The global marketplace is changing and retailers must decide on unique positioning strategies to attract consumers away from the competition. Socioeconomic changes are shifting consumer shopping patterns. Technology development drastically affected retail environment and consumers shopping behavior. While traditional retailers provide consumers to touch and feel merchandise and provide instant gratification, online retailers, meanwhile impress shoppers with wide selection, low prices and other consumers ratings and reviews. As the retailing industry move toward an omnichannel retailing experience, there are no exact distinction between traditional offline and online stores. Under the circumstances, retailers pursue an integrated sales experience that melds the advantages of physical stores with the information-rich experience of online shopping. In order to develop effective marketing strategy, retailers need adapting best practices from both the offline and online worlds in areas including developing products, pricing, designing the shopping experience and building relationships with customers (Brynjolfsson, Hu & Rahman, 2013). In order to do this, the first step is to understand the consumers who DO shopping in stores and “redesign shopping from scratch (Rigby, 2011): Why do they visit the stores? What do they expect from the stores? What does make their shopping experience special? What does shopping mean to consumers?
The purpose of this study was to gain a better understanding and conceptualizing of consumer’s perspective on shopping at this era of omnichannel retailing. Given the exploratory nature of the research, a qualitative research methodology was necessary because it is useful in gaining insights from consumers’ own perspectives (Denzin and Lincoln, 1994). The photo elicitation interview method was used for this research. This method allows the research discussion to start with real places and real experiences and visual data are useful for envisioning and speaking about possible, desired futures (Dumreucher & Kolb, 2008).
For this research, we invite 20 college students to answer a research question by taking photos and explaining their photos to the researcher in the interview session. We used Dempsey and Tucker (1994)’s five step protocol for photo-interviewing. The five steps include: sourcing photographs, selecting specific photographs, preparing the interview schedule, conducting the interviews, and analyzing textual data. In order to collect sourcing photographs, we asked participants to consider the general research questions (e.g., what does shopping mean to you? What does come across your mind when you read “shopping”?) and how to take photos that reflect their view point on the research questions. Then, participants implemented their reflections by taking 30 photos of specific subjects in their surroundings (e.g., people, places, activities, or buildings) that related to the research questions and are meaningful to them during the next 2 weeks. In the selecting photographs step, photos were grouped in categories. In the interview, participants consider their photos and verbalize their thinking. In the final step, the data—photos, and interview transcripts-were analyzed (Dempsey & Tucker, 1994; Kolb, 2008) and core categories have emerged which have then been refined.
The findings suggest that Korean young consumer’s concept of shopping were sorted into six categories: 1) considering various channels to shop (e.g., department store, outlet store, online store, mobile stores, offshore direct buying), 2) thinking of fashion items (e.g., clothing, shoes, cosmetics, accessories), 3) searching for promotional activities (e.g., sales, markdowns, special events, online coupons), 4) browsing and comparing attributes through online stores, 5) releasing stress/changing mood, 6) socializing with others, and 7) getting stress from shopping. Gaining a better understanding of the smart shopper will enable retailers to more accurately target this consumer group. Although various retail channels were the most photographed and mentioned in this study, department stores and mobile stores (using smartphone) were the most mentioned and photographed. Participants also mentioned browsing and comparison shopping through online stores as “pre-shopping activity.” Another area is hedonic aspect of shopping: one of the major meanings of shopping found in this study is releasing stress or changing mood. Some also mentioned that although they do shopping in order to release their stress, sometimes shopping leads to another type of stress. There are also few participants who suggested shopping is a stressful work to do.
By the photo elicitation interview, this study illustrates that shopping embrace a multi-dimension of meanings and provides insights to improve our understanding of young Korean consumers’ concept of shopping. The photograph aided in the visual and emotional memory of the experience as a memory anchor as they recalled the places or moments, and using photographs in the research enabled the research to proceed to a deeper understanding and meaning

• Mi Young Lee(Inha University)
• Kyungae Park(Yeungnam University)
• Seunghee Lee(Sookmyung Women's University)