Just Walk Out Stores-The Future of Shopping? Examining Configurations of Reasons for and Against Consumer Adoption

Artificial intelligence-enabled technologies have paved the way for innovative retail formats, such as "just walk out" stores, where consumers use their smartphone to enter, take what they want, and exit without an elaborate checkout process. Despite its promise, however, this new retail format has challenges maturing and being fully embraced by consumers. Coupling behavioral reasoning theory with a configurational perspective, this multimethod paper examines consumers' contextualized reasons for and against adoption of just walk out stores. Through qualitative field depth interviews (n = 60), Study 1 uncovers five reasons for (i.e., access convenience, transaction convenience, search convenience, no need for interaction, and limited social judgment) and seven reasons against (i.e., technology reliability concerns, entry inconvenience, payment unease, customer care inconvenience, privacy, contamination, and assortment-related concerns) adoption of just walk out stores. Building on a subsequent empirical online survey (n = 546), Study 2 uses fuzzy set Qualitative Comparative Analysis and shows that different configurations (or combinations) of reasons for and against may lead to favorable and unfavorable attitude and adoption intentions. This research contributes to the emerging literature on artificial intelligence-enabled retail formats by shedding light on the nuanced adoption/rejection drivers of just walk out stores. With these insights, retailers can tailor their approaches to minimize barriers and accentuate positive factors associated with customer adoption of just walk out stores.