The International Review of Retail, Distribution and Consumer Research

This article was downloaded by: [Indian Institute of Technology - Kharagpur]
On: 06 April 2015, At: 01:25

Publisher: Routledge
Informa Ltd Registered in England and Wales Registered Number: 1072954 Registered
office: Mortimer House, 37-41 Mortimer Street, London W1T 3JH, UK
The International Review of Retail,

Distribution and Consumer Research
Publication details, including instructions for authors and
subscription information:
http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/rirr20
Aisles of life: outline of a customercentric approach to retail space

management
Lene Granzau Juel-Jacobsen
ab
Department of Design, Copenhagen School of Design and

Technology, Empire Campus, Guldbergsgade 29n, DK-2200
Copenhagen, Denmark
b
Click for updates
Department of Marketing, Copenhagen Business School, Solbjerg

Plads 3, Frederiksberg, DK-2000 Copenhagen, Denmark
Published online: 05 Sep 2014.
To cite this article: Lene Granzau Juel-Jacobsen (2015) Aisles of life: outline of a customercentric approach to retail space management, The International Review of Retail, Distribution and
Consumer Research, 25:2, 162-180, DOI: 10.1080/09593969.2014.951676
To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/09593969.2014.951676
PLEASE SCROLL DOWN FOR ARTICLE

Taylor & Francis makes every effort to ensure the accuracy of all the information (the
Content) contained in the publications on our platform. However, Taylor & Francis,
our agents, and our licensors make no representations or warranties whatsoever as to
the accuracy, completeness, or suitability for any purpose of the Content. Any opinions
and views expressed in this publication are the opinions and views of the authors,
and are not the views of or endorsed by Taylor & Francis. The accuracy of the Content
should not be relied upon and should be independently verified with primary sources
of information. Taylor and Francis shall not be liable for any losses, actions, claims,
proceedings, demands, costs, expenses, damages, and other liabilities whatsoever
or howsoever caused arising directly or indirectly in connection with, in relation to or
arising out of the use of the Content.
This article may be used for research, teaching, and private study purposes. Any
substantial or systematic reproduction, redistribution, reselling, loan, sub-licensing,
systematic supply, or distribution in any form to anyone is expressly forbidden. Terms &
Downloaded by [Indian Institute of Technology - Kharagpur] at 01:25 06 April 2015
Conditions of access and use can be found at http://www.tandfonline.com/page/termsand-conditions
The International Review of Retail, Distribution and Consumer Research, 2015

Vol. 25, No. 2, 162180, http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/09593969.2014.951676
Aisles of life: outline of a customer-centric approach to retail space

management
Lene Granzau Juel-Jacobsena,b*
Department of Design, Copenhagen School of Design and Technology, Empire Campus,

Guldbergsgade 29n, DK-2200 Copenhagen, Denmark; bDepartment of Marketing, Copenhagen
Business School, Solbjerg Plads 3, Frederiksberg, DK-2000 Copenhagen, Denmark
(Received 31 May 2013; accepted 1 August 2014)
The article argues that well-established principles of urban design are highly relevant
for retail management and applicable in regards to a much needed customer-centric
turn in space management within retailing management. In particular, supermarkets,
hypermarkets and larger retail chains are governed by a space management tradition
that heavily draws on principles of utilitarianism and instrumental rationality. Yet, any
physical retail space accommodates a separate and distinctive, but not independent,
social space which must equally be addressed if attractive retail spaces are to be
grasped, created and maintained. In fact, the standardized and repetitive design of many
larger retail environments such as supermarkets appears to build on uncontested
traditions of space management and tenacious myths about consumer behaviour and
preferences that are challenged as urban design studies are consulted. In reference to
current urban design research, the article concludes by suggesting five propositions and
measurements for the customer-centric quality of retail spaces that take as a starting
point the appreciation of the social space that any retail space management
presupposes.
Keywords: space management; nudging; urban design; retail layout; servicescape;
atmospherics; customer experience; built environment
Introduction: aisles of life

Admittedly, speaking of aisles of life within a context of retail may appear strange,
bordering on bizarre. In fact, it seems as odd as it is urgent. Retailers seldom speak of life
between shelves. An expression such as life is clearly a rare incidence within a retail
context, to say the least. Neither do urban planners speak of aisles of life very often. Yet
history has demonstrated that architects and urban designers would be tremendously
challenged and cities profoundly impoverished without apt phrases for social life and
observant eyes for life between houses (Gehl [2004] 2011). Arguably, something similar
goes for retailers in regards to the life between shelves.
In particular, larger retail operations such as supermarkets may be inclined towards
neglecting the importance of shopping aisles, as they are easily overlooked, both
conceptually and in the actual retail operation. Instead, focus is primarily fixed on the
arrangement of products and merchandise, allocation of shelf space, efficient inventory
management and optimization of planograms to ensure performance, because space is one
of the biggest investments in retail (Vedamani 2004; Varley and Rafiq 2004). This focus
*Email: lgjj@kea.dk, lgj.marktg@cbs.dk

