1.1 Book Aim
The phenomenon of smart retailing started being diffused among researchers in 2014 through the paper of Pantano and Timmermans “What is smart for retailing?”, where the authors for the first time reflected on the extent to which the market forces and technological advances are making the management of and strategies for innovation more prominent and essential in all functions of business, not least marketing and retailing. Recent studies further focus on digital marketing and mobile retail (Kannan and Li 2017; Marriott and Williams 2018; Shankar et al. 2016), while introducing the notion of smart retailing in terms of smart experience and new digital opportunities (Dacko 2017; Hilken et al. 2017; Roy et al. 2017, 2018; Willems et al. 2017). However, they provide a fragmented understanding of the theoretical basis for defining smart retailing. Thus, this book aims at providing a theory synthesizing these fragmented contributions, in a way that is accessible for academic researchers, students who want to understand this phenomenon as part of their expertise in digital marketing and internet retailing, and for practitioners who are experiencing the dramatic effects of new and smart technologies on their retail strategies.
In particular, the book:
- 1.clearly identifies the challenges retailers have to face in response to new smart technologies
- 2.is devoted to a wider audience, consisting of researchers, research students, and practitioners
- 3.discusses the most recent studies on smart retailing, describing the origin of the phenomenon and the emerging related theories and practices
- 4.provides a strong theory synthesizing the emerging studies on the smart retail phenomenon in an accessible way for researchers and students who want to understand this phenomenon as part of their expertise in digital marketing and internet retailing, and for practitioners who are experiencing the dramatic effects of new and smart technologies on their retail strategies
1.2 Today and Tomorrow
About 20 years ago, Stephen Spielberg imagined, in cooperation with Massachusetts Institute of Technology—MIT (US)—a future strongly mediated by technology, where even the consumer-to-consumer interactions and the shopping experience were mediated by a computer. In particular, he imagined a man entering a Gap store and a vendor asking him if he liked the jeans he bought the last time. In that future store, the vendor was virtual, consisting of a database managing consumers’ profiles and matching them with available items. To this end, the system applied biofeedback technologies (technologies that are able to automatically recognize psychophysical, physiological, and direct brain activity, such as electrodermal activity, pupil size, and brainwaves) such as retinal scanner (a particular technique that is able to detect the unique patterns on a person’s retina blood vessels) to recognize each consumer and access his/her data. That future was part of the movie Minority Report (2001).
To date, a person can browse Zara e-commerce website to (1) find and select favorite clothes, (2) check the availability on the closest store, (3) enter the chosen store and pick the items, (4) go directly to the fittings room to try, (5) take some pictures and send them to friends on WhatsApp and other social media to understand if the selected items fit their style, (6) approach the self-service cash desk within the fitting rooms area to pay (credit card only), remove tags and alarms, and take the shopping bag, (7) leave the store with the purchases, and (8) take a selfie with the purchase to share the shopping experience online. The customer can fully complete this process without any face-to-face interaction (with either employees or other consumers). This is not a movie such as the Gap store in Minority Report, but rather a possible situation happening in London, for example, at a Zara store in the Brent Cross shopping center, where new self-service cash desks have been recently located in the fitting rooms area, with the increasing interest of consumers.
As a consequence of the increasing adoption of the technologies in retail settings, consumers face new and engaging shopping experiences, mainly computer-mediated ones, while retailers are able to fast check consumers in-store and their online shopping experiences.
1.3 Benefits and Consequences of New Technologies in Retailing
1.3.1 Consumer Perspective
Consumers’ use of technology in retail leads to several advantages, such as (1) fast access to information on products (including availability, price, location, etc.), (2) fast access to additional products that might not be available on the physical store but available online, (3) fast payment modalities, (4) entertaining contents and features, (5) ease-of-use interface, and (6) customized messages, recommendations, and promotions. In particular, Meuter et al. (2000) suggested distinguishing the technology for retailing into two main typologies: the ones aimed at facilitating transactions (i.e. placing an order, scanning a product, and paying), and the ones aimed at providing more information related to products and services. These are particularly attractive for customers seeking a maximum level of individual control while reducing the interpersonal interactions with sales personnel (Gelderman et al. 2011).
Technology for enhancing retail settings enhances consumers’ experiences with:
- interactive features, allowing consumers to modify the form of contents in real time. In other words, the technology mediates the communication between retail settings and the consumer that results in communication being bidirectional, timeless, mutually controllable, and reactive (Bolton and Saxena-Iyer 2009; Deighton and Kornfeld 2009).
- additional and rich information, related to the quality and quantity of information on a product/service of the retailer (e.g. price, characteristics, composition, and delivery/return arrangements), by involving consumers in the decision-making process, producing a greater sense of self-control of the service while supporting the decision-making process (Li and Kannan 2014).
- entertaining interfaces, related to the digital stimuli provided by the technology impacting the customer’s experience in terms of immersion, flow, cognitive and emotional fit, and so on, which leads to positive behaviors and attitudes such as satisfaction, retention, engagement, and purchases (Parise et al. 2016). The “immersion” in the digital environment created by the technology represents consumer’s feeling of presence (being in the digital environment), which is influenced by the number and quality of interactive modalities (i.e. virtual touch, voice, movements, etc.) and realism able to impact on the human senses (including visual, touch, and auditory senses) (Parise et al. 2016; Papagiannidis et al. 2017). However, unpleasant feelings about technology (e.g. incorrect functioning of the technology, slow replies, perceived lack of usefulness, and technology being out of date), lack of human interactions, risks of service failure, and employee resentment toward the technology often emerge as negative aspects of technologies in retail settings (Curran et al. 2003; Pantano 2014), which might lead to a sense of dissatisfaction for consumers.
1.3.2 Retailer Perspective
Factors triggering or pushing retailers to introduce new technology are the continuous technology push resulting in new efficient technology to support retail management at various levels (Demirkan and Spohrer 2014; Pantano et al. 2017), consumer demand for new shopping experiences (Evanschitzky et a...