Published Paper Details:

The sale and purchase of goods & services have evolved. The exchange of goods moved from a camel back to mega malls and details have taken over the entire spectrum and mindset of the shopper. Aim of this paper is to understand the complex retail atmospherics that evolved over time and see through the future research areas. Modern retail store formats (hypermarkets, supermarkets, convenience stores) with their self-service nature place a great deal of importance on the retail atmospherics in terms of success or failure (volume of sales). A plethora of researches are conducted worldwide and in India on the retail atmospherics (external, internal, signage, layout, shelf allocation and speed) and its effects on many dependent variables like sales, time spent in store and purchase behavior and there is enough evidence globally to be able to clearly state that the atmosphere has an effect on shopper spending. Our focus area of study is the floor plan and the retail shelf space allocation in particular and despite the depth of this subject, empirical research works in Indian context are just a few. This work intends to find a gap in Indian context through bibliometric analysis and to shed light on the factors related to the retail atmospherics and all the avenues where further researches can be conducted in Indian context especially in focus areas of retail store floor plan, category adjacency, shelf space allocation and Customer's buying pattern or Customer decision tree as the industry terms it.