Abstract
The purpose of this study is to investigate and explore current customer perceptions towards the supermarket shopping experience and whether those experiences can be termed memorable or not. This will give Foodstuffs valuable information about positive and negative experiences that customers have had while shopping in the supermarkets, to avoid memorable negative cues and to develop and enhance positive ones in the future. An experiential marketing approach has been extensively introduced as a new method that Foodstuffs could use to enhance customer involvement in the shopping activity and make it (positively) memorable.
This project consisted of quantitative research to investigate the question: What experiential marketing elements create memorable customer experiences in the supermarket environment? An ANOVA was used to compare the mean ratings for seven aspects of the customers‟ supermarket experience, including: enjoyment, willingness to pay, internal elements, self-checkout, employees, products and features, and convenience. Correlation was used to assess strength of the linear relationship between the ratings for the seven aspects of the customers' supermarket experience. Following that, multiple linear regression analysis was used to determine if the customers' ratings for enjoyment of their supermarket experience can be predicted from one or more constructs relating to supermarket design, social and atmospheric elements. Finally, open-ended questions were employed to identify the positive and negative cues of customer experience in the supermarket environment.
The findings indicate that atmospheric elements have a significant impact on customer perceptions of the supermarket shopping experience. Convenience (including parking, opening hours and location) was the most important part of customers‟ shopping experience. The enjoyment in the supermarket was significantly related to internal atmospheric elements. Nevertheless, a precise prediction of the enjoyment level with respect to shopping experience was not found. Open-ended questions have provided extensive valuable information about pleasant and unpleasant customers‟ experience along with a huge amount of recommendations. Customers‟ recommendations are thus provided to Foodstuffs, as a result of the research, to help the company to improve the positive cues and to avoid the negative ones, to be able to deliver customers with positive memorable experiences in their shopping environment.