A Holistic Framework for Conceptualizing Customer Experiences in Retail Environments

Ann Petermans, Wim Janssens, Koenraad Van Cleempoel

Despite retailers’ and designers’ recognition of customer experience in retail practice today, a literature review on customer experiences revealed a lack of conceptualization of the phenomenon as such. Moreover, holistically inspired research on customer experiences in retail environments seems to be truly scarce. To compensate for these gaps, the authors firstly conceptualize customer experiences in retail environments through a literature review, and secondly, study customer experiences with the help of ethnographic interviews with retailers, designers and customers. The research results provide insight into what different aspects of the theoretical conceptualization of customer experience connote for the interviewees.