Alexa, Give Me a Hand…On GenZ’ Smart Speaker Acceptance in a Retail Environment

The aim of this paper is to assess the acceptance of smart speakers in a retail environment, with a special focus on the perceptions of GenZ, one of the heaviest user groups. With the use of smart speakers on the rise, it is important to make sure that customers perceive them as feasible and useful devices for their daily tasks. With the retail industry being part and parcel of smart speaker integration, this short paper focuses on analyzing their usage intention in the said environment by means of a modified version of UTAUT2. To assess the reliability and validity of the proposed model, both an exploratory and a confirmatory analysis were conducted (SPSS 26). Thereafter, structural equation modeling was used to test the hypotheses (AMOS 26). The results show that effort expectancy, habit, social influence, and hedonic motivation have a direct, significant, positive, and direct effect on the usage intention of smart speakers in a retail environment. This study sheds light onto the perceived barriers to using voice assistants during their shopping journey. It also identifies both strong and pain points that retailers should focus on in order to establish valuable customer relationships in evolving retail service environments.