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Quantitative Marketing and Economics
Published in: Quantitative Marketing and Economics 3/2020

20-03-2020

The Effect of Sales Assistance on Purchase Decisions: An analysis using retail video data

Authors: Aditya Jain, Sanjog Misra, Nils Rudi

Published in: Quantitative Marketing and Economics | Issue 3/2020

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Abstract

We investigate the role of sales assistance in driving customer’s purchase decision using unique observational video data from a cosmetics retail chain. The data contain visual descriptors of customers and their in-store activities including the time they spent in interacting with salespersons (sales assistance), and are linked to their purchase decisions. Our empirical specification is based on the process of customer deciding to engage in sales assistance to acquire information meaningful toward purchase decision. Thus, we treat sales assistance as endogenous construct, and employ a control function approach to correct for this endogeneity using instruments pertaining to the supply of sales assistance. Our analysis quantifies the role of sales assistance in driving a customer’s purchase decision, and it shows that the effectiveness of sales assistance diminishes with its amount. In addition to highlighting the importance of sales assistance towards purchase decisions, our results also quantify how the retailer can influence sales assistance by increasing the availability of salespersons. We also examine the effect of sales assistance on in-store search carried out by the customer. Finally, we offer number of context specific insights into the heterogeneity of customers’ shopping and purchasing behavior.
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Appendix
Available only for authorised users
Footnotes
1
In a third party survey of its customers, more than half of the respondents attributed their patronage of the firm to high quality of products and good service provided by salespersons.
 
2
United Arab Emirates Dirham
 
3
We include search as an additional control in this main model since it affects purchase decision. In Section 6, we consider an alternative specification which excludes search, and show that results do not change significantly.
 
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Metadata
Title
The Effect of Sales Assistance on Purchase Decisions: An analysis using retail video data
Authors
Aditya Jain
Sanjog Misra
Nils Rudi
Publication date
20-03-2020
Publisher
Springer US
Published in
Quantitative Marketing and Economics / Issue 3/2020
Print ISSN: 1570-7156
Electronic ISSN: 1573-711X
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1007/s11129-020-09223-w