Buying a Book as a Christmas Gift: Two Routes to Customer Immersion

Michela Addis and Giulia Sala

The Service Industries Journal, 2007, vol. 27, issue 8, 991-1006

Abstract: Although services and retailing are usually regarded as relevant experiential contexts and investments in creating an experiential environment are growing, little consideration has been given to the investigation of the general consumption experiences and their emotions in retailing. By adopting an ethnographic approach to study the buying processes in two Italian bookstores -- a small traditional family-run bookshop and a large international chain store -- products that, by definition, are high in perceived complexity and symbolism, we present two distinct business models based on different processes of valorisation of purchasers' emotions. The two-path model towards customer immersion represents different strategies to involve consumers emotionally: one is based on increasing the positive emotional load, the other on decreasing the negative emotional load. Decisions about physical layout, display, services and sales assistance should follow consistently.

Date: 2007
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DOI: 10.1080/02642060701673638

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The Service Industries Journal is currently edited by Eileen Bridges, Professor Domingo Ribeiro, Ronald Goldsmith, Barry Howcroft and Youjae Yi

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