TY - JOUR

T1 - Don't ignore the floor

T2 - Exploring multisensory atmospheric congruence between music and flooring in a retail environment

AU - Imschloss, Monika

AU - Kuehnl, Christina

PY - 2017/10/1

Y1 - 2017/10/1

N2 - In retail environments, consumers commonly evaluate products while standing on some type of flooring and concurrently being exposed to music; however, no study has examined the interaction of these two atmospheric cues. To bridge this gap, this research examines whether retailers can benefit from creating multisensory atmospheric congruent rather than incongruent retail environments of flooring and music. The results of an experiment in a real retail store reveal positive effects of multisensory congruent retail environments (e.g., soft music combined with soft flooring) on product evaluations. This study provides a new process explanation with consumers’ purchase-related self-confidence mediating these effects. Specifically, consumers in congruent rather than incongruent retail environments experience more purchase-related self-confidence, which in turn leads to more favorable product evaluations. Furthermore, this study shows that consumers with a low rather than a high preference for haptic information are influenced more by multisensory atmospheric congruence when evaluating a product haptically.

AB - In retail environments, consumers commonly evaluate products while standing on some type of flooring and concurrently being exposed to music; however, no study has examined the interaction of these two atmospheric cues. To bridge this gap, this research examines whether retailers can benefit from creating multisensory atmospheric congruent rather than incongruent retail environments of flooring and music. The results of an experiment in a real retail store reveal positive effects of multisensory congruent retail environments (e.g., soft music combined with soft flooring) on product evaluations. This study provides a new process explanation with consumers’ purchase-related self-confidence mediating these effects. Specifically, consumers in congruent rather than incongruent retail environments experience more purchase-related self-confidence, which in turn leads to more favorable product evaluations. Furthermore, this study shows that consumers with a low rather than a high preference for haptic information are influenced more by multisensory atmospheric congruence when evaluating a product haptically.

KW - flooring

KW - fluency

KW - multisensory atmospheric congruence

KW - retail store design

KW - store atmosphere

KW - Management studies

UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85029223908&partnerID=8YFLogxK

U2 - 10.1002/mar.21033

DO - 10.1002/mar.21033

M3 - Journal articles

AN - SCOPUS:85029223908

VL - 34

SP - 931

EP - 945

JO - Psychology and Marketing

JF - Psychology and Marketing

SN - 0742-6046

IS - 10

ER -