The Influence of Social Crowdedness in Retail Stores on Consumers’ Shopping Satisfaction in the COVID-19 Era: A Focus on the Moderating Effects of Happiness and Time Perspective

Abstract

Purpose – The construct of social crowdedness has been debated whether it impacts consumer shopping satisfaction positively or negatively. However, as the COVID-19 has prolonged, people fear places full of people due to possible contamination and so they avoid such areas. Therefore, this study expects that social crowded-ness has a negative effect. However, this study also predicts that consumers’ individual values could moderate the negative effect of social crowdedness. Design/Methodology/Approach – This study recruited an experimental study design for the research purpose above. Through two experiments, this study examined the effect of social crowdedness on shopping satisfaction and the moderating effect of happiness perspective (study 1) and time perspective (study 2). Findings – The study found that people in a high social crowdedness condition showed lower shopping satis-faction. Furthermore, this negative reaction in a high social crowdedness condition was moderated depending on their dominant perspective. Research Implications – Those with calm happiness and present-fatalistic perspective showed even greater shopping satisfaction in low social crowdedness conditions. In contrast, those with exciting happiness and present-hedonic time perspectives showed comparably higher satisfaction in a high crowdedness condition. The results are expected to provide critical strategic implications to retail managers. © 2022 International Academy of Global Business and Trade. All rights reserved.