How do consumers react to store social atmosphere? An analysis of the mediating role of transactional satisfaction: Abercrombie & Fitch store case study
(A2022-107349)

AUTHORS

Karim Errajaa, ESG UQAM; Anne Françoise Audrain, ESG -UQAM; Sabrina Hombourger-Barès, École des Sciences de l’Administration Université TÉLUQ

ABSTRACT

The recent retail literature points out the social dimension of physical shopping. This research examines the mediating effect of customer transactional store satisfaction between store social atmospheric variables (crowding effects and store perceptions about employees) on the one hand and customer word-of-mouth intention and intention to visit on the other. We propose a conceptual framework which introduces four research hypotheses. A survey of 400 customers of Abercrombie & Fitch was carried out in France. The data was analyzed with structural equation modelling and a bootstrapping test and revealed that four of our research hypotheses were supported, namely that satisfaction mediates the effect of the social atmosphere (crowd and employees) on the intention to visit and word-of-mouth. Overall, our findings clearly support the mediating role of customer store transactional satisfaction between store social atmospherics and customer word-of-mouth intention and intention to visit.