Journal of Retailing 95 (2, 2019) 84–89
Editorial
Retail Apocalypse or Golden Opportunity for Retail Frontline Management?
Martin Mende ∗ , Stephanie M. Noble
Florida State University, College of Business, Tallahassee, FL 32306, United States
University of Tennessee, 310 Stokely Management Center, Knoxville, TN 37996-0530, United States
While some industry observers in the popular press predict a looming ‘retail apocalypse’ (Danziger 2017; Townsend
et al. 2017), others question whether such an apocalypse really
exists (Kline 2018; Mathews 2018). The former perspective
emphasizes that many retailers are closing store sites, including Abercrombie & Fitch, the Children’s Place, Foot Locker,
Gymboree, and J.C. Penney; and other well-known retailers
have gone completely out of business recently including Wet
Seal, BeBe, The Limited, and Toys R Us (Snyder 2018). In contrast, the latter perspective underscores that for every retailer
that is closing a store site, two retailers are opening and that
there was a net growth of over 2000 stores in 2018 (Holman and
Buzek 2018). Therefore, while some warn of a retail apocalypse
because well-known stores are going out of business, there could
be other reasons for the demise of these stores in an otherwise
healthy retail economy.
If we assume there is no retail apocalypse, why are so many
well-known stores struggling and closing their doors? A reasonable explanation is that the retail landscape is changing and
retailers that do not evolve become obsolete (Danziger 2017;
Morgan 2018). One major way in which retailers (have to)
change to stay competitive, is the evolution of their frontline
management. Organizational frontlines are “the interactions and
interfaces at the point of contact between an organization and
its customers that promote, facilitate, or enable value creation
and exchange” (Singh et al. 2017, p. 4). These interactions and
interfaces are changing due to many factors, including multiple touchpoints consumers have with retailers on their customer
journey (Lemon and Verhoef 2016), increasing in-store technology innovations (van Doorn et al. 2017; Grewal et al., 2019),
and the changing retail landscape including more pop-up stores
(Baird 2018) and the rise of discount stores (Danziger 2018) –
just to name a few factors. This changing landscape causes many
∗
Corresponding author.
E-mail addresses: mmende@fsu.edu (M. Mende), snoble4@utk.edu (S.M.
Noble).
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jretai.2019.06.002
0022-4359/© 2019 Published by Elsevier Inc. on behalf of New York University.
challenges for retail frontline management, but it also provides
opportunities for success. In this editorial, we hope to illustrate
what an exciting time it is for retail frontline management and
for research in this area. Our editorial begins with an overview
of how this special section came to be, followed by an overarching framework that integrates the papers and commentary in
this special section. We conclude by identifying future research
opportunities and thanking those who made this special section
possible.
How This Special Section Came To Be
We had the privilege to co-chair the 4th OFR (Organizational
Frontlines Research) Symposium associated with the 2018 Winter AMA conference. This symposium brought together more
than 100 marketing scholars. In the spirit of OFR, which is concerned with overcoming disciplinary silos to develop common
ground and novel frameworks related to the interfaces and interactions that link organizations with their customers (Singh et al.
2017), the attendees represented multiple schools of thought and
sub-disciplines within marketing (consumer behavior, strategy,
B2C/B2B, modeling, as well as practitioners). This symposium
was also the stimulus for this special section on “The Future of
Retail Frontline Management.” Submissions were solicited via
an open call and underwent the regular review process for the
Journal of Retailing, which resulted in four accepted articles.
Integrating The Papers In The Special Section
As Fig. 1 illustrates, the four papers in the special section
investigate an inspiring range of frontline research topics that
either directly or indirectly affect a retailer’s interactions and
interfaces with its customers. Specifically, the papers examine
a technology-enabled frontline (Heller et al., this issue), direct
retail frontline-to-consumer (Holmqvist et al., this issue) and
retail frontline-to-supplier (Hughes et al., this issue) interactions, as well as intra-organizational relationships between retail
M. Mende, S.M. Noble / Journal of Retailing 95 (2, 2019) 84–89
85
Fig. 1. Organizing Framework of Special Section Articles.
employees (Arnold et al., this issue). In addition to these papers,
we invited four thought leaders in the area of OFR to compose a
commentary on retail frontline research. Specifically, we asked
Jagdip Singh, Todd Arnold, Mike Brady, and Tom Brown to
write a commentary on the intersections between retailing and
OFR. In addition to their foundational article outlining the emergent field of OFR (Singh et al. 2017), they started an annual OFR
symposium in 2015 to bring together scholars from varied fields
to advance this area of inquiry. As such, we sought their input
into this special section.