q 2014 Taylor & Francis
The International Review of Retail, Distribution and Consumer Research
163
may also be encouraged by the relative ease by which physical merchandise and shelf
space can be grasped, measured and gauged by the eye. Products and shelves are relatively
straightforward to comprehend and work with as they are material, concrete and tangible.
In contrast, shopping aisles are somewhat intangible and therefore less manageable, due to
the fact that shopping aisles are not defined in themselves but shaped by the surrounding
shelves and merchandise. In this sense, shopping aisles are by definition a derived size as
they follow from something else and are thus easily reduced to a side effect of shelf
arrangement and merchandise management.
The phrase aisles of life is, in effect an attempt to designate and address the
interstices, the invisible and elusive space in-between where life is always lurking and
which usually escapes description because our words refer to stabilized identities and
functioning (Stengers 2002, 245).Yet, the commercial and social value of shopping aisles
should not be underestimated even if appropriate wordings, measurements, key
performance indicators (KPIs) and ready-made management tools are lacking. Arguably,
rather than a conventional conceptualization of shopping aisles as a compromise of the
number of stock keeping units (SKUs) (cost), aisles of life are to be understood as a
potential (asset). From this perspective, the importance of paying great and careful
attention to the aisles of life is apparent; rather than minimizing the cost of space, it is a
matter of realizing the full potential of retail space.
Shopping aisles are also aisles of life in the sense that they are important social spaces
not to be disregarded. Following Lefebvre (1991), the space of conventional space
management within retail is understood as an abstract space. It is a space dominated by
instrumental rationality, homogenization and, not least, commodification. It is an abstract
space characterized and conceptualized by formal geometry and quantities, e.g. size,
distance, square metres and profit. In contrast, social space describes, according to
Lefebvre, the space of lived, concrete experience. It is a space that is inhabited, imagined,
contested and continuously constructed by social relations.1 Consequently, we should
distinguish actual physical retail space from the way we organize it, the way we think
about it and the way we live (in) it.
To be clear, many smaller retailers do indeed exhibit the ability to accommodate and
cater for social life, and only in the gridded layout of supermarkets and warehouses is
abstract space found in its most pure form. Hence, a certain size is required before a
modern division of labour is relevant, and a certain awareness of cost-efficiency must be
present before the logic of conventional space management can prevail. On the other hand,
not even the smallest boutique can claim not to be tainted and partially guided by the
modern logic and mindset of abstract space guiding conventional space management.
In sum, to the extent that retailers accept that customers are their greatest asset and thus
commit to a customer-centric approach to retail management, the raison detre of the subdiscipline space management should, I argue, be thoroughly rethought along the same line.
Space management should in other words not begin with the abstract spatial arrangement
of shelves and categorization of products as much as with the social life wanted between
them, the customer behaviour aimed at and customer experiences hoped for. Ultimately,
shopping aisles full of life are a logical prerequisite; without which it would be neither
meaningful nor profitable to discuss shelves and category optimization in the first place.
The problems of conventional space management
In themselves, shopping aisles are to repeat a mere abstraction; they are interstices, spaces
in-between, only acquiring shape, contour and presence by the build environment and
164
L.G. Juel-Jacobsen
material fixtures that surround them. On a daily basis, customers may tend to concentrate
on the merchandise on display, consequently losing sight of the intangible space that
surrounds them. Retailers are most likely preoccupied with sales optimization and the
careful arrangement of inventory and products in order to ensure maximum exposure and
turnover of products, consequently they also tend to lose sight of the interstices inbetween.
Shopping aisles suffer, in other words, from the common problem of space they are
either abstract, neutral and devoid of meaning, or simple, commonsensical and mostly
invisible to the eye, with no exact texture, form or well-defined borders. They only start
because other things stop, and end unnoticed where other things begin. As any other space,
they are a hidden dimension of social life (Hall 1969; Stengers 2002) and as such always
at risk of being overlooked and neglected.
As a discipline, traditional space management is strictly concerned with efficient and
cost-effective space utilization (Williams 1996) and is thus by definition concerned with
abstract space. Efficient space management is crucial as more sales from the same space
could lead to increased margins and ultimately to higher revenue. The typical
measurement of space performance is sales per square metre, also known as space
productivity. With limited shelf space available in retail, a profitable deployment of space
easily becomes reduced to a question of efficient strategies for merchandise and category
management. In this context, space management involves careful placement of products
on shelves and organization of categories within each store in order to generate greater
sales (Bezawada et al. 2009). Clearly, from the perspective of abstract space, the space
inbetween risks the fate of becoming secondary, if not neglected.
In particular, supermarkets and larger (lower price) retail chains with a significant
number of SKUs need to pay careful attention to efficient and cost-effective space
management. In order to generate high turnover and maximum profit, questions of which
items to stock and how to optimize limited store space are a daily preoccupation for
retailers. So too is the detailed arrangement of shelf space: what amount of space to
allocate to an item? and which location to designate to the item on the shelf? Sophisticated
models of shelf optimization have been developed (e.g. ACNielsens Spaceman). They
have proven valuable tools in optimizing sales potential, although with clear limitations.
The almost endless and changing number of possible combinations of categories, facings,
and shelf placements make it impossible to find a final and indisputable solution for shelf
optimization and product placement. With an average number of 38,718 items or SKUs
carried in an average American supermarket in 2010, the potential number of category
combinations and placements is next to endless (Food Marketing Institute 2013).2 Hence,
what we have are spatial practices handed down by tradition, reasonable guesses of
optimization based both on sophisticated category management software and on a number
of contingent choices between categories.
Efficient and careful utilization and management of shelf space the space for products
is clearly of utmost importance; it is here the so-called first moment of truth is played out,
where up to 70% of buying decisions are made (Lofgren 2005; Huang et al., forthcoming).
Yet, of equal importance is the management of the invisible space inbetween the space
inbetween which is not only difficult to gauge any clear value of, but equally difficult to see,
touch and manage. Yet, it is no less real and important, it only suffers from the fact that
products tend to steal the centre of attention in daily retail operation.
To expose an optimal number of products to a maximum number of customers in the
minimum amount of space may be an exercise in itself, but it is only a single aspect of the
importance of managing retail spaces. Having operation in mind, effective replenishment
and security must necessarily influence the layout too, which are some of the familiar
165
compromises in everyday retail business. The implicated risk is to establish retail

