Decoding shoppability

The Customer Interface Laboratory in IU’s Kelley School of Business is a rectangular room tucked away in the corner of the third floor. At first glance, the room seems nondescript, lined with computers and cluttered with students’ posters and filing cabinets.On closer examination, however, technological innovations such as virtual reality screens, liquid crystal display panels and a peripheral vision dome stand out.\nThe lab, which allows for students and professors to measure shoppability, is the research center of Raymond Burke, the E.W. Kelley Chair of Business Administration and director of the laboratory. A term coined by Burke, shoppability is a way of “connecting consumer needs and desires with what manufacturers and retailers have to sell,” Burke said. “It’s bringing together supply and demand.” \nBurke presented information on the topic earlier this month, when he and fellow IU professors Neil Morgan, Jonlee Andrews and Theresa Williams hosted a workshop in Indianapolis. They discussed new technological developments used to study shoppability.\nThrough his research at the lab, Burke has found that customers often have specific items in mind when they enter a store. They typically walk about 20 to 30 feet in the door, after they are out of the foot traffic at the entrance, and then stop to look around. He also knows that, for apparel purchases, men can decide on an item in as little as one minute, while it takes women at least four minutes. Women, however, tend to be more confident in their purchases and are able to put together outfits more easily than men, he said.\n“I want to understand how the store environment affects consumer behavior,” Burke said of his research. “One of the things I can do is try to bring the store into the lab.” \nBurke does this by recreating a store environment in a virtual reality simulation. He then runs customers through the technology a couple times before manipulating some aspect of the environment. The customers’ reactions are used to measure how the new manipulation affects their shopping behavior.\nHe also can take the lab into the store, he said. While surveillance cameras are usually used by retailers to catch shoplifters, they also can be used to see how consumers navigate a store. Some people are concerned about privacy issues, but the goal for researchers is not to be “snooping into your personal behavior,” Burke said. \n“I see myself as being an advocate for the consumer,” he said. “I think that if we’re doing our job correctly, at the end of the day, consumers will be more satisfied and businesses will be more profitable.”\nMorgan, an associate professor of marketing, said the technology used in studying shoppability is beneficial to researchers because it’s difficult to “directly observe” what affects consumers while they shop. Technology used in the laboratory can give researchers the ability to control an experiment instead of just making observations, he said. \nThe degree to which retailers and manufacturers emphasize shoppability, however, surprises Morgan.\n“In most settings, rivals would not share information with each other,” Morgan said.\nWhile his research topic is already focused on on those in the retail industry, one of Burke’s life goals is to have an impact on business practice, Burke said.\n “I had a friend at (The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania) that would say, ‘If you’re not moving forwards, you’re moving backwards,’” Burke said. “And it’s true! If you’re not continually challenging yourself and pushing yourself to do new things, you’re falling behind.”\nIn business, he said, people need to keep looking to the future.\nBurke said there are several ways to have an impact on business: working in the industry, publishing articles and teaching. He said one of the reasons he enjoys teaching is because the students he trains become emissaries for shoppability research.\n “There are two things that are really important about the academic environment,” he said. “One is that there are a number of different ways in which you can help business and consumers. The other thing that’s great about the academic life is that it’s very entrepreneurial. As long as you can get other people excited about that, you can do it. You’re constantly learning. You’re constantly challenging yourself.”