Customers often switch retailers as they become increasingly familiar with and bored with a retail store.  Retailers have responded to this trend by devoting more resources to creating interesting and entertaining shopping experiences.  While these efforts represent a dramatic change in retail strategy, research continues to focus primarily on satisfaction as an overall outcome of the shopping experience.  This research responds to this growing trend in retailing by integrating a new outcome variable, retailer interest, into an existing framework.

Retailer interest is defined as the level of interest that a consumer has in a given retail store.  A customer who has a high level of interest in a retailer is fascinated with and curious about the retailer.  Retailer interest is not an emotion but a cognitive state that reflects a motivation or desire of the customer.  Furthermore, retailer interest is a global construct that reflects an overall response to a retailer beyond that which is reflected in a single store visit.

A scale designed to assess retailer interest was developed and pretested.  The scale was designed to assess a customer’s level of retailer interest for a recently visited retail store.  A proposed model was also tested that assessed a number of antecedents and consequences of retailer interest.  As predicted, retailer interest was positively influenced by positive affect associated with the retailer, involvement with the products the retailer carries, and satisfaction with the retailer. 

Also as predicted, retailer interest had a positive influence on looking forward to visiting the retailer again in the future, loyalty to the retailer, positive word of mouth regarding the retailer, and a desire to learn more about the retailer.  The positive influence of interest on these outcome variables was present even when the effect of satisfaction was modeled.  Thus, these results clearly indicate that efforts designed to increase customers’ level of interest in the store have a direct impact on a number of commonly measured strategic outcome variables. 

Retailer interest was predicted to influence repatronage intentions, but this relationship was not supported.  An interaction between satisfaction with the retailer and retailer interest was, however, significant.  The significant interaction indicated that retailer interest impacts repatronage intentions, but only under conditions of lower satisfaction.  At higher levels of satisfaction, retailer interest did not influence repatronage intentions.  Thus, creating high levels of retailer interest appears to provide some safeguard against instances when satisfaction levels with the retailer falters.

The results of the study provide additional evidence demonstrating the importance of satisfying customers.  Satisfaction with the retailer had a positive influence on repatronage intentions, looking forward to visiting the retail again in the future, loyalty, positive word of mouth, and a desire to learn more about the retailer.  Satisfaction also had a positive influence on retailer interest.  Therefore, retailers should continue to develop strategies that result in higher levels of customer satisfaction.

Overall, the results also suggest that retailers should consider monitoring customers’ level of interest in their stores as retailer interest was found to be a significant predictor of important outcome variables.  The retailer interest scale developed in this research is relatively short and could easily be integrated into retailers’ assessment of customer experiences.  Retailers should also attempt to increase the interest customers have in their stores through the use of in-store factors such as sales or promotions, helpful salespeople, exciting new products, variety, and an appealing atmosphere.