environments that are mostly for the replenishment and showcasing of categories to the
satisfaction of suppliers and staff, less for the sake of customers.
As performance is measurable by sales per square foot, and space productivity is
calculated by gross margin earned per square foot per day or even by the hour (George
1951; Vedamani 2004; Aghazadeh 2005), we should be careful not to reduce retail space
management to a question of simple sales productivity ratio. If we focus too closely on
measurements of sales productivity, the aisles are somehow left out of sight or at best
considered a by-product of the arrangement of shelves and products, thus shopping aisles
are easily perceived as costly residuals. To the extent that sales effectiveness and retail
performance is calculated in terms of sales per square metre, shopping aisles appear by
implication as redundant space. This one-sided conception of retail space as abstract space
in Lefebvres sense may indeed explain why so many conventional supermarkets and
larger retail outlets appear to be built mostly for products, and less for people. Basically,
objective space is given predominance over social space.
In addition retailers are, on a daily basis, caught up with showcasing merchandise, the
arrangement of shelves, store maintenance and stock replenishment, contributing to an
understanding of space management in narrow utilitarian terms as the optimization of
minimum space for maximum outcome (Yang and Chen 1999). In contrast, if space
management is conceptualized in a broader sense as a discipline maximizing the value and
quality of existing space, thus also encompassing social space, it follows that whenever
customers are involved, space management is not merely about optimizing the use of
existing physical space or about allocating measurable space to products, but also about
enhancing the intangible value, attraction and experience of any given retail space.
By cutting costs, potentials are not necessarily realized; by increasing space productivity,
space quality is neither necessarily appreciated nor fulfilled.
Increased conversion rates, average sales and revenue through sophisticated
planograms and space optimization are desirable for any retailer, but so are the attraction
of more customers, the ability to make the shopping environment pleasurable and
memorable as well as the likelihood of them returning. Hence, most will agree that the
customer experience of retail settings (servicescape) and various environmental cues
(atmospherics) have a strong bearing on retail performance, either directly or indirectly in
terms of competitive advantages, brand perception and customer satisfaction (e.g. Kotler
1973; Donovan and Rottiser 1982; Bitner 1992; Baker, Grewal, and Parasuraman 1994;
Sherry 1998; Doyle and Broadbridge 1999; Backstrom and Johansson 2006). Despite the
acknowledgement of the potential of retail space in particular within service marketing,
most space management studies still lose sight of the social space it presupposes and tend
to concentrate on the physical evidence, that is, on objective space exclusively and so fail
to strike the right balance between the two.
Conventional space management needs, in other words, to be supplemented by
questions of lived space, to use Lefebvres terminology, and studies of servicescapes and
atmospherics could benefit from paying more attention to the social space within.
In principle, conventional models of space management can optimize the shelf space and
category combinations of any store, whether wonderful or horrible in the eyes of the
customer; and in a similar vein, spectacular and impressive retail environments can be
built without leaving much room for people. According to current space management,
limited considerations are made as to whether the customers find pleasure in the retail
space or not; at best, it is taken as pre-given. Conventional space management is, in other
words, only about making the most out of the available space, not the best.
166
L.G. Juel-Jacobsen
Admittedly, the service encounter has attracted much scholarly interest within service
management, examining customer employee encounters as well as customer customer
interaction (Bitner, Booms, and Tetreault 1990; Teboul 2006), but with a tendency
to stress social interaction and to downplay the surrounding space, thus highlighting
only the first part of social space (i.e. social), leaving the latter (i.e. space) very
much to conventional space management. However, when the necessity of going to the
physical brick-and-mortar store is taken out of the equation a tendency which the
growing e-commerce stimulates, for instance the question of the attractiveness of
the built environment moves necessarily to the centre of attention. Even if it is possible to
optimize sales per square metre by rearranging merchandise, the continuous success of a
store will, at the end of the day, rely on the quality of the social space and thus on how
many customers it is able to attract, satisfy and make return.
Thus, we need to be able to grasp how to attract customers in store by means of the
built environment and the social space within, the two single factors that really stand out
from online stores. In this light, space is not so much a cost as an asset. From the
perspective of the customer, retail space is a resource with the potential of framing,
materializing and enhancing the shopping experience and social life. It can make them
visit, stay longer and want to return and even return more frequently. In other words,
managing retail spaces wisely and strategically is perhaps less about optimizing space
allocation and more about creating attractive retail environments and enabling
a (profitable) social life in between.
To be clear, in a daily retail operation a careful balance between sales space efficiency
on the one hand and customer experience on the other is a well-known dilemma,
constantly negotiated between, say, logistics and customer service. Likewise there is a
trade-off between the SKU count and spaciousness. However, the dilemma may be framed
falsely in the first place: there is no simple and logically necessary contradiction between a
large SKU count and a great customer experience. Even if we tend to think of luxury stores
as spacious and discount stores as compact, it would not make sense to claim, for instance,
that the experience of the narrow and cramped alleys in Venice, Italy are less enjoyable
than that of the wide modern network of Brasilia, Brazil. Density of people, goods and
opportunities has again and again proved to be one of the defining qualities of urban life; to
compare, a large supermarket with only a handful of goods on display is alarming, as one
may recall from visiting the former Soviet Union.
That is to say, the problem of abstract space versus social space is not to be reduced to
a simple question of the SKU count and square metres. That would be misleading. Rather,
we need to rephrase the problem and pay careful attention as to how retail space is
managed best and not only how it is managed most efficiently. The problem of
conventional space management is, in sum, the preoccupation with objective space only,
typically reflected in the measurements of space productivity such as sales per square
metre, which by definition assigns no value to the customer experience of retail space.
In searching for guiding principles for retail design and alternative measurements of space
management that take customer experience as a starting point, urban design studies may
prove fruitful place to start.
In search of attractive retail spaces
If retail space management is to take a true customer-centric turn, as the concepts of
servicescapes, atmospherics and customer experience management have long
promised (Kotler 1973; Bitner 1992; Wakefield and Blodgett 1996; Sherry 1998), then an
167
adjusted vocabulary and measurement should develop accordingly, and many retail spaces
should be rebuilt to accommodate customers over products. A first step in that direction is
to initiate an understanding of the interplay between customers and retail spaces as well as
to introduce a supplement to conventional space management: a new type of space
management that will be less occupied with the categorization and arrangement of
merchandise and allocation of shelf space3 and more interested in welcoming customers
inbetween shelves and displays; a space management that perceives the concept of aisles
of life not as an oddity but as a quality, very similar to the street life we have learned to
appreciate in the city.
Despite obvious organizational differences between a private retail space and a public
city, shopping aisles are, in fact, as important for retail as streets are for the city, if only
because aisles and streets are the preconditions of any social life to take place: Think
about a city and what comes to mind?, asked the distinguished urban planner Jacobs
(1958, 29) rhetorically with a voice that has ever since echoed within urban design studies,
and she answered unequivocally: Its streets. Jacobs did so at a point in time where the
importance of streets and street life had a tendency towards neglect and ignorance within
urban planning, more than often resulting in troubled inner cities. The focus of urban
planning had gradually shifted towards efficient transportation networks and monumental
signature buildings, at best treating the social life as a side effect, at worst neglecting urban
life altogether. The result was space-efficient but it also desolated inner cities.
Hence, it is no coincidence that it has become standard to think of urban life in terms of
street life today, pointing precisely to the material anchoring of social life within cities, if
only because there would be no city without streets or at least it would be a deserted,
eerie and ghostly city that most people felt wary of; an essentially unpleasant or boring city
that people rushed through; a transit city into which people only ventured forth out of
necessity. It is tempting to term such a place a supermarket city.
Disagreement on how to build urban streets and public spaces and for which purposes
and which uses are frequent. Some argue that they should facilitate civic engagement and
serve the community (Sennett 1990, 1991); others that they are best developed by the
market forces, in the end serving the many for a prosperous future (Deffner and Liouris
2005), but in either case, it is recognized that citizens and customers alike vote with their
feet. They utilize spaces that fit their likings or speak to their needs. Certainly, they not
only tend to visit good-quality social spaces, but they also visit them for a longer period of
time and visit them more frequently; they do not visit spaces that negate their likings and
preferences. In the latter case, research has demonstrated that they simply avoid these
spaces altogether or rush through for necessary errands only (Whyte 1980; Gehl [2004]
2011). It is precisely from this vital law of social gravity which took urban planning
numerous years to realize that retail space management can learn.4
Thus for good reasons, the street holds, today, an almost mythical status within urban
studies: The street is the river of life of the city, a place where we come together, the
pathway to the center (Whyte [1988] 2009, 7). In fact, within urban studies, it often makes
more sense to speak of a city of streets than of a city of buildings (Fyfe 1998). It would be
no exaggeration to claim that without streets, there would be no city. In a similar vein,
without shopping aisles there would be no supermarket, no department store, in fact no
store at all at least not a physical store. Although this fact is easily forgotten and
neglected, no retail setting made of bricks and mortar is feasible without shopping aisles,
as they give space to customer flow and movements, shape a certain way of consumer
life (shopping) and at the same time they accommodate customer wishes, needs and, at
best, dreams.
168
L.G. Juel-Jacobsen
Similar to shopping aisles, urban streets serve at least three purposes: that of
circulation and traffic (abstract space), built frontage (buildings/shelves) and that of public
life (social space) (Marshall 2004). In generalized and equally simplified terms, the three
purposes of urban streets were disentangled and compartmentalized during the modernism
movement within urban planning in the sense that engineers were given responsibility for
efficient traffic flow and architects concentrated on sculpturing monumental buildings,
consequently both lost sight of the public life somewhere inbetween. This resulted without
much variation in desolated and abandoned inner cities (Jacobs 1961; Mumford 1975;
Gehl [2004] 2011; Southworth and Ben-Joseph 2003). In a similar vein, this risk of neglect
is also reflected and institutionalized in common retail job descriptions, where the
category manager, merchandise manager and logistic manager will each secure optimal
SKUs, shelf and space arrangement respectively, while the responsibility of shopping
aisles falls somewhere inbetween.
One of the emblematic failures of urban planning during modernism was to separate
and segregate various functions of and in the city. It was an act of the form of rationality
valuing functionality over form, efficiency over aesthetics, and order over pleasure (Jacobs
1958; Sennett 1990; Lofland 1973, 1998). The obsession with the standardization and
rationalization of much urban space that characterized a large amount of modern
architecture and urban planning resulted in an impoverished street life at the same time as
making any sense of place difficult.
Spaces created only for the act of passing by generates a sense of placelessness worthy
of the term non-place, coined by Auge (1995) to describe spaces where no memorable
experiences are formed, no lasting social relations established and no moral ties are bound.
As the worst thinkable supermarket, these spaces are designed for people passing through
only out of necessity. Hence, it may be appropriate to repeat what architects and urban
planners have learned through years of mistaken regeneration and planning: Urban
plannings 50 unfortunate years meant that urban life just was not taken seriously. You do
not create a city by placing individual buildings in a row; your departure point has to be
life (Gehl [2004] 2011, 19).
In a similar vein, we may not create attractive stores and retail settings by organizing
shelves and placing goods according to sale and space optimization only; the point of
departure for any retail setting with aspirations towards attracting customers continuously
and increasingly has to be customer behaviour and the social life we want to take place.
We need to take as a starting point the assumption that voluntary, recreational and
pleasurable activities take place not when the built environment merely allows and
tolerates them but especially when they directly and indirectly promote and invite them.
However, where urban planners may be pleased with attracting people, obviously
retailers cannot afford to be satisfied with visitors only, but need to think in terms of
conversion rates that is, ultimately, in terms of profitability. Arguably, in reality urban
planning faces a similar struggle, balancing pure civic motives versus profit interests such
as real estate and the tourism industry (Punter 2003; Ratcliffe, Stubbs, and Shepherd
2005). In comparison, a demarcated and well-defined retail space is only less complex and
more controllable. Nevertheless, any difference between public and private interest does
not change the fundamental fact that retailers need to attract visitors before they can
convert them into buyers, and, thus, are subjected to the same social dynamics as the city.5
Ever since the unintended consequences of the modernism movement became
apparent, a countermovement of architects and urban planners emerged, who were eager
to see urban street life flourish again. For this reason they became highly interested in
identifying the characteristics of attractive spaces, which still offer a solid starting point
169
for reconsidering, designing and managing spaces with human life in mind. Without
customers it would make no sense to manage and optimize retail spaces in the first place.
As simple as this statement might be, it is remarkable that so little retail space management
has taken the aisles of life thoroughly into account.
What attracts people most, it would appear, is other people, wrote Whyte (1980, 225)
in the seminal study of The social life in small urban spaces, and he continued, If I
belabor the point it is because many urban spaces are being designed as if the opposite
were true, and that what people liked best were the places that they stay away from. Time
and time again it has been documented that people attract people more than anything else
(Feinberg et al. 1989; Gehl 2010); but despite that fact, we continue to build urban spaces
that are more for showcasing buildings, just as many retail settings, such a supermarkets,
are obviously built more for the replenishment of stock and showcasing of goods than they
are for the very customers they presuppose.
If we are to understand the aisles of life, if we have ambitions of attracting customers
and keeping them in store for longer, we need to understand first and foremost the odd law
of social magnetism: that social life to a great extent is self-reinforcing. Social activities of
almost any kind are the most important factors of the attraction of any given place (Lofland
1973, 1998, 87; Gehl [2004] 2011, 21 27).
Take, for instance, grocery shopping, which at first sight serves a practical, mundane and
straightforward purpose, yet for some people grocery shopping is mainly a socially
acceptable excuse and justification for venturing out among people (Miller 1998; Gehl
[2004] 2011).While again, for others, grocery shopping may just be a necessary transaction
yet at times it gives an unintended opportunity for social interaction and pleasurable
experiences which prolong the duration of the shopping trip and thus, as a side effect,
increases the likelihood of spending (Donovan et al. 1994; Turley and Milliman 2000).
The urban architect Gehl ([2004] 2011) distinguishes precisely between necessary and
voluntary activities in urban spaces. On the one hand, necessary activities include those
that, as the name suggests, are necessary and to some extent compulsory; going to work,
taking the bus, doing grocery shopping, buying milk, etc. These types of activities are only
minimally affected by the quality of the built environment as they are difficult to avoid all
together. However, in an uninviting environment, chores tend to be minimized both in
frequency and duration.
Voluntary activities, on the other hand, are closely related to the quality of the built
environment. Numerous studies have shown that if the built environment is inviting,
pleasurable and accommodating, the duration of necessary activities will be prolonged and
the frequency of voluntary and unplanned activities will increase significantly. A good
city is like a good party; guests are staying because they are enjoying themselves. In other
words, under the right circumstances and in the right settings the purposeful errand easily
turns into a pleasurable and prolonged shopping experience. Instead of rushing home from
work, we may take a break at the cafe on the way, enjoying the urban scene; the daily
grocery shopping may turn into a longer shopping spree, and the milk is joined by a soft
drink on the conveyor belt at the checkout.
No wonder urban planners have been preoccupied with creating attractive spaces,
knowing that fairly simple principles of urban design have the potential to influence the
frequency, duration and diversity of social activities in urban and similar spaces. Other
things being equal, this of course increases consumption and spending patterns as well. All
the more peculiar, then, that retailers hitherto have not been committed to the social space
of retail settings to the extent it deserves (Feinberg et al. 1989). In urban studies it is well
known that consumption very often is nothing but a side effect of a prospering social life.
170
L.G. Juel-Jacobsen
Designing aisles of life

