indicates that the emotional experience predominates in some sectors, like jewelry or bookstores. Empirical analysis indicates that some demographic variables (age, gender and education level) differ with respect to the dimensions of the consumer shopping experience (sensory experience, intelectual experience through design and emotional experience). It is important to develop innovations related to these experiences, since in this type of experiences significant differences are observed depending on the demographic variables mentioned above. Enhancing imagination, creativity and arousing consumer curiosity the retailer will create an experiential shop, which are of particular interest to the consumer.