Seeking Social Experiences Within the Retail Environment

Our paper focuses on the pleasurable aspects of shopping from an experiential perspective, social factors being the focal point. It is our contention that the experiential perspective has much to offer retail literature because, as Seamon (1984) suggests, people form emotional links with their environments based upon their experiences with the environment. In marketing and retail research there has been a tendency to focus on the physical characteristics of a place to explain patronage behaviour, retail image and identity. However, if one looks at related areas in geography, psychology and sociology, the identity of place is not only restricted to its physical characteristics, it is also related to the social constructions of place (Lalli 1992). This research adopts an interpretive methodological approach and relies on phenomenological interviews with a range of women to better understand the social dimensions of the retail environment.

Citation:

Micael-Lee Johnstone and Denise M. Conroy (2006) ,"Seeking Social Experiences Within the Retail Environment", in AP - Asia-Pacific Advances in Consumer Research Volume 7, eds. Margaret Craig Lees, Teresa Davis, and Gary Gregory, Sydney, Australia : Association for Consumer Research, Pages: 401-407.