A key advantage that brick-and-mortar retailers have over online retailers is their salespeople, who can adaptively interact with customers on a one-on-one basis. When starting an interaction with a customer, a retail salesperson generally first aims to determine their shopping goal (Hall et al., Journal of Marketing, 79(3), 91–109, 2015), often with questions such as, “How can I help you today?” Yet, little is known in the literature or in practice about how salespeople should adapt their sales approach based on customers’ shopping goals. This is unfortunate, because customers clearly want better help from salespeople, and the potential gains of doing so are substantial (Accenture, 2021; Hochstein et al., Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science, 47(1), 118–137, 2019). To address this limitation, this research focuses on the practice of adaptive selling in retail settings, in which salespeople adapt their tactics on the basis of customers’ shopping goals. Using information processing theory, we propose that matching sales influence tactics (SITs) to two aspects of customers’ shopping goals, namely goal specificity and product type (utilitarian vs. hedonic), improves purchase outcomes. Across a series of field and lab experiments, we demonstrate that purchase behavior and purchase intention are higher when salespeople use informational (emotional) SITs with customers who have a high (low) shopping goal specificity level, which we term the match strategy. The match strategy has a direct positive effect on purchase outcomes and an effect mediated by processing fluency on purchase outcomes, with product type serving as a moderator. This research concludes with specific, actionable recommendations for retail salespeople and managers.

实体零售商相对于在线零售商的一个关键优势是他们的销售人员，他们可以自适应地与客户进行一对一的互动。当开始与顾客互动时，零售销售人员通常首先要确定他们的购物目标（Hall et al., Journal of Marketing, 79(3), 91–109, 2015），通常会提出诸如“如何才能今天我帮你吗？”然而，在文献或实践中，人们对销售人员应如何根据客户的购物目标调整销售方法知之甚少。这是不幸的，因为客户显然希望销售人员提供更好的帮助，而这样做的潜在收益是巨大的（Accenture，2021；Hochstein et al., Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science, 47(1), 118–137, 2019 ）。为了解决这一局限性，本研究重点关注零售环境中适应性销售的实践，其中销售人员根据顾客的购物目标调整他们的策略。利用信息处理理论，我们提出将销售影响策略（SIT）与客户购物目标的两个方面（即目标特异性和产品类型（功利主义与享乐主义））相匹配，可以改善购买结果。通过一系列现场和实验室实验，我们证明，当销售人员对购物目标特异性水平高（低）的客户使用信息（情感）SIT（我们称之为匹配策略）时，购买行为和购买意愿会更高。匹配策略对购买结果有直接的正向影响，并且通过处理流畅性对购买结果产生中介作用，其中产品类型起到调节作用。这项研究最后为零售销售人员和经理提出了具体的、可行的建议。