Socio-demographic, shopping self-concept, and shopping-context related moderators of customer experience

Abstract

The purpose of this article is to identify and propose a theoretical framework that consists of the key touchpoints, consequences, and moderators of customer experience (CX hereafter). The proposed effects in our theoretical framework are that the retailer-controlled, as well as manufacturer-controlled touchpoints, are the key dimensions of CX. In turn, CX influences retail reputation, retail quality, customer satisfaction, and customer patronage. Since CX differs with subjective and contextual contingencies, we analyse the moderating effect of a socio-demographic level factor (i.e., gender), two shopping-related self-concepts (i.e., careful shopping and smart shopping) as well as a shopping-context-related factor (i.e., hedonic goals). The findings confirm that the majority of our moderators do not have a strong effect on all the proposed relationships. This enables us to confirm the presence and absence of the confounding effects of subjective and contextual contingencies on CX. Our proposed framework provides empirically testable theoretical propositions for retail managers to enable them to better comprehend and enhance CX.