La rencontre interpersonnelle : un point clé dans l’expérience vécue en magasins de luxe

This research focuses on the shopping experience of customers who regularly visit luxury stores. We show that the study of this context highlights the singular role of the buyer/seller encounter in the lived experience, which leads to enriching the number and nature of the generic experiential dimensions, specific to any lived experience. A qualitative study on 14 individuals who regularly visit luxury stores shows that the shopping experience in the specific context of a luxury boutique reveals two complementary dimensions (one called “identity transformation” and the other linked to power). All dimensions are interconnected by their interpersonal nature. Transforming the shopping experience lived in luxury into an experiential system of encounter, our article then proposes a typology to luxury managers that allows them to better segment their experiential offer in store. Thus, depending on whether the meeting is “friendly”, “enchanting”, “enslaving” or “pragmatic”, the experiential offer proposed in store will be distinguished in order to better satisfy and retain luxury customers. Keywords: experience, shopping, customer, luxury, retail store, sales advisor, transformation, power.