Consumers’ shopping in person during the risk of contagion: the beneficial effects of new technology during COVID-19 pandemic

The continuous development of new technologies supports retailers in offering a better shopping experience also during pandemics. Indeed, many new retail technologies have been developed to make the shopping experience during COVID-19 pandemic much safer. This study focuses on new technology, namely crowd checker, to evaluate the level to which this could impact consumers’ shopping experiences in terms of visit planning, store attachment, and managing shopping anxiety during the pandemic. To this end, the study builds upon the Terror Management Theory and place attachment. A new model is developed, and testing is carried out on 150 consumers. According to our findings, the adoption of crowd-checking technology directly impacts store attachment, store visiting intentions, and anxiety due to technology trust. Consequently, anxiety has a mediating role in the intention to plan and store attachment. The study further discusses the implications for practitioners and scholars.