The customers’ perception of servicescape’s influence on their behaviours, in the food retail industry

Abstract

Purpose: The purpose of this research is to examine the influence of servicescape on consumers’ behaviour in the context of grocery shopping, in a comprehensive and concrete way. And explore physical and social dimension of servicescape and their variables. Design/ Methodology/Approach: The researcher used the interpretive philosophy, the inductive and abductive approaches. The survey and grounded theory strategies have been followed and the research choice is a mixed method using both quantitative and qualitative data. Haphazard sampling is use in the research. Findings: The conducted study shows that servicescape may produce emotional, cognitive and physiological responses from both employees and customers. It shows that physical and social dimensions are both perceived by customers but they seem to give lot of importance to the social dimension. Then primary research shows that customers principally retain the negative influences which conduct to the fact that marketers and retailers should carefully think about the creation of a creative and pleasant environment. Research limitations: As it is the first research of the author, primary data was only collected by conducting a survey among 100 respondents from different retailers. Observations and interviews could have given more clearness and trustfulness to the research. Practical implications: Managerial implications among French grocery shops, marketers should provide more consideration to their servicescape and take customers’ perceptions, needs and expectations into consideration. Keywords: Servicescape, environment, consumer behaviour, grocery shopping, French consumer, perceived servicescape.