 Self-service technology in supermarkets – Do frontline staff still matter?Piyush Sharma, Akiko Ueno and Russel Kingshott Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, 2021, vol. 59, issue C Abstract: This paper uses the concept of psychological distance under construal level theory to explore the differences in the customers’ evaluations of overall store quality, satisfaction and loyalty, based on their experiences with the traditional staff-checkout method and the relatively new self-checkout machines. Two empirical studies, a field survey with retail shoppers in UK (N1 = 313) and an online survey with members of a consumer panel in Australia (N2 = 474), show that the perceived quality of staff-checkout has a stronger positive impact on the overall store quality, satisfaction and loyalty, than the quality of self-checkout. Similarly, satisfaction with staff-checkout has a stronger positive effect on store satisfaction and loyalty, than the satisfaction with self-checkout. Finally, loyalty to staff-checkout also has a stronger positive influence on store loyalty, than the loyalty towards self-checkout. These results show that despite growing use of self-service technology, frontline staff continue to be important for overall store evaluations. Keywords: Checkout methods; Self-service technology; Store loyalty; Store quality; Supermarkets (search for similar items in EconPapers) Downloads: (external link) Related works: Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:joreco:v:59:y:2021:i:c:s0969698920313643 DOI: 10.1016/j.jretconser.2020.102356 Access Statistics for this article Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services is currently edited by Harry Timmermans More articles in Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services from Elsevier |
Is your work missing from RePEc? Here is how to contribute.
Questions or problems? Check the EconPapers FAQ or send mail to .
EconPapers is hosted by the
School of Business at Örebro University.