In or out? A field observational study on the placement of entertaining robots in retailing

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to empirically investigate the role of the placement (i.e. location) of humanoid service robots (HSRs) for entertainment applications in retailing by inspecting a multitude of performance metrics along the point-of-sale conversion funnel. Design/methodology/approach The study was conducted using unobtrusive observations at a Belgian chocolate store. In total, 42 h of video observation material was collected...