Understanding retail experiences - the case for ethnography

Retailers develop branded experiences in order to enhance consumers' perceptions of the brand and bring the brand to life. Consumers are effectively immersed in a branded world and experience the brand on a cognitive, emotional and visceral level. Yet, to date, our understanding of retail experience has been limited to studies on the effect of one or two variables (such as music and light) on perceptions of the store. Few researchers have focused on how consumers experience the store on a holistic level. As a result, our understanding of retail experiences is limited to reports on short-term personal visits of stores from consultants, or quantitative assessments of certain design or experiential variables conducted in experimental situations, usually with student subjects. This paper makes a case for more ethnographic research examining how consumers experience themed retail spaces to achieve greater understanding of the whole retail experience. The paper proposes a 'toolkit' for marketing researchers that will assist with the collection of dynamic data from the experiential retail environment, including the contextual shifts of the consumer (from home, to store, and post-consumption). In addition, it identifies a number of suggested strategies for conducting, analysing and interpreting retail ethnography based on practitioner insights and the authors' own experience in the field.