Attracting people to public or commercial spaces may be encouraged and stimulated by
conscious design efforts. Both urban planning and retail studies have established a
significant influence of the built environment on human behaviour, but the arguments and
research appear with few exceptions to be developed in isolation, possibly due to diverse
academic traditions. However, within service marketing, the line of research focusing on
atmospherics (Kotler 1973) and servicescapes (Bitner 1992) is actually based on the
Stimuli-Organism-Response (S-O-R) model developed originally within urban planning
and the environment/behaviour tradition (e.g. Eroglu, Machleit, and Davis 2001; Chang,
Eckman, and Yan 2011). Curiously, only the S-O-R model has been accepted, while the
actual research findings have not been adapted to or discussed in relation to retail space.
In the following, I have precisely reworked and added to the findings of numerous
urban design studies and summarized the current directions of research into the five
distinct qualities that are most likely to have a positive effect on the social life of retail
spaces. Securing the five parameters is, of course, no law-like guarantee that people are
attracted to any given retail space; yet they have proven capable of stimulating sociability
and affording social life to happen, and more importantly, without them the possibility of
any social life of aisles is seriously challenged, if not restrained. The five propositions are:
visit-ability, destin-ability, comfort-ability, walk-ability and compact-ability.
Visit-ability
Visit-ability or in a wider sense, accessibility is the spatial quality of being easily
approached or entered, both in a physical and psychological sense (Lofland 1998;
Clarkson et al. 2003). The social space of retail settings would be seriously challenged
were they not accessible in the first place; the chances are that fewer would make the effort
to visit a store as nothing appears to offend people more than entrances that are somewhat
hidden, difficult or inaccessible. Doors that shut you out (Latour 1988, 1992), locks that
lock you out, and curbs that make you stumble (Goldsmith 2011) have not surprisingly
proved to leave lasting negative impressions. Accessibility is most certainly not an issue
reserved for people with certain disabilities. Whether a person is in a wheelchair or
pushing a pushchair or a shopping trolley, accessibility works essentially in the same way;
as you enter a space, you either feel welcomed or impaired. Within architecture, a trend
towards universal or inclusive design has emerged concentrating on the design of the
built environment in a way that is usable and accessible to everyone, regardless of ability,
height, age etc., realizing that physical barriers obviously often are translated into
psychological barriers too (Truesdale 2003; Maisel 2006).
Inviting entrances and visually accessible spaces that allow people and passers-by to
look inside a park or sneak a peek into a store from the outside, have proven qualified at
attracting significantly more people than those that do not; by accessibility people are, so
to speak, drawn inside (Whyte 1980; Wakefield and Blodgett 1996; Gehl [2004] 2011).
Doors that open up by themselves are another example of how the built environment may
welcome the customer inside with the help of a simple nudge, understood as a feature of
the built environment that alters peoples behavior in a predictable way without
forbidding any options or significantly changing their economic incentives (Sunstein and
Thaler 2008). On the opposite end of the scale is a lack of parking places, doorsteps that
are confused with an obstacle course or turnstiles to get entangled in at the entrance.
Complementary to the concept of accessibility within a universal design, the apt term
visit-ability is increasingly used to describe built environments that are not only
171
functionally accessible but are designed with social interaction and activities in mind,
allowing everyone to attend the party, so to speak (Truesdale 2003; Maisel 2006).
Proposition I. To measure a retail setting by its degree of visit-ability may well prove to be
a profitable choice for the retailer who caters for customers rather than for (suppliers of)
goods. In fact, greeting people by conscious design choices may prove as profitable as
impulse-buying items at the till; it may even contribute to the return visit of the customer,
but most importantly accessibility or in a stricter sense visit-ability is a precondition
for people to enter and thus lies at the very core of any customer-centric space design and
management.
To exemplify, benchmarks of visit-ability in retail settings could be as follows:
. ease of finding a parking space,
. visual transparency of entrance and facade.
Destin-ability
Any destination is marked by some sort of landmark whether in concrete, physical form or
imagined; most often they are both (Urry 1990, 1995). The meaning of the term
landmark runs from describing a specific physical feature that is merely recognizable to
the much more ambitious designation of an entire place of interest. A landmark may serve
at least three purposes: first, it works as a point of reference in space that eases navigation
and wayfinding (Lynch 1960). In this sense, the entrance and the checkout are typical instore landmarks. Second, in a more subtle sense a landmark serves as a place to gather
around and find shelter in. Research has shown that people prefer to sit or stand around
clearly marked-off landmarks a fountain, a monument, and a clock tower are examples
that work well in an urban context (Whyte 1980; Gehl [2004] 2011). If the landmark
invites social interaction as well, it tends to work even better. A playground, a grand
staircase and a sculpture for climbing are examples of good features that usually succeed
in attracting people for a longer period of time (Jacobs 1958; Lynch 1960). Curiously,
there are few examples of in-store landmarks that invite social interactions beyond the
purposeful transaction at the counter or checkout. Third, the landmark may even be an
attraction or destination in itself, something to be seen, touched and/or discussed. If it is
photogenic in addition, it strengthens the social magnetism of people (and as a spin-off
pictures will most likely get uploaded on social networks promoting the landmark in
question) (Urry 1990). The latter kinds of landmarks are probably more frequent in the city
than in retail, but a spectacular Christmas display is an example of a recurrent in-store
attraction, just as a department store as Harrods in London and Macys in New York may
serve as destinations in themselves. The profit potential of destin-ability lies, basically, in
prolonging the duration of the shopping trip due to a broadening of reasons for going to the
local supermarket from the necessary and well-defined singular errand to the less restricted
purpose of visiting a pleasurable destination. If customers are guided by in-store
landmarks rather than the need for a carton of milk, the chances are that retailers are
speaking to the pleasure-seeking shopper rather than the purposeful, also recognizing the
fact that a destination is not made up of a single carton of milk. Curiously, supermarkets
are built on the exact opposite premise: people shop out of necessity (e.g. need for milk)
and in an attempt to present to them as many unnecessary products as possible along the
way, the milk is placed inconveniently at the very back of the supermarket. Clearly, destinability and inconvenience are guided by different socio-spatial logics.
172
L.G. Juel-Jacobsen
Proposition II. A retail setting that takes destin-ability as a guiding model for space
management will succeed not only in catering for social interaction, but in attracting more
customers, increasing the duration and frequency of visits and hence most likely the
money spent.
To exemplify, benchmarks of destin-ability in retail settings could be as follows:
. number of in-store landmarks to navigate by (e.g. clock tower), find shelter by