In their commentary Singh, Arnold, Brady, and Brown note
that the disruptions facing retailing (e.g., numerous contact
points for customers, new technologies) are “cousins” to the
forces shaping and evolving frontline innovations and interventions. While some, as noted above, consider these forces
as contributing to a retail apocalypse (e.g., Danziger 2017
Townsend et al. 2017), Singh et al. (this issue) see vibrant
opportunities that emerge from these forces. They identify
opportunities around three themes: time, dualities, and ecosystems. Singh and colleagues review six conceptualizations of time
and note that customers have journeys with retailers that connect
past, present and future interactions. Interactions and interfaces
with retailers are not static. Dualities represent researchers’ tendencies to dichotomize areas of inquiry and constructs (e.g.,
touch vs. tech), yet, this approach might prove too simplistic for the evolving nature of retail interactions and interfaces.
Finally, the authors note that interactions and interfaces “live in
an ecosystem” – they do not occur in a vacuum, but rather are
touched and influenced by a multitude of forces. Using these
three themes – time, dualities and ecosystems – Singh et al. outline several future research ideas to “bridge scaffolds” between
OFR and retailing. We find these ideas insightful and hope you
enjoy reading their commentary as much as we did.
In addition to this commentary, the special section includes
four empirical papers that push the boundaries of OFR. In their
paper, “Let Me Imagine That For You: Transforming the Retail
Frontline Through Augmenting Customer Mental Imagery Ability,” Heller, Chylinski, de Ruyter, Mahr, and Keeling illustrate
the transformative nature of retail frontlines with an emerging
technology - augmented reality (AR). The authors examine how
an AR-enabled frontline increases consumers’ comfort with a
decision, positive word-of-mouth (WOM), and choice of higher
value products. These benefits are derived because AR interfaces allow consumers to offload mental imagery demands onto
the technology. Across five studies the authors use real-life
AR applications, allowing consumers to rotate and transform
digital 3D representations to show how such transformations
increase processing fluency, decision comfort, and behavioral
intentions. In addition to the innovative data collection employed
across studies, the authors offer numerous examples of retailers
exploring AR in practice, which offers a valuable summary for
researchers in this area (see their Table 1). This paper offers a
glimpse at the future of retail frontline management as it relates
to an emerging technology.
In “The Language Backfire Effect: How Frontline Employees Decrease Customer Satisfaction Through Language Use,”
Holmqvist, Van Vaerenbergh, Lunardo, and Dahlén explore
how an increasingly diverse consumer profile (e.g., growth of
Hispanic populations in the U.S.; more international tourism)
will impact the future of retail frontline management. Existing
research and common intuition suggest that consumers prefer
to speak in their primary languages (Holmqvist 2011; Genesee
and Bourhis 1988); however, as Holmqvist and his colleagues
show, current managerial practices of having frontline employees try to speak in a customer’s own language or switch to a
more international language, such as English, can backfire on
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retailers. Across five studies, using different methods, the
authors consistently show that this language switch has negative consequences such as decreased customer satisfaction and
lower repurchase and WOM intentions – accordingly, they term
this phenomenon the “language backfire effect”. Customers who
initiate communication in a second language might be doing so
because they feel competent; when employees switch to the customer’s primary language his/her identity becomes threatened.
As this special section focuses on the management of retail
frontlines, a logical question would be: what can retailers do
about this backfire effect? The authors show complimenting the
customer’s language skills before making the switch can alleviate negative effects. This paper highlights issues employees
at retail frontlines will increasingly face as customers become
more diverse and offers suggestions for managers to tackle this
challenge.
The first two papers in this special section could apply to
both B2C and B2B settings. The next paper, “Driving In-Role
and Extra-Role Brand Performance Among Retail Frontline
Salespeople: Antecedents and the Moderating Role of Customer Orientation,” dives more specifically in a B2B setting
with a focus on the intersection of a retailer’s frontline and a
supplier. Retail employees are not only the frontline for the
retailer, but they are also the frontline for a supplier who distributes their products through the retailer. As the future of
retailing becomes more competitive with on-line offers, traditional frontline salespeople are tasked with creating value for the
entire supply chain to contend with this changing environment.
