By Rae Yule Kim
Abstract
Sales robots are on the way to become a common shopping experience. Sales robots are expected to perform jobs that are traditionally done by salespeople, such as answering shoppers’ questions and processing payments. A salesperson plays a significant role in shopper conversion. It is uncertain how shoppers’ interactions with robots can be compared to shoppers’ interactions with salespeople. The findings from marketing research provide insights into how retailers can improve shopper-robot interaction. The key to replicate the shoppers’ experiences with salespeople in shopper-robot interaction is to make the robots resemble a human in their behaviors and appearances. Humanoids in retail stores can be much more than just a ‘wow factor.’
Keywords: Retail, Robots, Humanoids, Shopping Experience
Shopping with Robots
The COVID-19 pandemic is likely to have a lasting effect on consumption. The retail industry has been one of the hardest-hit sectors, where retail sales decreased by 8.7% and approximately 47,000 chain stores were shut in March (Maheshwari et al., 2020; Holman et al., 2020). Many retailers find it difficult to operate the store at maximum capacity because of social distancing measures (Musa, 2020). One popular strategy to increase the store capacity while complying with safety measures has been ‘sales robots.’ Sales robots have been growing in popularity, especially since the pandemic. Giant Food Stores, LLC in the US has deployed shopping assistance robots “Marty” in its 172 grocery chain stores (Green, 2019). (Fig. 1) A shopping cart robot assists shoppers and processes payments in a Chinese grocery chain, Seven Fresh (Matthews, 2020). Nestle has deployed a humanoid robot “Pepper” to sell coffee makers in department stores in Japan (Kimmorley, 2014). (Fig.2) At Lowe’s, an assistance robot “LoweBot,” has been answering shoppers’ questions such as where to find an item and whether an item is in stock (LIL, 2016). The risk of infection has been a predominant reason why shoppers may avoid shopping in retail stores; and when they do, shoppers seek to avoid interacting with other shoppers and salespeople (Szymkowiak et al. 2020). As a countermeasure, more grocers and big chain retails are deploying robots to clean the floors, assist the shoppers, and deliver foods (Meyersohn, 2020).
Approximately 400 million workers are expected to be displaced with robots by 2030 – and the number is expected to only increase as more businesses seek to automate operations (Ellingrud, 2018; Semuels, 2020). Robots are predicted to take 75 million jobs away from the human workforce worldwide by 2022, and the automation industry is expected to generate 133 million new jobs (Cann, 2018). The retail industry is predicted to be the second most impacted sector by the trend of replacing the workforce with robots, next to the manufacturing industry, where 51% of the retail workforce is expected to lose their jobs due to automation (PwC, 2018). (Fig. 3) More than 15 million people in the U.S. make living as retail workers, and they are among those most vulnerable to advances in industrial robotics (Meyersohn, 2020). In the wake of economic shocks due to the pandemic, it is certainly not the best time to replace the retail workforce with robots. However, the trend seems inevitable. Retail margin pressure has mounting due to intense competition, investment in e-commerce, and increases in labor costs (Begley et al., 2019). For many retailers, automation is becoming more of a requirement than a choice (Begley et al., 2019). The pandemic has been only accelerating the trend, and the deployment of sales robots is not likely to occur at a gradual pace as many retailers seek to cut labor costs as a countermeasure to the decreasing revenue during the pandemic (Muro et al., 2020). The benefits of deploying robots in retail stores are not only limited to increase the store capacity during the pandemic. Robots help retailers capture more comprehensive data about inventory monitoring and customer buying patterns, which can be used to optimize retail operations (Forgan, 2020).
