Opportunities and risks of combining shopping experience and artistic elements in the same store. A contribution to the magical functions of the point of sale.

Facing growing competition, retailers today look for innovative ways to differentiate their shopping experience. Including artistic elements into the store is an original and promising option. Such hybrid retail strategy means... [ view full abstract ]

Facing growing competition, retailers today look for innovative ways to differentiate their shopping experience. Including artistic elements into the store is an original and promising option. Such hybrid retail strategy means trying to offer maximized hedonistic gratification to store visitors, while adding symbolic value to the commercial offering. Therefore store attractiveness (volume) and value (turnover) are stimulated. Including artistic elements can also be interpreted as a magic way to hide store’s transactional purpose. By association with the art world, the store is viewed as less mercantile. Additionally, the spillover effect of art on consumer evaluations of products adds sacredness to sale items. However, including artistic elements in the shopping experience also means the risk of consumers visiting the store without purchasing. This could lead to store museumification. Therefore such hybrid retail strategy needs to be confronted to the competitive commercial advantage it brings to the retailer. This calls for a revisiting of the performance measuring of shopping experience including artistic elements.