Against this background, Hughes, Richards, Calantone, Baldus,
and Spreng examine novel ways through which suppliers can
influence retail frontline salespeople to identify with the supplier’s brand in order to increase both brand sales and extra role
behaviors. Through a large-scale survey of retail frontline salespeople, matched with objective performance data, the authors
investigate the effects of supplier push and pull promotions and
personal selling on retail frontline employee’s beliefs and behaviors towards the focal supplier’s brand. The results of this study
are important as they offer novel insights into how suppliers
can manage retail frontline employees who do not work for the
supplier directly.
In the final paper, “Store Manager-Store Performance Relationship: A Research Note,” Arnold, Grewal, Motyka, Sharma,
and Kim examine intra-organizational relationships between
retail store managers, frontline employees, and regional managers. Store managers work within an environment where they
are the intermediary between their superiors (regional managers) and their subordinates (store frontline employees). They
are the store leaders and are responsible for achieving performance measures. As such, the authors investigate how store
managers’ relationships with their regional manager and the
organization influence store performance through contingent
rewards for frontline employees, as well as perceived leadership support and transformational leadership behavior from
regional managers. Using survey data, matched with store performance data, the authors show that the intra-organizational
relationships of store managers can bridge entities that might
not otherwise be connected (i.e., regional supervisors and store
frontline employees). Such a bridge allows store managers to
enact corporate strategy and transfer organizational knowledge
and values, which ultimately drives performance. These results
have important implications for hiring and training of retail personnel and illustrate the future of retail frontline management
as a broad ecosystem that consists not only of interactions and
interfaces with the retail frontline, but are indirectly influenced
by other factors (e.g., regional managers) (as conceptualized in
Fig. 1).
Taken together, these four papers illustrate the considerable
breadth and depth of conceptual and managerial issues that OFR
entails, which, in turn, re-emphasizes the need to overcome
disciplinary silos to generate new knowledge.
Identifying Future Opportunities
The realm of organizational frontlines–given the sustained
challenges retailers are facing (e.g., declining sales and excess
store space for many brick-and-mortar retailers, rising delivery
expectations for online retailers) (Berman 2019)–offers numerous important research opportunities. Besides the inspiring
ideas identified by Singh et al. (2019, this issue) and highlighted in the papers included in this special section, we aim
to illustrate some additional research avenues for retail-related
OFR.
First, while it is beyond the scope of this brief editorial to
review the role of technology in shaping the future of retailing,
we agree with recent commentaries that identify technology as
a key facet of OFR (e.g., van Doorn et al. 2017; Grewal et al.,
2017, Roggeveen and Grewal 2018). For example, technological advances in the areas of artificial intelligence (AI), virtual
and augmented realities, or service robots offer innovations that
seemed unrealistic only a few years ago, yet they are emerging realities in the retail landscape (see Grewal et al., 2017;
Grewal et al., forthcoming). Relatedly, the internet-of-things
(IoT) points to a new paradigm that will increasingly blend
the digital world with the physical world and will change customers’ retail experiences (e.g., Balaji and Roy 2017; Nguyen
and Simkin 2017; Woodside and Sood 2017). Notably, an IoT
lens includes frontline interfaces and interactions between retailers’ and consumers’ ‘technology-proxies’ (e.g., a consumer’s
refrigerator that automatically and quasi-autonomously orders
groceries; Vermesan and Bacquet 2019; Woodside and Sood
2017). These developments point toward the next evolutionary
stage of how marketers (ought to) think about customer relationship management with numerous benefits for consumers and
firms (e.g., Taylor et al., 2018), but they also suggest a potential
for dark side issues that OFR should consider (De Cremer et al.,
2017).
More broadly, with regard to all of these emerging technologies, OFR should examine how technology can best be used
to enhance retail experiences for consumers, employees, and
companies and–equally important–when and why they might
backfire. For example, retailers are increasingly adopting technologies that enable them to personalize advertising on in-store
displays to individual consumers (e.g., based on the consumer’s
M. Mende, S.M. Noble / Journal of Retailing 95 (2, 2019) 84–89
gender or age)1 ; yet, it is unclear whether consumers respond
to such public personalized advertising positively (e.g., due to
the customization of the ads) or negatively (e.g., due to feeling embarrassed and privacy concerns). In general, these novel
technologies might provide retailers with a major platform to
boost their competitiveness by making in-store experiences more
attractive for their customers (Berman 2019; Lemon and Verhoef
2016)2 ; however, OFR needs to examine the opportunities and
challenges related to these technological advancements.
