KOREASCHOLAR

The advent of smart shopping environments including innovative information technology, advanced delivery systems, and extended smart phone use has rapidly changed the shopping methods and activities of the consumers. They have chosen smart shopping with greater frequency, which minimizes the use of time, money, effort and energy to buy the right products and to gain shopping experiences such as hedonic and utilitarian feelings (Atkins and Kim, 2012). The concept of smart shopping is based on value co-creation which can be explained as the value from the outcome of interaction between firms and consumers (Grönroos, 2011, Vargo and Lusch, 2004). In the value co-creation process, smart shoppers are willing to perform customer participation behaviors such as information seeking, information sharing, responsible behavior, and personal interaction, and to show customer citizenship behaviors such as feedback, advocacy, helping, and tolerance (Yi and Gong 2013). In smart shopping, a consumer involves in shopping experiences through product purchases and while engaged via the shopping environments such as an elaborate store design, educational events, recreation, and entertainment (Fiore and Kim, 2007). These shopping experiences, which contain both hedonic and utilitarian value (Holbrook and Hirschman, 1982), are better explained by consumer processes, responses on the shopping environment, situation, and consumer characteristics (Fiore and Kim, 2007). The attributes of shopping experience are symbolic, hedonic, and aesthetic (Holbrook and Hirschman, 1982) and utilitarian and hedonic (Kim, Lee and Park, 2014). Smart shoppers who are involved with value co-creation obtain hedonic benefits with emotional, funny, and enjoyable feelings and along with utilitarian benefits such as rational, functional, task-related experiences (Holbrook and Hirschman, 1982). The value co-creation and the shopping experience lead to greater customer equity such as value equity, brand equity, and relationship equity (Lemon, Rust, and Zeithamal 2001). Based on previous literature review, the authors constructed the following hypotheses. First, smart shopping will have positive effects on value co-creation, the shopping experience, and customer equity. Second, the smart shopping will have positive effects on both value co-creation and the shopping experience. Third, value cocreation will have positive effects on the shopping experience. Fourth, value cocreation and the shopping experience will have positive effects on customer equity. The authors collected the data based on questionnaires from mobile smart shoppers. The SPSS 20 and AMOS 20 statistical programs will be used for the data analysis. The analysis found the positive influence that smart shopping has on value co-creation and the shopping experience, and customer equity. This is the first study that shows these relationships from an empirical point-of-view. The findings of the study have useful managerial implications on the effects of value co-creation on both smart shoppers and firms. Value co-creation will provide smart shoppers with better product or service quality and enhance firms with more valuable customer equity. The greater shopping experience is the greater customer equity that will be developed. Value co-creation also will give firms a strong competitive advantage in terms of an organization’s learning, brand perception, reduced risk, improvement of customer relationships, and lowering cost for marketing, and research and development. The study has limitations. First, other potential variables of the value co-creation influencing new service development, customer loyalty, and customer satisfaction etc, could be considered. Second, the length of the relationship between smart shoppers and the service provider in value co-creation process should be considered. Third, the study needs to be generalized to cross sectional research beyond smart shopping area. Finally, to examine the effects of value co-creation and the shopping experience on customer equity, future research could investigate how value co-creation and the shopping experience affect the objective financial performance of a firm.

• Nam Hee Jin(Changwon National University, Republic of Korea)
• Kyong Ryul Koo(Changwon National University, Republic of Korea)
• Kyung Hoon Kim(Changwon National University, Republic of Korea)