When non-store meets in-store: mobile communications technology, servicescapes, and the production of servicespace

Chris Houliez
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Chris Houliez: Groupe Sup de Co La Rochelle

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Abstract: This interpretative research contributes to the current literature on retailing by borrowing from an alternative conceptualisation of space, one grounded in Henri Lefebvre's spatial analysis. This new conceptualisation sheds a new light on the relative importance of both the built servicescape (e.g., the physical settings of a shopping mall) and mobile communications technology (e.g., cell phones) in the shaping of an individual's overall retail experience. An exploratory fieldwork reveals that shoppers leverage their mobile device to produce a customised lived space, within wich the servicescape is only one dimension of a multidimensional servicespace. Consequences for the role of the servicescape as a site of social centrality are discussed. This study also introduces the Day-In-A-Life (DIAL) protocol, a qualitative methodology adapted to the exploration of contemporary marketplaces, i.e., marketplaces where the online and the offline (i.e. brick-and-mortar) experiences are increasingly interweaved.

Keywords: Lefebvre; téléphonie mobile; retail; servicescape; mobile communications technology; cell phone (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2011-07-01
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Published in Journal of Customer Behaviour, 2011, 9 (2), pp.201-220

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:hal:journl:hal-00592416

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