A Study on the Consistency of Store Environment and Consumer Behavior

Customers experience the store atmosphere through various senses such as sight, hearing, and touch to make a final purchase decision, and this store environment leads to the customer's experience and greatly affects consumption. Considering that the frequency and intensity of consumer consumption behavior may vary depending on individual personality characteristics, this study attempted to examine whether Mehrabian & Russell (1974) created an appropriate store environment based on the established MR model. Based on previous studies, the effect of interaction between environmental consistency (consistency vs inconsistency) and sensory pursuit tendency (high vs low), an individual personality trait, was verified, and the mediating effect of arousal and the moderating effect of practical shopping value were examined, and a web survey was conducted by reconstructing the questionnaire after conducting a preliminary survey. The analysis tool was conducted with SPSS 24.0 and reliability analysis, and the research hypothesis was verified by applying 2-way ANOVA and Process macro model (SPSS) to verify the difference between groups. The research results are as follows. First, it was found that the higher the environmental consistency of the store, the greater the likelihood that consumers will show positive behavior. Second, it was analyzed that the interaction between environmental consistency and sensory-seeking tendency had a significant effect on the consumer's arousal response, and consumers with strong sensory-seeking tendency were more affected by the level of arousal, especially when environmental consistency was high. Third, arousal was found to play an important mediating role in the relationship between store environmental consistency and consumer behavior (approach-avoidance behavior and store evaluation). Finally, the interaction between environmental consistency and practical shopping value did not show a significant moderating effect on store evaluation, but the moderating effect was confirmed in access-avoidance behavior. Based on these research results, it is meaningful that academic and practical implications for store environmental consistency were presented.