The Perfume Industry World Wide Generates Well Over $18 Billions Annually, Making a Lot of People Very, Very Rich.

Learn How To Make Great Perfumes For Next To Nothing And Sell Them For Big Bucks. Ideal Home Business Click Here! For Details

Experiential value: conceptualization, measurement and application in the catalog and Internet shopping environment

On-line shoppers are veterans of the direct retail environment, accustomed to dictating the
terms of exchange. Whether on- or off-line, these shoppers have come to expect retailers to
know who they are, what they’ve ordered in the past, and how they like to be contacted. They
expect to be able to interact through whatever means (mail, phone, web, faxes or in-store)
they choose, demanding personalized service, 24/7 access and memorable shopping experiences.

As retail managers grapple with these demands, they are advised to keep in mind that the
retail experience must deliver value if it is to turn a one-time visitor into a repeat customer.
Perceived value has been characterized as the essential outcome of
marketing activity and as a primary motivation for entering into marketing relationships.
To create and manage such relationships, retailers need a tool that is sensitive to the full
range of components that define experience-based value.
The retail environment is being transformed with the introduction of multichannel operations
designed to offer a spectrum of retail experiences for consumers to choose. Merchants
are combining print and on-line catalog operations to replace pure-play Internet models that
have encountered market difficulty. Traditional brick-and-mortar retailers are also beginning
to complement their operations with catalogs, an on-line presence, or both (Pascale, 2000).
These multichannel systems offer an array of shopping experiences, and in the process,
deliver not only more value, but also different kinds of value.
In what has been dubbed an emerging “Experience Economy,” we find retailers redefining
themselves as a source of memories, rather than goods, as an “experience stager” rather than
a service provider The brick-and-mortar segment, for example, is being transformed into
“retail interactive theater,” staffed to offer advice, cooking lessons, beauty makeovers
and fashion shows. When consumers are looking for control and convenience, however,
catalogs or the Internet become the venue of choice.