(pillar) and landmarks that invite socialization (e.g. restaurants),6
. number of invitations to non-purposeful shopping (e.g. lounge areas).
Comfort-ability
Comfort-ability may be the simplest parameter and yet is still a well-kept secret. If we
want to attract people (with people), we have to make it possible first for them to meet, and
next for them to stay, either by sitting comfortably on benches or stairs or by making it
possible to lean against something or linger next to something that acts as a shelter for an
otherwise overwhelming exposure to other people. A food outlet often works well, as do
columns and trees (Whyte 1980; Gehl [2004] 2011).
The edge of a space provides enough comfort-ability for people to stand for a longer
period of time. Rarely do we find people standing in the middle of an empty space or
square. They will most likely find shelter and comfort along walls, facades and among
other people. Research has shown that recesses in walls and lampposts also tend to do a
good job of comforting. Smooth facades work less well than structures arches, niches,
railings are great support points to linger at, hang out, take a break, etc. (Gehl [2004] 2011,
2010). In either case, the physical structures may be said to offer a kind of ontological
support (Giddens 1991) and existential shelter (Kracauer [1930] 1998).
Very few points of comfort are available in the typical supermarket. The long row of
shelves work as smooth facades, and the straight aisles of supermarkets do not invite or
allow social breathing spaces. In the city, squares often offer interruptions, mental breaks,
pauses for collecting oneself and clear ones mind (Zerlang 1996), whereas there are no or
only few such pauses built into the layout of many supermarkets and some sadly designed
shopping malls, leading to dreary and exhausting shopping experiences.
Comfort is easily confused with convenience, especially within retail. The latter
describes products, services or features that save time and effort. Although the degree may
be relative from person to person, convenience is essentially a utilitarian measurement of
something. Comfort, in contrast, is much about feeling at ease, sheltered and at home in an
existential sense; a condition of well-being, contentment and security. It could be
described as a spatially conditioned state of ontological security, but where Giddens
(1991, 243) highlights the temporality of the concept by defining ontological security as
a sense of continuity and order in events, including those not directly within the
perceptual environment of the individual, I emphasize the spatial dimension of comfortability (e.g. Vidler 1992; Gehl 2010). From a profit perspective comfort-ability is closely
related to time spent and likelihood of return visits: a truly uncomfortable experience will
most likely result in minimized visit duration and frequency; at worst people will tend to
stay away altogether.
Proposition III. Within retail spaces, the focus is often on improving and optimizing
convenience for the customer, however to the extent that the customer is feeling at ease,
comfortable and secure, optimization of convenience is less urgent. Calls for increased
173
convenience, then, are a typical symptomatic response to uncomfortable retail settings,

and convenience may actually prove to be a poor consolation both for retailer and for
patron.7
To exemplify, benchmarks of comfort-ability in retail settings could be as follows:
. number and quality of built-in breathing spaces (again, square metre is less
important than number of users),
. number and quality of structures for resting, both physically and mentally.
Walk-ability
If urban spaces are made for vehicles primarily, public life is quickly lost among private
cars, and social interaction is limited to high-speed encounters and a quasi-private
sociability (Urry 2000, 58). In physical stores, the importance of securing walk-ability
goes without saying; that is what shopping aisles are primarily for. Walkable spaces built
for pedestrians, social encounters and activities are also characterized by being relatively
small in size. Smaller spaces tend to be conceived as relatively more intimate, friendly and
warm; they are, so to speak, designed with a human scale and speed in mind (Mumford
1964, 8; Gehl [2004] 2011, 2010).8 This works for both horizontal and vertical measures.
Relatively small-scale streets and aisles make it easier for the customer to gauge the
(perceived) whole at the same time as the customer is allowed to pay attention to details
(Jacobs 1958; Gehl 2010; Ingold 2004). To avoid any misunderstanding, to build on a
small scale does not equal small stores; a city can be large in size but mainly built on a
small scale such as Venice, Paris or London. When it comes to the walk-ability of
shopping aisles and other social shopping spaces, it is first and foremost the perception of
the customer that counts. As with streets, long, straight aisles may easily be conceived as
endless as in a tunnel view and consequently turn walking and shopping into a toil, a
hardship. The same distance can easily be traversed by the customer, even more slowly,
but with an entirely different evaluation, if only the route is interesting enough, offering
variation and visual closed endpoints (Jacobs 1958; Gehl [2004] 2011).
More importantly, to ensure walk-ability, streets and aisles should lead to where the
customer wants to go, not to where the retailer hopes for. In the city, people demonstrate
on a daily basis that they cut corners, walk next to stairs if they are deemed unsuitable,
people choose their way to suit them (Gehl [2004] 2011). It would be nave to believe that
the retailer should succeed in forcing customers along a predefined route without
consequences. Either customers cut the route short, traversing only half the shopping
aisles, as recent research has revealed (Larson, Bradlow, and Fader 2005) or if forcefully
led by a mousetrap they tend towards feeling trapped and frequent visits are consequently
minimized or avoided altogether (Varley and Rafiq 2004; Morgan 2008; Bell and
Ternus 2011). Thus within a split second shopping can turn from a voluntary, pleasurable
stroll to a necessary marathon; which by implication means that much of the joy has been
removed. Walkability may be as fundamental for space management as accessibility, and
is directly related to profitability, as the exposure of products per minute is prolonged as
the speed by which the customer traverse the store is reduced. Given that product
impressions take time, the likelihood of influencing consumer choices is improved by
increased walkability (and comfort-ability). To compare, traditional space management
focusing on a higher SKU count as the measurement of space efficiency implies that the
number of product exposures within the same time frame is increased. If walkability is not
given considerable attention, the result is most likely to be that customers will rush through
174
L.G. Juel-Jacobsen
the store and, consequently, more shelf space is needed to attract the same amount of
attention.9
Proposition IV. Building retail spaces with walk-ability and the human scale in mind will
most likely result in customers both walking longer distances and spending more time
traversing the same objective space. From this perspective, convenience and walk-ability
may in fact contradict each other in retail space management.
To exemplify, benchmarks of walk-ability in retail settings could be as follows:
. time spent in-store,