In parallel to playing a major role in shaping the future
of retail, technological developments might also create specific challenges for OFR scholars: First, given the time frames
of conducting and publishing scholarly marketing research,
it is challenging to keep up with the pace of technological
progress in the marketplace. This reality might offer opportunities (e.g., for journals) to consider innovative formats for
accelerated publication of corresponding research. Second, the
increasing technology focus, which can often go beyond the core
expertise of marketing scholars, points to a renewed promise
of inter-disciplinary collaborations for OFR (e.g., with disciplines such as computer and robotics engineering). Because
interdisciplinary work is challenging to conduct and publish,
journals might consider novel formats to provide outlets for
such research. Third, although technology offers a plethora of
exciting developments, scholars must carefully assess whether
a focal technology-related question provides a conceptual contribution. For example, there is a rich literature on consumer
adoption of new technologies (e.g., see the meta-analyses on
the technology acceptance model by King and He 2006 as well
as by Schepers and Wetzels 2007). Research on new technologies needs to go beyond existing literature to offer meaningful
contributions. Finally, broadly reflecting upon the role of scholarly marketing research, technology raises questions about the
role of and need for theory in OFR. That is, in an environment
where managers have an abundance of data at their fingertips
that algorithms can analyze in real-time to provide (increasingly
valuable) managerial guidance, the relevance of conceptual
frameworks might be challenged. OFR scholars should carefully reflect the implications related to this scenario (i.e., its
challenges and opportunities) for the discipline.
Notably, we also anticipate exciting OFR that is driven by
potential anti-trends related to the increasing prevalence of technology in retailing, as the following two examples illustrate.
First, we expect a sustained relevance of a human touch in retail
frontlines. AI is becoming increasingly competent, not only in
terms of analytical capabilities, but also with regard to displaying warmth, sincerity and empathy (van Doorn et al. 2017). As
AI’s competence and warmth evolves, it might gradually replace
human employees at the organizational frontlines (Huang and
1 For example, 7-Eleven introduced facial recognition technology to its 11,000
stores in Thailand to personalize ads to customers (Chan 2018).
2 Notably, despite the increasing relevance of e-tailing, e-commerce accounts
for less than 15% of global B2C commerce (Maxwell and Ozturk 2018), suggesting that successfully managing in-store experiences will remain crucial for
retailers.
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Rust 2018). However, considered through the lens of a compensatory consumer response, we wonder whether retail consumers
might consequently appreciate (if not crave) authentic humanto-human encounters. Accordingly, OFR should examine (1) in
which stages of the retail journey, (2) for which types of services,
and (3) for which segments of consumers the desire for human
touch is particularly high (or low) and why. Related questions
include how much consumers might be willing to pay for this
human touch, and which implications for the recruiting and training of frontline employees companies need to consider in light
of these potentially elevated levels (i.e., quantity and quality) of
human touch in the future.
Second, given increasingly stimulus-rich retail environments,
we also note the idea of consumer deceleration. In their ethnographic research, Husemann and Eckhardt (2018) discover that
consumers strive for deceleration as a sense of slowed temporal
experiences through altering, adopting, or eschewing forms of
consumption. Specifically, the authors distinguish three forms
of deceleration: embodied (slowing down physically), technological (decrease in technology use to disconnect from the
accelerated world), and episodic (decrease in the number of
episodes of action per unit of time, simplified experiences, and
reduced consumption choices). All three forms suggest implications for retailers to create decelerated customer experiences.
For example, would a modified view of ‘retail therapy’ point to
the idea that some consumers crave de-technified and low-thrills
retail experiences? Some corresponding indicators already exist;
for example, in its 8,000-square-foot store in New York City,
Lululemon incorporated a meditation studio with ‘zen pods’
and a list of self-guided meditations; this meditation space is
designed to immerse customers in the community of Lululemon,
while also “offering an experience over a specific purchase”
(Ruff and Salpini 2018). As this example illustrates, companies
need to understand how to best embed facets of deceleration into
their retail interfaces to respond to consumer preferences while
also nurturing the customer-company relationship.
