In-store surveillance technologies: what drives their acceptability among consumers?

ABSTRACT

Retail surveillance technologies that enable marketers to track the in-store behaviour of an individual consumer are becoming commonplace. Yet, despite questions raised about their ethicality, their acceptability from a consumer perspective remains under-researched, thereby limiting a marketer’s ability to make informed decisions when deploying such technologies. Accordingly, this study focuses on a ‘matched pair’ of widely used technologies selected specifically for the purpose of examining its core proposition that a voluntary, transparent form of surveillance that provides the consumer with direct benefits (Shopkick), will be viewed more favourably than will its equal and opposite counterpart (Shopperception). Building on the theoretical perspective of the Technology Acceptance Model (TAM), a sample of 477 survey respondents provided reasons why each technology might, or might not, be acceptable using an essentially open-ended questionnaire. Responses were coded and labelled with the subsequent lists of reasons being analysed descriptively. A single closed-ended question required respondents to rate their overall acceptability, and these responses were subject to t-tests. A comparison of the results obtained across two independent subsamples show that consumers evaluate ‘Shopkick’ to be considerably more acceptable than ‘Shopperception’, thereby confirming the study’s core proposition whilst also providing insights into the specific ‘costs and benefits’ associated with each technology from the consumers’ point of view. The study’s findings and their implications are then delineated from the perspective of both practitioners and academicians. For practitioners, an easy-to-use ‘infographic’ visual decision-making aid designed to help retailers make more informed choices about if and how to best to deploy the new generation of in-store surveillance technologies is developed. For academicians with a focus on theoretical considerations, a variation of the TAM as it relates to the consumers’ propensity to accept or reject an in-store surveillance technology is also proposed.

KEYWORDS:

• Retail surveillance
• technology acceptance
• privacy
• tracking
• consumer perspectives

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Correction Statement

This article has been corrected with minor changes. These changes do not impact the academic content of the article.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Roger Brooksbank

Roger Brooksbank is currently an Associate Professor of Marketing at the University of Waikato, New Zealand, with previous experience as a Sales Executive, Sales and Marketing Manager, Marketing Director and Business Owner in the UK. His research interests lie in all aspects of strategic marketing and business competitiveness and he is the author or co-author of over 200 publications in these areas, including 5 books and 51 refereed journal articles. Roger has also acted as an independent marketing consultant, seminar leader, conference speaker or sales trainer to a variety of clients in both the public and private sector throughout Europe and Australasia.

Jonathan M. Scott

Jonathan M. Scott is a Senior Lecturer in Innovation and Strategy at Waikato Management School, Tauranga CBD campus, University of Waikato where he teaches various innovation, entrepreneurship and strategy courses. Jonathan’s collaborative research focuses on entrepreneurial finance, business support and policy, and international comparative differences. He has worked on over twenty research projects funded by public sector clients. He was a Visiting Research Fellow at the Entrepreneurship Unit, University of Turku, Finland in 2018 and in various previous years.

Sam Fullerton

Sam Fullerton is an Emeritus Professor of Marketing at Eastern Michigan University, and he currently holds the title of Extraordinary Professor at the North-West University in South Africa. He has also served as a visiting professor/scholar at the University of Michigan, the University of Waikato (NZ), Queensland University of Technology (Australia), and the University of Southern Queensland (Australia). His research primarily focuses on ethics, sports marketing, and technomarketing. In recent years, his research has appeared in The Journal of Consumer Marketing, Strategic Management Journal, the Journal of Applied Marketing Theory, The International Journal of Technology Marketing, Journal of Gambling Business and Economics, the European Business Review, the Asia Pacific Journal of Marketing and Logistics, the Australasian Marketing Journal, Sport Marketing Quarterly, and Health Marketing Quarterly. He has received 17 best paper awards from journals and at conferences. He has also written textbooks on Sports Marketing, Contemporary Selling, and Marketing Research.