Shopping experiences in visually complex environments: a self-regulation account

Purpose – Providing satisfying shopping experiences is a major goal in retail management because satisfaction guides re-patronage behavior. The purpose of this paper is to demonstrate that the visual complexity of an environment’s interior design (i.e. the overall amount of visual information in an environment) influences the shopping experience by impairing customers’ information processing and self-regulation resources. Design/methodology/approach – Two quasi-experimental field studies were conducted in two different cultural contexts (i.e. Germany and Singapore) to enhance the external validity and robustness of the findings. Findings – Both studies provide evidence that an environment’s visual complexity impairs the shopping experience. Study 1 shows that visual complexity places a perceptual load on customers which mediates the complexity-experience relationship. Study 2 replicates this finding in a different setting and extends it by showing that load relates to lower self-control, which in turn, mars the experience. Furthermore, the negative effect of complexity on the experience is more pronounced with shoppers pursuing utilitarian rather than hedonic shopping goals. Research limitations/implications – The findings in a supermarket context may not transfer to environments in which the visual design is an important component of the value proposition and where shopping goals are largely hedonic in nature. Practical implications – The findings advance theory by showing that it is perceptual load and its outcome, reduced perceived self-control, which are largely responsible for the negative effect of visual complexity on the shopping experience. This finding should encourage managers to proactively manage and reduce the complexity of their service environments. Originality/value – This study is the first to show how the visual complexity of a retail environment influences a customer’s shopping experience. It offers novel insights into the underlying mechanism of perceptual load and self-control as process mediators of visual complexity on the shopping experience.Ulrich R. Orth, Jochen Wirtz, Amelia McKinne