Yet another intriguing area of OFR includes the examination
of trends in retail store formats, which represent the physical
interface and environment for the interactions between consumers, employees, and companies. For example, pop-up stores
are gradually becoming part of retailers’ strategies (e.g., in fashion and even in luxury retail) (Baird 2018), but little research
has systematically examined their success factors (e.g., novelty,
flexibility, cost-structure) or unintended consequences (e.g., perceived quality, brand equity dilution) (Klein et al. 2016; Lunardo
and Mouangue 2019). Another trend related to retail formats is
the decision of some luxury e-commerce brands to open highly
extravagant physical stores (Beauloye 2019). This strategy contrasts the aforementioned notion of a looming retail apocalypse,
but it is consistent with the idea that retailers offering “average products to average people in an average experience” are
particularly at risk (Dennis 2017). Notably, some of these luxury stores are designed to be mere showrooms (i.e., they do
not sell any products) (Beauloye 2019) — among many other
research questions, this insight raises the fascinating question of
whether, when, and why this luxury showroom approach can be
successful.
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At the opposing end of the retail continuum, OFR should
dedicate more attention to the role of discount stores in the marketplace (e.g., Dollar General, Dollar Tree, Family Dollar, Five
Below). For example, some popular business press outlets proposed that “Dollar stores are emerging as a silent killer of retail
across the country” (Danziger 2018). Indeed, defying the proclaimed retail apocalypse, discount stores are thriving, adding
new locations to their network of stores (Peterson and Harney
2018). Frequently, their success is linked to the observation that
many consumers in the United States “started gravitating toward
discount stores during the recession, and most never returned to
shopping full-price” (ibid.). Against this background, rigorous
OFR research is needed on whether and how these small-box
discounters affect the retail landscape, communities, as well as
their consumers and employees over time (for related research
on big-box discounters, see Ailawadi et al. 2010).
A final format, at the intersection of online and offline retailing, is the emerging concept of retail ecosystems (Fig. 1; see
also Arnold et al. and Singh et al., this issue). Bain & Company
describe retail ecosystems (e.g., Alibaba, Amazon) as “vast,
interconnected communities of consumers, retailers and partners” that redefine consumer expectations and reshape retail
value chains (Sanders et al. 2018). More specifically, according to the analysis, retail ecosystems attract a large customer
base “by combining a sticky set of consumer services (e.g.,
e-commerce, chat, streaming, gaming, booking services and
payments in a single platform/app);” in turn, access to this large
customer base is the incentive for retailers to join the focal
ecosystem (Sanders et al. 2018). OFR should address when (i.e.,
under which conditions) and why it is advantageous for retailers to join such ecosystems but also which risks might emerge
from it. In parallel, the notion of an ecosystem perspective also
points OFR to examine the interface between consumers, retailers, and their suppliers. In this context, blockchain technology is
expected to profoundly influence the retail sector. For example,
blockchain is forecasted to increase transparency and boost consumer confidence while guaranteeing authenticity and reducing
counterfeits; in terms of retail logistics, blockchain is expected
to speed up delivery and smoothen logistics (Barr 2018).
There are many more research avenues that OFR should
investigate than our brief consideration can capture. However,
we are optimistic about the relevance of OFR as one meaningful
driver that connects sub-disciplines within marketing and builds
bridges to other scholarly fields to better explain and predict how
value is created through interactions and interfaces at the point
of contact between an organization and its customers.
With Gratitude
In closing, we would like to offer our gratitude to the many
people who have made this special section not only possible, but
a wonderful experience. First and foremost, we sincerely thank
the co-editors of the Journal of Retailing, Anne Roggeveen and
Raj Sethuraman, who have offered invaluable guidance, suggestions, and help throughout the entire process. We are truly
grateful for their support and are indebted to them for their leadership. We thank Jagdip Singh, Todd Arnold, Mike Brady, and
Tom Brown for continuing to push the boundaries of OFR and
their willingness to contribute a commentary to this special section. Relatedly, we are grateful to the larger ORF community
for their support. Without this amazing group of friends and
colleagues who inspire us with their research, this special section would not have been possible. Of course, we thank all the
authors who submitted to this special section. It was wonderful
to see authors from around the world submitting such varied
topics – all related to the future of retail frontline management.
Finally, we offer our sincerest gratitude to the reviewers for this
special section. Your time and commitment to offering insightful
reviews has not gone unnoticed.
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