How does the consumer react in a social atmosphere in the store?
Résumé
The recent retail literature points out the social dimension of physical shopping. This research
examines the mediating effect of customer transactional store satisfaction between store social
atmospheric variables (crowding effects and store perceptions about employees) on the one
hand and customer word-of-mouth intention and intention to visit on the other. We propose a
conceptual framework which introduces four research hypotheses. A survey of 400 customers
of Abercrombie & Fitch was carried out in France. The data was analyzed with structural
equation modelling and a bootstrapping test and revealed that four of our research hypotheses
were supported, namely that satisfaction mediates the effect of the social atmosphere (crowd
and employees) on the intention to visit and word-of-mouth. Overall, our findings clearly
support the mediating role of customer store transactional satisfaction between store social
atmospherics and customer word-of-mouth intention and intention to visit.