. length of voluntary route taken.10
Compact-ability
More than anything, compact-ability is a defining feature of the city. Density,
concentration and proximity of people, activities and built environment have for long been
associated with the city, both in quantitative and qualitative measures (Simmel [1903]
1990; Park 1915). For years crowds were considered explosive masses for political
reasons: density was seen as a source of overwhelming cultural impression and human
proximity as a dangerous cause of contamination that the urbanite had to adapt to, or even
avoid. However, as urban life became not the exception but the rule, the perception
changed accordingly, and today we know that the concentration of many people is
followed by diversity, eccentricity and tolerance (if only in terms of cynicism) (Lofland
1973, 1998; Sennett 1977, 1990; Hannerz 1980).
Research has demonstrated that if a variety of activities and offerings are concentrated
and clustered, social life and attraction will grow exponentially, due to the basic law of
social magnetism: people attract people. At times, a single fountain may do the job, yet
combined with a cafe, a street vendor, a playground, an underground, a convenience store,
and an inviting staircase, an attractive place will most likely be in place (Gehl 2010). Even
if people find, for instance, the area around the Spanish Steps in Rome too crowded for
their liking, the chances are that the same pattern is replicated and repeated wherever
compact-ability is at stake: good urban examples are Trafalgar Square in London, The
Stork Fountain square in Copenhagen, Calle Florida in Buenos Aires, Bethesda Fountain
in Central Park, NYC and Yoyogi Park in Tokyo. Even if clean and functional spaces
appear most rational and well organized from a traditional space management perspective,
the inefficiency of crowded social spaces may prove more profitable at the end of the day.
If people stay for a prolonged period of time beyond the necessary errand, it is reasonable
to assume that they not only enjoy themselves, but also spend more money, as research has
demonstrated (Yalch and Spangenberg 2000). This holds for both public and private space.
The fact that no other single feature like compact-ability appears to attract people is
perhaps the most important thing to be learnt from urban design studies, as it tends to fall
outside the conceptual net of traditional space management.
Proposition V. It is not crowdedness a retailer should fear the most but barren desolated
spaces. Bring lots of things, offers, activities and people together, and more people will
follow; unplanned consumption will most certainly be a side effect.
To exemplify, benchmarks of compact-ability could be as follows:
. size of range or SKU count but only combined with appropriate social space,
. number of people (voluntarily) gathered.
175
Conclusion: customer-centric retail spaces

The article contributes to the growing field of studies of servicescapes, atmospherics and
customer experience marketing by way of theoretical perspective. By introducing urban
design principles to retail, spatial ad hoc practices are challenged that otherwise risk being
taken for granted in daily retail operation. We may see buildings most as we walk the city;
we might focus on merchandise as we shop and we might get passionately preoccupied
with optimizing planograms in everyday retail business, but this does not necessarily
imply that we theoretically and strategically should continue to do the same. If we are
blind to the omnipresent and equally neglected space inbetween, we fail to see a defining
feature of any given retail space, consequently we risk losing sight of a potential of
creating attractive retail spaces informed by a true customer-centric approach.
Even though complicated and sophisticated social and psychological processes lay
behind them, the five propositions and principles of space management outlined above are
in a sense so simple and uncomplicated that one may wonder why they are not realized in
every retail space hoping to attract numerous people. Or with the laconic and famous
words of Whyte ([1988] 2009, 109): It is difficult to design a space that will not attract
people. What is remarkable is how often this has been accomplished. One reason for this
continuous mishap, I have argued following Lefebvre (1991), is the dominant perspective
of space as objective and abstract rather than social and lived.
Obviously, smaller boutiques specializing in premium brands and unique design
adhere less to the traditional space management regime than supermarkets and larger
wholesale chains that rely on the predominant low margin/high turnover logic. A luxury
boutique may emphasize high-level personal service in support of their premium brand,
whereas a large-scale store necessarily will have to rely much more on the build
environment (also known as the silent salesman) doing the job, as staffing is very costly.
Yet, regardless of square metres and business models, the traditional space management
perspective also finds its way into smaller boutiques as a consequence of real estate prices
and the very material nature of goods in contrast to the intangible and elusive nature of the
spaces inbetween that easily risk being neglected or perceived as waste. The social space I
have named aisles of life may precisely suffer from being defined as empty space, and
considered residual from the perspective of traditional space management. It is, however,
at a second glance, the very precondition of any retail business with ambitions to attract
and speak to people beyond mere necessity.
Based on recent research within urban design and planning, I have outlined five
parameters to guide retail space management that take the customer experience and the
space in between as starting points, which historically have proven fruitful and sustainable
in the context of urban planning and design. The customer-centric benchmarks proposed
are both applicable in daily retail operation and easily translatable into research
hypotheses. Although well established and well researched within urban studies, the five
propositions of course call for further research within specific retail settings. There is,
however, no reason to believe that people respond differently to the built environment per
se, depending on ownership type. From the users (consumers or citizens) point of view,
the motivation for visiting private versus public spaces may differ the first being more
purpose-oriented and the second less so but clearly the line between the two types of
spaces is blurred. For example, entering a public hospital may indeed be goal-oriented, a
public library likewise, whereas a public park and square may be used for less well-defined
pleasurable and recreational purposes. Finally, it may be worth drawing attention to the
numerous urban studies that actually take place in retail settings, such as in a shopping
176
L.G. Juel-Jacobsen
arcade (Benjamin 1999), hotel (Kracauer 1999), tavern and cafe (Sennett 1992), taxi dance
hall (Cressey), department store (Wilson) and on a pedestrian shopping street (Jacobs) to
mention a few classics of urban studies.
Whether private or public, in either case, research has revealed a similar pattern of use
guided by what I have summarized in the five parameters: (1) Visit-ability; (2) Destinability; (3) Comfort-ability; (4) Walk-ability; and (5) Compact-ability. These five
parameters influence to a significant degree how customers vote with their feet. In contrast
to current measures of space productivity and sales per square metre, a customer-centric
space management should, in other words, not begin with the abstract spatial arrangement
of shelves and categorization of products so much as with the social life wanted between
them, the customer behaviour aimed at and customer experiences hoped for.
In reference to urban design studies, I have pointed to the possibility of creating retail
settings that are not only designed with regards to movement, transition and flow of traffic,
for showcasing suppliers categories on shelves or for the replenishment of stock; I have
argued that much potential would flow from giving prominence to customers over goods
and shelf space.
Hence, to sum up: what would happen if we moved away from conventional retail
space management towards a space management that takes a customer-centric approach as
a starting point? An initial implication for space management would be a move away from
pure operation towards a more strategic approach that still aims at maximizing sales and
profit, but also customer satisfaction. Rather than the preoccupation with the objective
allocation of square metres to products, a customer-centric space management would take
the qualitative valuation of social space as a starting point, acknowledging that one single
square metre may afford very different shopping experiences and thus have very different
sales potential depending on the five parameters proposed. Thus, the chances are, I have
argued, that we would move away from creating transit places and forgettable places, and
perhaps succeed in creating places for staying and remembering. Instead of measuring
optimization and circulation, we may find ourselves discussing spatial principles of
attraction, comfort and pleasure. As e-commerce will continue to excel in convenience,
efficiency and optimization, the physical stores may precisely need a space management
guided less by utilitarian principles and more by urban principles of social interaction and
human attraction. A customer-centric space management would speak of aisles of life not
as an oddity, but as a prerequisite for growth and future success.
Acknowledgements
I would like to thank the two anonymous referees for valuable suggestions and constructive
comments that have strengthened the paper considerably.
Notes
1.
According to Lefebvre (1991), social space is continuously produced by the three moments of
production of space: spatial practice, representations of space and spaces of representations.
A discussion of spatiality therefore encompasses the physical world, the mental world and a
social construction of space. These three worlds are both separate and have interconnections
between all of them.
2. http://www.fmi.org/research-resources/supermarket-facts
3. For example, a practical guide to retail space management suggests the following:
The first step in developing a store layout is to understand the logic that forms the basis of
defining and creating product categories by answering the following questions:
A) What is a category?
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
9.
10.
177
B) What is the meaning of a grouping of categories?

