In the retail environment, customers are stimulated by the look and feel of a store and how the store is laid out. Certain store elements create a shopping experience that attracts customers to a certain store as their preferred shopping destination. Therefore, grocery stores need to ensure that customer’s shopping experience is pleasant. This article focused on determining the relationship between store elements and the in-store shopping experience of grocery store customers in the King Sabata Dalindyebo(KSD) Local Municipality in the Eastern Cape, South Africa. The study aimed to identify the relationship between various store elements and customers’ in-store shopping experience in ensuring customer satisfaction. A sample of 256 customers who frequently shopped at grocery stores in the KSD Local Municipality was used for the part of the study in which a quantitative research design was followed. A web-based questionnaire was used to collect data. The data were then analysed using regression analysis and hypothesis formulation. According to the findings of the research, there is a strong correlation between the in-store shopping experience and store elements, such as personal interaction, merchandise value, the internal store environment, merchandise variety and assortment, and the handling of customer complaints. The handling of complaints from customers was found to have the strongest relationship with customers’ in-store shopping experience, followed by merchandise variety and assortment, and the internal store environment. Furthermore, customer satisfaction was found to be affected by customers’ shopping experiences inside stores. Consequently, grocery stores ought to enhance store elements to improve customers’ in-store shopping experience.

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