Smartphone uses in brick-and-mortar retailing stores: gratifications as antecedents of consumer’s state anxiety and purchase intention

Grounded in the Uses and Gratifications (U&G) theory, this paper attempts to explore the distinctive smartphone uses and consumers’ expected gratifications during a shopping journey in brick-and-mortar retailing stores; it also aims to answer if in-store consumers should be encouraged to use smartphones. Through designing a mixed-method research, a micro-ethnography study was undertaken before statistically examining the relationships between the constructs through Structural Equation Modeling (SEM). The results indicate that smartphone’s utilitarian and hedonic gratifications could reduce consumer’s state anxiety while social gratifications do not leave any impact. Higher level of state anxiety could undermine consumer’s in-store purchase intention