C) What is the thinking behind presenting categories at the store?
D) What does a display do? How? (http://www.scribd.com/doc/43419876/Last-Mile5category-Layouts, p. 1)
The relationship works both ways, of course. Architects and urban planners may equally learn
from retail design. Not surprisingly, architects and retailers share a common vocabulary of
pedestrian traffic, destinations, zones, and plazas, and with the possibility of experimenting and
learning through trial and error in everyday operations, retailers may well hold a spatial
expertise that urban planners must somehow envy. It is possible and not unusual to refit a store
entirely, whereas in an urban context, it is rarely seen that entire cities are torn down and built
up from the ground.
The difference between public and private space may involve at least two differences: (1)
ownership structure, and (2) number of stakeholders. Both a city and a retail setting are
influenced through a complex net of decision makers and users; however the actors involved in
the much larger city may necessarily outnumber those engaged in a specific retail setting.
In regards to public spaces, the number is higher and thus the decision-making process more
complex. In the case of private space, the control of space may be more direct and
uncompromising. In addition, long-term planning versus short-term planning of the city as well
as of retail may come down to investment type and ownership structure. As a popular saying
goes, shareholder companies are notoriously known for working within a timeframe that goes
from annual report to annual report, whereas in politics the cycle of election is typically 4
years.
The restaurants of IKEA are great examples of social spaces that work well as destinations.
They are not space-efficient in regards to the SKU count but they encourage people to hang out,
rest and reload. Market research has established that people who visit the IKEA restaurant
spent a significant longer time in-store, resulting in a higher average ticket. Likewise, IKEA
has institutionalized the commercial potential of visit-ability in terms of designated open-thewallet areas at the very beginning of the customer journey (Stenebo 2010; IKEA 2012).
To be clear, there is no logical necessary opposition between efficiency and enjoyable customer
experience convenience may be exactly where the two collide. But neither can convenience
replace comfort-ability.
Gehl (2010) speaks of a 6 km/hour architecture as the ideal.
Alternative KPIs of space performance that brought the customer to the centre stage would be
(1) exposure of products per customer similar to the widespread online measurement of payper-view or pay-per-impressions, combined with (2) length (time) of exposure of products per
customer.
For example, IKEA is infamous for forcing customers through the store. On a short-term basis
customers may impulse-buy more being forced through the entire store; on a long-term basis
the customers may tend to return more frequently if they do not spend half a day on a visit
(possibly even feeling trapped most of the time).
References
Aghazadeh, S. -M. 2005. Layout Strategies for Retail Operations: A Case Study. Management
Research News 28 (10): 31 46.
Auge, M. 1995. Non-Places. An Introduction to Super Modernity. London: Verso.
Backstrom, K., and U. Johansson. 2006. Creating and Consuming Experiences in Retail Store
Environments. Comparing Retailaer and Consumer Perspectives. Journal of Retailing and
Consumer Services 13 (6): 417 430.
Baker, J., D. Grewal, and A. Parasuraman. 1994. The Influence of Store Environment on Quality
Inferences and Store Image. Journal of Academy of Marketing Science 22 (4): 328 339.
Bell, J., and K. Ternus. 2011. Silent Selling. Best Practices and Effective Strategies in Visual
Marketing. 4th ed. New York: Fairchild Books.
Benjamin, W. 1999. The Arcades Project. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Bezawada, R., S. Balachander, P. K. Kannan, and V. Shankar. 2009. Cross Category Effects of
Aisle and Display Placement: A Spatial Modeling Approach and Insights. Journal of Marketing
73: 99 117.
178
L.G. Juel-Jacobsen
Bitner, M. J. 1992. Servicescapes: The Impact of Physical Surroundings on Customers and

Employees. Journal of Marketing 56: 57 71.
Bitner, M. J., B. H. Booms, and M. S. Tetreault. 1990. The Service Encounter: Diagnosing
Favorable and Unfavorable Incidents. The Journal of Marketing 54: 71 84.
Chang, H. J., M. Eckman, and R. N. Yan. 2011. Application of the Stimulus-Organism-Response
Model to the Retail Environment: The Role of Hedonic Motivation in Impulse Buying
Behavior. The International Review of Retail, Distribution and Consumer Research 21 (3):
233 249.
Clarkson, J., R. Coleman, S. Keates, and C. Lebbon, eds. 2003. Inclusive Design: Design for the
Whole Population. London: Springer.
Deffner, A., and C. Liouris. 2005. City Marketing: A Significant Planning Tool for Urban
Development in a Globalised Economy. In 45thCongress of the European Regional Science
Association, 395. Amsterdam: Vrije University, August. http://www-sre.wu-wien.ac.at/ersa/
ersaconfs/ersa05/papers/395.pdf
Donovan, R. J., and J. R. Rottiser. 1982. Store Atmosphere; An Environmental Psychology
Approach. Journal of Retailing 58: 34 57.
Donovan, R. J., J. R. Rossiter, G. Marcoolyn, and A. Nesdale. 1994. Store Atmosphere and
Purchasing Behavior. Journal of Retailing 70: 283 294.
Doyle, S. A., and A. Broadbridge. 1999. Differentiation by Design: The Importance of Design in
Retailer Repositioning and Differentiation. International Journal of Retail & Distribution
Management 27 (2): 72 83.
Eroglu, S. A., K. A. Machleit, and L. M. Davis. 2001. Atmospheric Qualities of Online Retailing:
A Conceptual Model and Implications. Journal of Business Research 54 (2): 177 184.
Feinberg, R., B. Sheffler, J. Meoli, and A. Rummel. 1989. Theres Something Social Happening at
the Mall. Journal of Business & Psychology 4 (1): 49 63.
Food Marketing Institute. 2013. Supermarket facts. http://www.fmi.org/research-resources/
supermarket-facts
Fyfe, N. 1998. Images of the Street. Planning, Identity and Control in Public Space. London:
Routledge.
Gehl, J. [2004] 2011. Life Between Houses. Using Public Space. Washington, DC: Island Press.
Gehl, J. 2010. Cities for People. Washington, DC: Island Press.
George, W. V. 1951. Store Layout Suggestions. University, MO: Bureau of Business Research.
Giddens, A. 1991. Modernity and the Self-Identity in the Late Modern Age. Cambridge: Polity Press.
Goldsmith, S. 2011. Designing for the Disabled. The New Paradigm. New York: Architectural Press.
Hall, E. T. 1969. The Hidden Dimension. New York: Anchor Books.
Hannerz, U. 1980. Exploring the City. Inquiries Towards an Urban Anthropology. New York:
Columbia University Press.
Huang, Y., S. K. Hui, J. Inman, and J. A. Suher. forthcoming. Capturing the First Moment of
Truth: Understanding Unplanned Consideration and Purchase Conversion Using In-Store Video
Tracking. Journal of Marketing Research. http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.2009322
IKEA. 2012. Selling in the Store the IKEA Way. Delft: IKEA Inter Group Systems.
Ingold, T. 2004. Culture on the Ground: The World Perceived Through the Feet. Journal of
Material Culture 9: 315 340.
Jacobs, J. 1958. Downtown Is for People. Fortune, September 18, 2011. http://features.blogs.
fortune.cnn.com/2011/09/18/downtown-is-for-people-fortune-classic-1958/
Jacobs, J. 1961. The Death and Life of Great American Cities. New York: Random House.
Kotler, P. 1973. Atmospherics as a Marketing Tool. Journal of Retailing 49: 48 64.
Kracauer, S. [1930] 1998. The Salaried Masses: Duty and Distraction in Weimar Germany. London:
Verso.
Kracauer, S. 1999. The Hotel Lobby. Postcolonial Studies: Culture, Politics, Economy 2 (3):
289 297.
Larson, J. S., E. Bradlow, and P. Fader. 2005. An Exploratory Look at Supermarket Shopping
Paths. International Journal of Research in Marketing 22: 395 414.
Latour, B. 1988. Mixing Humans and Nonhumans Together: The Sociology of a Door-Closer.
The Sociology of a Door Closer. Social Problems 35 (3): 298 310.
Latour, B. 1992. Where Are the Missing Masses? The Sociology of a Few Mundane Artifacts.
In Shaping Technology/Building Society: Studies in Sociotechnical Change, edited by
W. E. Bijker, and J. Law, 225 258. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
179
Lefebvre, H. 1991. The Production of Space. London: Blackwell.