Business Insider (2019). Marty [image]Retrieved from https://www.businessinsider.com/giant-food-stores-bringing-robots-to-stores-2019-1 Figure 1. Assistance robots “Marty” assist shoppers and inventory monitoring in grocery chain stores by Giant Food Stores
Business Insider (2014). Pepper [image]Retrieved from https://www.businessinsider.com.au/nestle-has-hired-a-robot-to-sell-its-coffee-machines-in-japan-2014-10 Figure 2. Humanoid ‘Pepper’ sells Nestle coffee products in a department store in Japan (Kimmorley, 2014)
Figure 3. The retail workforce is predicted to be the second hardest hit by automation in the US (PwC, 2018)
The Role of Robot Anthropomorphism
Sales robots are on the way to become a common shopping experience. However, there has been little insight into human-robot interaction from a shopper’s perspective. Sales robots are expected to perform jobs that are traditionally done by salespeople, such as answering shoppers’ questions and processing payments. It is uncertain how shoppers’ interactions with robots can be compared to shoppers’ interactions with salespeople.
A salesperson plays a significant role in shopper conversion. Nearly 75% of shoppers attribute their good shopping experiences to a salesperson (Kim and Stoel, 2005). Shoppers seek to consult salespeople to reduce uncertainty about the buying decision and make their shopping experiences more enjoyable by engaging in social interactions (Hass and Kenning, 2014). Shoppers’ trust in salespeople is one factor to predict if the shopper will be loyal to the retail store (Guenzi and Georges, 2010). A shopper’s relationship with a salesperson is a key influence on the shopper’s purchase intention – even more so when the shopper has salient social needs (Rippe et al., 2018). A salesperson’s attitude to shoppers is one of the significant predictors for customer retention (Darian et al., 2005). Even one good humor from a salesperson can make a customer loyal to the store (Lussier et al., 2017). Thus, a salesperson’s interaction with a shopper is among the main factors that contribute to an enjoyable shopping experience and store performances (Elmashhara and Soares, 2019).
One important question to ask preferably before replacing the retail workforce with robots might be whether the role of salespeople in shopper conversion can be replicated by the sales robots. Shoppers have both utilitarian and hedonic motives to interact with salespeople, whether they seek more product information or want to make some social contact (Hass and Kenning, 2014). Can robots satisfy those shoppers’ needs to interact with salespeople? If not, replacing salespeople with robots might backfire. The findings in previous marketing research provide important insights into how stores might be able to deploy sales robots and still satisfy the shoppers’ needs to interact with salespeople. The key to replicate the shoppers’ experiences with salespeople in shopper-robot interaction is to make the sales robot resemble a human in their behaviors and appearances. The previous research in consumer responses to robot anthropomorphism suggests that humanoids in retail stores can be much more than just a ‘wow factor.’
Figure 4. How to improve shopper-robot interaction? The role of robot anthropomorphism
Will Shoppers Trust Sales Robots?
Shoppers’ trust in salespeople has a substantial influence on purchase intention and customer loyalty (Guenzi and Georges, 2010; Hass and Kenning, 2014). Can sales robots earn the trust of shoppers to influence new purchases and customer loyalty? One reason why people trust the other human being more than a machine is due to the intrinsic assumption that humans seek to prove their competence (White, 1959; de Visser et al., 2016). The type of motivation to prove one’s competence is referred to as effectance motivation and this type of motivation is only partial to humans (White, 1959). The previous research shows that people assume effectance motivation, partial to humans, for an object under a circumstance (Epley et al., 2008). When people encounter a non-human entity that appears to be or act like another human being, people assume that the non-human entity possesses human-like motivation, including effectance motivation (Nickerson, 1998; Waytz et al., 2010). For example, people tended to assume computers to have more salient motivation to perform well when they were anthropomorphized (Waytz et al., 2010). In other words, people might believe that computers strive more to prove that they can perform well when these objects had somewhat human-like appearances (Waytz et al., 2010) The effect was present even when computers were simply addressed by human pronouns (Waytz et al., 2010). Furthermore, people tended to bet significantly less for gambling slot machines that had a human-like appearance because people assumed that the human-like slot machine would be good at deceiving gamblers to lose the bet compared to a conventional slot machine (Kim and McGill, 2011).
