Consumer wayfinding tasks, strategies, and errors: An exploratory field study

Abstract

A significant portion of the consumer's in-store shopping experience is spent searching for desired products in complex shopping environments. Surprisingly, past research has largely overlooked this important behavior. The authors attempt to rectify this situation by reporting the findings of an extensive exploratory investigation of consumer in-store wayfinding, or search behavior. The study was conducted in the field, on the premises of a suburban supermarket. The main thrust of the research was descriptive, aimed at uncovering the basic mechanisms that direct the consumer's use of in-store navigational search strategies. © 1996 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.