Storytelling during retail sales encounters

David A. Gilliam and Alex R. Zablah

Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, 2013, vol. 20, issue 5, 488-494

Abstract: Many researchers have emphasized the importance of communication in personal selling. Psychologists and researchers in management and advertising have recognized the importance of communication via stories, but this has not extended to research in sales. This paper uses a framework developed from exploratory field work and the literature on stories to investigate storytelling by retail salespeople in three similar experimental studies. The experiments manipulate personal versus business stories across three different topic areas: entity, product, and digression. The results suggest that product stories told from a business point of view may be most effective in enhancing consumers’ purchase intentions in onetime sales encounters.

Keywords: Story; Narrative; Sales communication; Influence tactics; Persuasion (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2013
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (11)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:joreco:v:20:y:2013:i:5:p:488-494

DOI: 10.1016/j.jretconser.2013.04.005

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