Thus, people tend to assign some features that are partial to humans to non-human entities when the objects are anthropomorphized. This capability is likely to let shoppers believe that sales robots strive as much as a salesperson would do to perform their jobs well, and subsequently, shoppers might be able to trust the robots like they trust salespeople – if the robot is anthropomorphic. The previous findings of the anthropomorphism effect on people’s trust in non-human entities like computers, pets, and slot machines were consistent in the context of human-robot interaction too – people tended to trust robots more when the robots appeared more human-like (Pixteren et al., 2019). Shoppers might apply the social norm that salespeople put an effort to assist them to a sales humanoid (de Visser et al., 2016). A recent study observed that people tend to trust robots even more than humans when people seek utilitarian information, which is referred to as the Word of Machine Effect (Longoini and Cian, 2020).
One other evidence that shows how people can trust sales robots is the improved trust resilience towards humanoids compared to more machine-like robots. It is a possible scenario that shoppers favor information provided by salespeople compared to sales robots because shoppers believe that humans are competent to fix their mistakes and deliver the requested outcome (Epley et al., 2008; Matthews et al., 2020). When robots resembled humans in aspects of their appearances and sociality, people became more tolerant of errors (Natarajan and Gombolay, 2020). Not only that people tended to be more tolerant of errors, but people also tended to seek more assistance from computers that had more human-like appearances (de Visser et al., 2016). People might trust sales robots like they trust salespeople to a certain extent if sales robots resemble salespeople in terms of appearances and behaviors.
Will Shoppers Interact with Robots?
A good humor sense of a salesperson can contribute to customer loyalty (Lussier et al., 2017). Social interaction with a salesperson is an important part of shopping to influence shoppers’ purchase intention, shopping enjoyment, and loyalty (Rippe et al., 2018; Elmashhara and Soares, 2019; Darian et al., 2005). Can social interaction between shoppers and salespeople be replicated in shopper-robot interaction? The previous research suggests that it is also a possibility.
People engage in social interactions with non-human entities as if they were humans (Mourey et al., 2017). People reported that spending time with a robot vacuum cleaner that looked like a human contributed to reducing their loneliness, where spending time with a conventional robot vacuum cleaner did not engender the same effect (Mourey et al., 2017). The finding suggests that interacting with not only humans but also objects, can satisfy social needs to some extent if the objects were somewhat human-like. Furthermore, robots might seem more emotionally intelligent by merely looking more like humans (Kim et al., 2019). People tend to be more compassionate with robots that look more anthropomorphic (Hoenen, 2016). The researchers surveyed and measured the brain activity that corresponds to pain responses, and found that people were noticeably more compassionate to robots that were physically violated, such as being thrown and treated aggressively, when the robots were anthropomorphic (Hoenen, 2016). People are capable to build social interactions with robots and sympathize with them. Sophistication in communication algorithms, such as a good humor sense in robots, can improve the social interaction between shoppers and robots to more effectively replicate the shopper-salesperson interaction.
Yet, some shoppers might experience eerie feelings and show stress responses to anthropomorphic robots (Kim et al., 2019). Anthropomorphic features in robots can increase people’s empathy, however, the uncanny valley theory predicts that the favorable reaction can abruptly shift to revulsion under some circumstances (Mori et al., 2012). There is much to explore – and it is worthwhile to keep up with forthcoming research findings of shopper-robot interaction to see when people find robots entertaining or eerie.
Conclusion
Approximately 70% of Americans are concerned about robots replacing the human workforce (Smith and Caiazza, 2017). One reason why people are concerned might be due to the belief that robots make us less human. The opposite can be true. Robots can help humans to redirect our time and efforts to grow socially and emotionally (de Visser et al., 2016; Natarajan and Gombolay, 2020). Robots are on the way to being more pervasive in everyday life. Also, robots are on the way to increasingly resemble us. There are more questions to follow. How this trend of robotic might influence our interactions with robots? The answer depends on how humans use them. Now is the time to dig deep into some questions – what we can and cannot do with humanoids.
