Digital Traces Representing Online Consumer Practices : A Methodological Guidance for Exploratory Retailing Research

Digital traces representing online consumer practices: A methodologicalguidance for exploratory retailing researchPatrik Stoopendahl11 Stockholm School of Economics Institute for Research (SIR)Extended abstractDigital devices, such as the smartphone, enable an array of tasks in consumers’ daily lives; searching forproducts, soliciting advice from friends, interacting with communities or retailers, taking pictures, orsimply browsing online. In the process of using—for example the smartphone—traces of digital data inthe form of search history or browsing historyare left on commercial platforms such as social medianetworking like Facebook (Gangneux, 2023), in text messaging applications, or even stored in retailer’splatforms to be analyzed for marketing and sales optimization. At a glance, such traces may lookbewildering for the qualitative researcher, but in actuality, these traces represent the activities of thecontinuous mundane everyday activities performed by consumers and mirrors the multifold nature ofdaily consumer life (Geiger & Ribes, 2011; Stoopendahl, 2024).Collecting and analyzing the traces left behind by consumers can provide detailed insight in the microactionsa consumer perform on the device; what practices they engage in, sites they visit andinteractions they have with social others. Trace data has in a broader sense also shown to be salient forinquiries within retailing, for example the nature of customer journeys (Stoopendahl, 2024). Besidescustomer journeys, also consumer taste (Airoldi, 2021) has been fruitfully explored by collecting digitaltrace data. Despite the promising use of this type of data, still, few seem to consider it an option; theoutput of studies within retailing and consumer research utilizing digital trace data in qualitative researchremain limited. This paper aims to develop a methodological exploratory approach in collecting andanalyzing digital data traces; thereby providing a guidance that demonstrates the potential in suchresearch practice and enable others to begin collecting it. This paper is especially relevant forresearchers who consider such data alien in exploratory research.In a qualitative approach digital traces should be combined with other sources of data, generated by forexample interviews or observations. This mixed empirical data approach is beneficial for severalreasons. For one, the risk of recall bias—a biased recalling of a chain of events—is mitigated ininterviews with consumers (Audy Martínek, Caliandro, & Denegri-Knott, 2022). If the activities performedon the device have been accurately registered, the researcher has the possibility to check whathappened (Ekström, 2022). Secondly, traces of data offer a fuller contextual description, both in terms ofspecific locations and the routes and pattern of activities performed. Therefore, digital trace data shouldnot be secluded to the disciplines usually engaging in large sets of data, but put to use to informqualitative studies.Three studies will serve as examples of the use of trace data, all within retailing and consumer research.The first study employs passive phone metering to explore in what ways consumers perform customerjourneys on the smartphone over time (Stoopendahl, 2024); the second study traces the way consumersnavigate on e-commerce stores or social media when they do not actively input information on theplatform—argued as a form of online lurking—by using a simple application that records the screen ofthe smartphone (Audy Martínek et al., 2022). Lastly, a pilot study in the form of a bachelor’s thesis inmarketing at Lund university–supervised by the author of this paper–demonstrates a simple, yet creativepowerful tactic: The authors developed a method in which informants were asked to search for specifickeywords in their chat history and share screenshots of text conversations that illustrated decisionmakingprocesses (Andersson, Edblad, & Erbing, 2024). Together, these studies show what type oftrace data can be easily collected using ready-to-use solutions or simply by considering in what wayrepresentations of consumer practices are stored in users’ smart devices waiting to be collected andexplored.When collecting and analyzing trace data the following aspects are important to consider: Ethicaldilemmas regarding passively collecting trace data, using commercial platforms for scientific purposeand data quality and reliability. When analyzing, trace data invites the qualitative researcher to engagein an alien style data; even if it may be rich in detail and capture how events unfold when using a smartdevice, it also needs to be contextualized. Trace data needs to be paired with other tools, such asinterviews in which the informant needs to be engaged to make sense of the traces. This means thattrace data blurs the lines between researcher and researched–between the difference of emic and etic–and instead highlight the collaborative nature in analyzing trace data. These considerations demonstratethat trace data is coupled with its own challenges, but also opportunities for elucidation new findings thatcan inform the expansion of theory.Based on these three above-mentioned studies the paper will discuss ways of collecting trace data. Itwill also address the analytical approaches and potential ethical dilemmas in conjunction with themethod. The aim is that this work will provide a much-needed exploration of how to incorporate tracedata in exploratory studies, investigating the contemporary device-enabled consumer.Selected referencesAndersson, H., Edblad, K., Erbing. (2024). Den sociala kundresan - hur sociala plattformar formar unga konsumenters köpbeteenden. Lund: LundUniversity School of Economics and Management. (Bachelor’s thesis).Airoldi, M. (2021). Digital traces of taste: methodological pathways for consumer research. Consumption Markets and Culture, 24(1), 97-117.doi:10.1080/10253866.2019.1690998Audy Martínek, P., Caliandro, A., & Denegri-Knott, J. (2022). Digital practices tracing: studying consumer lurking in digital environments. Journal ofMarketing Management, 1-31. doi:10.1080/0267257X.2022.2105385Ekström, B. (2022). Trace data visualisation enquiry: a methodological coupling for studying information practices in relation to information systems.Journal of Documentation, 78(7), 141-159. doi:10.1108/JD-04-2021-0082Gangneux, J. (2019). Rethinking social media for qualitative research: The use of Facebook Activity Logs and Search History in interview settings.Sociological Review, 67(6), 1249-1264. doi:10.1177/0038026119859742Geiger, R. S., & Ribes, D. (2011). Trace Ethnography: Following Coordination through Documentary Practices. In (pp. 1-10): IEEE.Stoopendahl, P. (2024). Tracing Smartphone-Enabled Customer Journeys : A Socio-Material Approach. Borås: Högskolan i Borås.