The Retailing and Contemporary Consumerism Research Lab

This systematic literature review enhances paradigmatic/metaphysic analyses by examining how value-based commitments, intellectual personae, and stances impact the diversity, relevance, and consideration of ethics in gender research published in the top-tier marketing journals over the past 30 years. Theoretical contributions: 1) explain how commitments to research values and practices constitute personae and particular stances towards research, 2) attribute value commitments to positivist/ quantitative as well as humanist/qualitative research, and 3) implicate stances that favor particular theories and procedures in the hierarchical development of gender research and its marginalization in our field. Recommendations elaborate the analytic, reflexive and administrative training and research activities that will foster and reward more relevant, accurate, and ethical research on gender in the marketing academy and in industry. This work is of interest to persons dealing with gender identities, communities, and social issues, those working for greater gender representation and participation in firms and civic organizations, and those concerned with leveraging better marketing research for a better world.

This research investigates how shopping on a weekday or a weekend moderates the impact of music on supermarket sales. Contrary to the intuitive beliefs of interviewed store managers, a meta-analysis, two field studies, and a controlled experimental study indicate that playing pleasant music (vs. no music) in supermarkets on weekdays enhances sales, an effect not found on weekends. Theorizing and interviews with shoppers suggest a potential reason for this weekpart difference: Shoppers are more mentally depleted on weekdays (vs. weekends). A final study demonstrates and tests mental depletion as the driving factor for how shoppers are affected by music during different weekparts. When consumers are depleted (e.g., on weekdays) music increases affect, which mediates the impact of music on sales. The results of the studies further indicate that weekpart plays a significant role in determining the impact of in-store music on sales. This article concludes with a discussion of the substantive and theoretical importance of incorporating the impact of weekparts to predict in-store marketing effectiveness.

In-store communication delivered through technology formats (e.g., kiosk, digital display) as well as non-technology formats (e.g., magazine cover, flyer) can help retailers enhance sales by delivering relevant content to consumers. Although prior research has primarily examined the effects of deal-oriented content that primarily offers promotions for a single product on shopper spending, the effects of inspirational content that sparks ideas (e.g., novel ways to use products) on spending are unclear. Inspirational content can affect spending differently from deal-oriented content as it activates stronger motivation for consumption goal-completion. Guided by motivation for goal-completion, this article proposes that inspirational content increases spending more than deal-oriented content does. The authors propose and empirically test the hypotheses using data from a set of experimental studies, a field experiment, and an eye-tracking study. The results show that inspirational content increases spending more than deal-oriented content or no content. This effect is mediated by consumption goal-completion, such that it is attenuated when consumers already have consumption goals or when the content detracts from inspiration-induced goals. These results suggest that retailers can increase sales by using clear, inspirational content in their communications.