Defining and measuring recreational shopper identity

The concept of recreational shopper identity, a dimension of the consumer's self-concept, is contrasted with simple shopping enjoyment, which has characterized most past research on recreational shopping. Two survey studies investigate recreational shopper identity in a clothing shopping context. In Study 1, the Recreational Shopper Identity (RSI) Scale is validated with a sample of 561 adult consumers, demonstrating that recreational shopping is experienced as a true leisure activity In Study 2, involving 354 adult consumers, the RSI Scale is used to identify three groups of shoppers who differ in the degree to which they incorporate recreational shopping into their self-concepts. Recreational shopping enthusiasts are found to engage more extensively in a range of retail shopping behaviors, to spend more money shopping (i.e., they are not just browsers), and are more "multi-channel" than other shoppers, reporting higher levels of Internet, catalog, and TV home shopping as well as traditional "brick-and-mortar" shopping.