Author
Rae Yule Kim is an assistant professor of marketing at Montclair State University in New Jersey, US.
E-Mail: kimr@montclair.edu
References
Begley, S., B. Hancock, T. Kilroy, and S. Kohli (2019, May 23). Automation in retail: An executive overview for getting ready, McKinsey & Company, Retrieved from https://www.mckinsey.com/industries/retail/our-insights/automation-in-retail-an-executive-overview-for-getting-ready#
Cann, O. (2018, September 17). Machines Will Do More Tasks Than Humans by 2025 but Robot Revolution Will Still Create 58 Million Net New Jobs in Next Five Yea, World Economic Forum, Retrieved from https://www.weforum.org/press/2018/09/machines-will-do-more-tasks-than-humans-by-2025-but-robot-revolution-will-still-create-58-million-net-new-jobs-in-next-five-years/
Chun, B., and H. Knight (2020). The Robot Makers: An Ethnography of Anthropomorphism at a Robotics Company, ACM Transactions on Human-Robot Interaction, 9(3), 16.
Darian, J.C., A.R. Wiman, and L.A. Tucci (2005). Retail patronage intentions: the relative importance of perceived prices and salesperson service attributes, Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, 12(1), 15-23.
Elmashhara, M.G. and A. M. Soares (2019). The impact of entertainment and social interaction with salespeople on mall shopper satisfaction: The mediating role of emotional states, International Journal of Retail & Distribution Management, 47(2), 94-110.
Ellingrud, K. (2018, October 23). The Upside Of Automation: New Jobs, Increased Productivity And Changing Roles For Workers, Forbes, Retrieved from https://www.forbes.com/sites/kweilinellingrud/2018/10/23/the-upside-of-automation-new-jobs-increased-productivity-and-changing-roles-for-workers/
Epley, N., A. Waytz, S. Akalis, and J.T. Cacioppo (2008). When We Need A Human: Motivational Determinants of Anthropomorphism, Social Cognition, 26, 143-155.
Forgan, B. (2020, October 01). What Robots Can Do for Retail, Harvard Business Review. Retrieved from https://hbr.org/2020/10/what-robots-can-do-for-retail
Green, D. (2019, January 19). A googly-eyed robot is coming to 172 grocery stores across America, Insider. Retrieved from https://www.businessinsider.com/giant-food-stores-bringing-robots-to-stores-2019-1
Guenzi, P. and L. Georges (2010). Interpersonal trust in commercial relationships: Antecedents and consequences of customer trust in the salesperson, European Journal of Marketing, 44(1/2), 114-138.
Haas, A. and P. Kenning (2014). Utilitarian and Hedonic Motivators of Shoppers’ Decision to Consult with Salespeople, Journal of Retailing, 90(3), 428-441.
Hoenen, M., K.T. Lübke, and B. M.Pause (2016). Non-anthropomorphic robots as social entities on a neurophysiological level, Computers in Human Behavior, 57, 182-186.
Kim, M. and L. Stoel (2005). Salesperson roles: are online retailers meeting customer expectations?, International Journal of Retail & Distribution Management, 33(4), 284-297.
Kim, S., and A.L. Mcgill (2011). Gaming with Mr. Slot or Gaming the Slot Machine? Power, Anthropomorphism, and Risk Perception, Journal of Consumer Research, 38(1), 94–107.
Kim, S.Y., B.H. Schmitt, and N.M. Thalmann (2019). Eliza in the uncanny valley: anthropomorphizing consumer robots increases their perceived warmth but decreases liking, Marketing Letters, 30, 1-12.
Longoni, C., and L. Cian (2020). Artificial Intelligence in Utilitarian vs. Hedonic Contexts: The “Word-of-Machine” Effect, Journal of Marketing, In press.
