How observation of other shoppers increases the in-store use of mobile technology

Digital technologies enable brick-and-mortar retailers to improve customer engagement and retention. In this study, the authors investigate how in-store use of mobile technology can leverage the social nature of offline shopping to increase customer usage of a retailer's promotional mobile app. Analyzing a large dataset from a nationwide retailer by estimating a Zero-Inflated Negative Binomial (ZINB) model, they find a significant effect of in-store observation of other shoppers' use of the retailer's mobile promotion app on both app usage and the number of m-coupon redemptions. However, in-store advertising reduces the effect of observing other shoppers on the number of m-coupons redeemed per app usage.