Unmanned Convenience Stores: The Future of Retail or Just Glorified Vending Machines? : Empirical Evidence of Consumer Resistance in Sweden

Sammanfattning: A new business model of unmanned convenience stores has been introduced to the retail industry in recent years. An unmanned convenience store is a store format where customers can carry out their errands without involvement of service personnel due to fully automated payment solutions. Because of the decreased need for employees, the new concepts can increase both efficiency and revenues as well as decrease costs for the companies. Due to low overhead costs, the store has the potential to be located both in rural and sparsely populated areas as well as in urban areas with growing population who values efficiency. Scholars have highlighted that such solutions may induce resistance among customers as they believe that it only serves the companies while harming the communities. Despite this, no previous research has studied consumer resistance towards unmanned convenience stores empirically.  The purpose of this thesis was to empirically examine the underlying factors that affect the level of consumer resistance towards unmanned convenience stores. This was done by investigating the relative importance of psychological-, functional- and individual barriers derived from existing literature regarding factors that hamper the adoption process of innovations. Thus, the following research question was formulated: “What are the underlying factors that affect the level of consumer resistance towards unmanned convenience stores?” The study focused on respondents that had no previous experience from unmanned convenience stores because of the apparent void in existing literature with such focus. To answer the research question, nine hypotheses were formulated and tested against the variable consumer resistance. A quantitative research design was applied where data was collected by distributing a survey to potential consumers in Sweden. In total, 172 respondents answered the survey where 131 respondents did not have previous experience of unmanned convenience stores. The data was analyzed through a regression analysis using ordinary least squares.  The result shows that need for interaction, perceived performance risk, lack of perceived convenience value and self-image incongruence positively influence consumer resistance in stated order of precedence. The results can be used as guidelines for companies trying to mitigate consumer resistance towards unmanned convenience stores. The final conceptual framework presented in this thesis can be used in future research to predict consumer resistance. Thus, this thesis contributes to the literature on consumer resistance by studying a new context still in its infancy.