LIL (2016). LoweBot, Lowe’s Innovation Lab. Retrieved from https://www.lowesinnovationlabs.com/lowebot
Lussier, B. Y. Grégoire, and M. Vachon (2017). The role of humor usage on creativity, trust and performance in business relationships: An analysis of the salesperson-customer dyad, Journal of Business Research, 65, 168-181.
Matthews, K. (2020, April 10). Five Robots Now in Grocery Stores Show the Future of Retail, Robotics Business Review. Retrieved from https://www.roboticsbusinessreview.com/retail-hospitality/5-robots-grocery-stores-now/
Matthews, G., J. Lin, A. R. Panganiban, and M. D. Long (2020). Individual Differences in Trust in Autonomous Robots: Implications for Transparency, IEEE Transactions on Human-Machine Systems, 50(3), 234-244.
Meyersohn, N. (2020, April 07). Grocery stores turn to robots during the coronavirus, CNN Business. Retrieved from https://www.cnn.com/2020/04/07/business/grocery-stores-robots-automation/index.html
Mori, M., K.F. MacDorman, and N. Kageki (2012). The uncanny valley (from the field), IEEE Robotics & Automation Magazine, 19(2), 98-100.
Mourey J.A., J.G. Olson, and C. Yoon (2017). Products as Pals: Engaging with Anthropomorphic Products Mitigates the Effects of Social Exclusion, Journal of Consumer Research, 44(2), 414–431.
Muro, M, R. Maxim, and J. Whiton (2020, March 24). The robots are ready as the COVID-19 recession spreads, Brookings. Retrieved from https://www.brookings.edu/blog/the-avenue/2020/03/24/the-robots-are-ready-as-the-covid-19-recession-spreads/
Musa, J. (2020, July 22). Retail, Robots, and COVID-19: Trends and How Can Robots Play a Role in Safe Shopping, SoftBank Robotics. Retrieved from https://www.softbankrobotics.com/emea/en/blog/news-trends/retail-robots-and-covid-19-trends-and-how-can-robots-play-role-safe-shopping
Natarajan, M., and M. Gombolay (2020). Effects of Anthropomorphism and Accountability on Trust in Human-Robot Interaction, Proceedings of the 2020 ACM/IEEE International Conference on Human-Robot Interaction, Cambridge, UK, 33–42.
Nickerson, R.S. (1998). Confirmation bias: A ubiquitous phenomenon in many guises, Review of General Psychology, 2(2), 175-220.
Pixteren, M.M.E.v et al. (2019). Trust in humanoid robots: implications for services marketing, Journal of Service Marketing, 33(4), 507-518.
PwC (2018). Will robots really steal our jobs? An international analysis of the potential long-term impact of automation, PricewaterhouseCoopers
Rippe, C.B., B. Smith, and A.J. Dubinsky (2018). Lonely consumers and their friend the retail salesperson, Journal of Business Research, 92, 131-141.
Semuels, A. (2020, August 6). Millions of Americans Have Lost Jobs in the Pandemic—And Robots and AI Are Replacing Them Faster Than Ever, Time. Retrieved from https://time.com/5876604/machines-jobs-coronavirus/
Smith, A., and T. Caiazza (2017). Automation in Everyday Life, Pew Research Center
Szymkowiak, A., P. Gaczek, K. Jeganathan, and P. Kulawik (2020). The impact of emotions on shopping behavior during epidemic. What a business can do to protect customers, Journal of Consumer Behavior, 20(1), 48-60.
de Visser, E.J. et al. (2016). Almost human: Anthropomorphism increases trust resilience in cognitive agents. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Applied, 22(3), 331–349.
Wayzt, A., C.K. Morewedge, G. Monteleone, J.H. Gao, and J.T. Cacioppo (2010). Making sense by making sentient: Effectance motivation increases anthropomorphism, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 99(3), 410-435.
White, R.W. (1959). Motivation reconsidered: The concept of competence. Psychological Review, 66(5), 297-333.
