Prop Up Frenzy with Pop-Up Servicescapes?

When people shop in a frenzied retail setting, do they become more likely to shop in a frenzied manner? Researchers at Lund University endeavored to answer that question with an ethnographic study of pop-up stores. Unlike controlled experimental studies, in which the researcher takes care to maintain an objective distance from the study participants, ethnographic researchers get intimately involved with the culture of the study participants. The Lund University data collection included not only in-depth observation and semi-structured interviews of people while they were shopping in pop-up stores, but also reflections of one of the researchers as she herself shopped in some of these stores.
     Pop-up stores are retail sales outlets set up for limited periods of time, usually with short notice of the pop-up’s opening and closing dates and almost always in locations unconventional for the retailer. The servicescape—the physical environment in which selling is conducted—among the eleven pop-up stores included in study was described by the researchers as substantially more frenzied than the usual servicescapes of these retailers. The store interiors were crowded, and there were queues outside. Store signage and the merchandise arrangements looked improvised and messy. Store employees were much more involved with clearing the ongoing clutter than with assisting the shoppers.
     The researchers then noted how the consumer behavior was more frenzied than what is seen in traditional retail servicescapes. Shoppers hurriedly rummaged through piles of merchandise. They hoarded items they hadn’t yet decided whether to buy. They tried on clothing while in front of other shoppers. They showed unusually keen interest in items which were going out of fashion or were otherwise likely to be discontinued in most retail outlets.
     After analyzing their ethnographic data collection, the researchers concluded that the wild pop-up store servicescapes precipitated in the shoppers wildly distinctive behavior.
     However, this was not a controlled study. The conclusions are only suggestive of cause-and-effect. Ethnographic consumer behavior research does have advantages. It’s conducted in a naturalistic setting with genuine servicescapes, not in a sterile laboratory with the sample limited to college students. The self-reports of the researchers as participants allow richer interpretation of the data. There are opportunities for expanding the inquiry on the fly and otherwise improvising to explore issues not envisioned in the original research design.
     Still, when encountering reports based on researchers living among the consumer natives, recognize the conclusions as suggestive, not conclusive.

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