New trends in marketing: the impact in convenience store's atmosphere

Abstract

The decision to apply atmospheric elements to the store environment has been implemented by many managers with favorable outcomes for the company and the clients. Despite the usual application of the traditional stimulus (e.g. color, light, music, scent) the effect of implementing new trends in marketing on the retail space remains unclear. These future trends include hybrid stores, interactive screens, new payment methods, customer-employee interaction, revolving decors, retailtainment, storytelling, co-creation, reverse channels and store mood zones. The effects of these trends become even more unpredictable if these are implemented in the convenience store sector. Hence, the goal of this master’s dissertation is to validate the impact of the new trends in marketing in convenience store’s atmosphere to impact the Portuguese customers. This dissertation reached the established goal through the study of the relevant literature and empirical application. Based on case studies from the literature, the research questions were formulated. These research questions consider the impact of hybrid stores, interactive screens, new payment methods, customer-employee interaction, revolving decor and new products, services and retail formats on the convenience store environment. Furthermore, the empirical research included an exploratory and qualitative methodology (focus group and virtual reality). The following results were confirmed in this study: displaying a parapharmacy showcase will increase the sales of the store (hybrid stores); an employee’s positive attitude will increase the satisfaction of the experience and affect the loyalty of the customer (customer-employee interaction); selling healthy food will increase the shopping intentions; the existence of a printer/copy machine will increase the interest of going to a convenience store and a fresh and natural convenience store concept will attract more customers (new retail products, services and retail formats). Other trends such as the interactive menu screen and the revolving decor (digital signage) were considered with some potential even though the insights were not sufficient to validate the research questions. The rest of the research questions were not conclusive or rejected by the empirical findings. Despite the shortcomings of this study, convenience store retail managers in Portugal must, therefore, understand the potential of these solutions towards convenience stores, but must also always consider the consumption habits of Portuguese consumers.