The impact of consumer perception towards smart retail technology on perceived shopping value attitude and usage intention

Today, smart retail technologies that have emerged with the ever-changing and evolving technology continue to rapidly transform service delivery and value creation in the retail sector. Smart retail technologies, which emerged as one of the results of Industrial Revolution 4.0, can offer extraordinary shopping experiences in physical stores by deepening the integration between physical and digital features. In this context, retailers who want to gain a competitive advantage by offering superior and personalized retail services to their customers are transforming their physical retail stores into smart retail stores. Smart retail technologies include many other technologies or touchpoints such as smart mirrors, smart dressing rooms, self-checkout kiosks (self-service payment kiosks), smart price tags, smart shelves, smart shopping carts, unmanned stores, etc. Given the rapid adoption of these technologies in physical retail settings and the benefits they offer to both retailers and consumers, understanding consumer behavior toward smart retail technologies is of critical importance. In this context, the first aim of the study is to examine how consumers' perceptions of the characteristics of smart retail technologies affect their perceived utilitarian, hedonic, and social shopping value; how these perceived values influence attitudes; and how attitudes in turn affect the intention to use smart retail technologies. The second aim is to determine the moderating role of consumers' technological innovativeness in the relationships between perceived utilitarian, hedonic, and social value and attitude, as well as between attitude and behavioral intention. For this purpose, data was collected through a face-to-face survey from a total of 405 participants who are 18 years of age or older and reside in Istanbul and have the knowledge or potential to use smart retail technology in their shopping. The data were analyzed using exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses, mediation and conditional process analyses, and structural equation modeling, along with descriptive statistical tests. As a result of the structural equation modeling analysis, it was found that perceived novelty, perceived advantage, and perceived complexity have statistically significant effects on perceived utilitarian, hedonic, and social value. Additionally, the analysis revealed that perceived trust has a statistically significant effect on hedonic and social value, but not on utilitarian value. The results also indicated that perceived control, compatibility, risk, and privacy concerns do not have significant effects on perceived utilitarian, hedonic, or social value. However, perceived utilitarian, hedonic, and social value were found to have statistically significant effects on attitude, and attitude was found to have a statistically significant effect on the intention to use. Mediation analyses showed that perceived innovation, advantage, compatibility, control, and ease of use significantly affect attitude through perceived values. However, perceived trust, risk, and privacy concerns did not significantly influence attitude through any value dimension, indicating the absence of statistically significant indirect effects. Nevertheless, perceived utilitarian, hedonic, and social values were found to have significant indirect effects on behavioral intention through attitude. The findings demonstrate the determining role of attitude on usage intention within a value-based structure and how perceived utilitarian; hedonic and social value shape this process. The conditional process analysis further revealed that technological innovativeness plays a significant moderating role in the effects of perceived utilitarian, hedonic, and social value on attitude and behavioral intention. Particularly at moderate and high levels of technological innovativeness, the effects of perceived values on both attitude and intention were amplified, indicating the presence of a significant moderated mediation structure in the model.