Lofgren, M. 2005. Winning at the First and Second Moment of Truth: An Exploratory Study.
Managing Service Quality 15 (1): 102 115.
Lofland, L. H. 1973. A World of Strangers. Order and Action in Urban Public Life Space. Prospect
Heights, IL: Waveland Press.
Lofland, L. H. 1998. The Public Realm. Exploring the Citys Quintessential Social Territory.
New York: Aldine de Gruyter.
Lynch, K. A. 1960. The Image of the City. Cambridge, MA: the MIT Press.
Maisel, J. 2006. Toward Inclusive Housing and Neighborhood Design: A Look at Visitability.
Community Development. Journal of the Community Development Society 37 (3): 26 34.
Marshall, S. 2004. Streets and Patterns. London: Routledge.
Miller, D. 1998. Theory of Shopping. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.
Morgan, T. 2008. Visual Merchandising: Windows and In-Store Displays for Retail. London:
Laurence King.
Mumford, L. 1964. The Urban Prospects. The Highway and the City, 92 107. New York: Harcourt,
Brace & World.
Mumford, L. 1975. The City in History. Its Origins, Its Transformations, and Its Prospects.
New York: Harvest Books.
Park, R. E. 1915. The City. Suggestions for the Investigation of the Human Behaviour in the City
Environments. The American Journal of Sociology XX (5): 577 612.
Punter, J. 2003. The Vancouver Achievement: Urban Planning and Design. Vancouver: UBC Press.
Ratcliffe, J., M. Stubbs, and M. Shepherd. 2005. Urban Planning and Real Estate Development.
London: UCL Press.
Sennett, R. 1977. The Fall of Public Man. New York: WW Norton.
Sennett, R. 1990. American Cities: The Grid Plan and the Protestant Ethic. International Social
Science Journal 42 (3): 269 285.
Sennett, R. 1991. Consciousness of the Eye. New York: WW Norton.
Sennett, R. 1992. The Fall of Public Man. New York: WW Norton.
Sherry, J. 1998. Servicescapes: The Concept of Place in Contemporary Markets. Chicago, IL: NTC
Business Books.
Simmel, G. [1903] 1990. The Metropolis and Its Mental Life. In Simmel on Culture: Selected
Writings, edited by D. Frisby and M. Featherstone. London: SAGE Publications.
Southworth, M., and E. Ben-Joseph. 2003. Streets and the shaping of Towns and Cities. Washington,
DC: Island Press.
Stenebo, J. 2010. The Truth About IKEA: The Secret Behind the Worlds Fifth Richest Man and the
Success of the Flatpack Giant. London: Gibson Square Books.
Stengers, I. 2002. A Cosmo-Politics Risk, Hope, Change: A Conversation with Isabelle
Stengers. In Hope: New Philosophies for Change, edited by M. Zournazie, 244272.
Annandale: Pluto Press Australia.
Sunstein, C. R., and R. H. Thaler. 2008. Nudge. Improving Decisions About Health, Wealth and
Happiness. New Haven: Yale University Press.
Teboul, J. 2006. Service is Front Stage: Positioning Services for Value Advantage. New York:
Palgrave Macmillan.
Truesdale, S. 2003. Visit-Ability: An Approach to Universal Design in Housing. Facilities
14 (5/6): 26 38.
Turley, L. W., and R. E. Milliman. 2000. Atmospherics Effects on Shopping Behavior. A Review of
the Experimental Evidence. Journal of Business Research 49 (2): 193 211.
Urry, J. 1990. The Tourist Gaze. London: Sage Publications.
Urry, J. 1995. Consuming Places. London: Routledge.
Urry, J. 2000. Sociology Beyond Societies: Mobilities for the Twenty-Frst Century. London:
Routledge.
Varley, R., and M. Rafiq. 2004. Principles of Retail Management. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.
Vedamani, G. 2004. Retail Management. Functional Principles and Practices. Mumbai: Jaico
Publishing House.
Vidler, A. 1992. The Architectural Uncanny. Essays in the Modern Unhomely. Cambridge, MA:
MIT Press.
180
L.G. Juel-Jacobsen
Wakefield, K. L., and J. B. Blodgett. 1996. The Effect of the Servicescape on Customers
Behavioral Intentions in Leisure Service Settings. Journal of Services Marketing 10 (6):
45 61.
Whyte, W. H. 1980. The Social Life of Small Urban Spaces. New York: Project for Public Space.
Whyte, W. H. [1988] 2009. City. Rediscovering the Center. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania
Press.
Williams, B. 1996. Cost-Effective Facilities Management: A Practical Approach. Facilities
14 (5/6): 26 38.
Yalch, R. F., and E. R. Spangenberg. 2000. The Effects of Music in a Retail Setting on Real and
Perceived Shopping Times. Journal of Business Research 49 (2): 139 147.
Yang, M. H., and W. -C. Chen. 1999. A Study on Shelf Space Allocation and Management.
International Journal of Production Economics 60: 309 317.
Zerlang, M. 1996. Urban Squares. Copenhagen: University of Copenhagen Press.

The International Review of Retail, Distribution and Consumer Research

Hochgeladen von

Dokumentinformationen

Originalbeschreibung:

Originaltitel

Copyright

Verfügbare Formate

Dieses Dokument teilen

Dokument teilen oder einbetten

Freigabeoptionen

Stufen Sie dieses Dokument als nützlich ein?

Sind diese Inhalte unangemessen?

Copyright:

Verfügbare Formate

The International Review of Retail, Distribution and Consumer Research

Hochgeladen von

Copyright:

Verfügbare Formate

This article was downloaded by: [Indian Institute of Technology - Kharagpur]

On: 06 April 2015, At: 01:25