【正文】 marketing. This is achieved through participation in personally relevant, credible and memorable encounters. Shopping has been considered a search process where shoppers would like to ensure that they make the right decisions. In addition, they also intend to derive emotional satisfaction (Tauber, 1972). It has been found that a high level of brand awareness may not translate into sales. Proactive organization should consider every visit of the shopper as a distinct encounter and a moment of truth. Unless the interaction is satisfactory, the next visit may not guaranteed. Therefore, if the store does not provide a pelling reason for a repeat patronage, the amount of purchase per visit may likely decline (Zeithaml, 1998). The concept of experiential marketing appears to have resonated with practitioners and academicians alike. However, research work on customer experience appears to be in its infancy, pared to other service related topics such as service quality and loyalty. Furthermore, customer experience as a concept is considered by some practitioners as applicable and relevant to entertainment industry (Zomerdijk and Voss, 2010). However, in view of the dynamic nature of consumer behavior, whatever the service (or product) a customer is buying or receiving, the customer will have an experience。 good, bad or indifferent. In other word, exchange of goods or services always es with an experience (Carbone and Haecke, 1994) whilst shopping encounters for instance, even for a mundane product or service provide an opportunity for emotional engagement (Berry and Carbone, 2007) The growing significance of experiential marketing has resulted into diverse and fascinating study on the concept (. Csikzentmihalyi, 1997。 Schmitt 1999。 Pine and Gilmore 1999。 Holbrook, 2000。 Arnould et al., 2002。 Caru and Cova, 2003 to mention a few). However, the dynamics of consumer behavior have necessitated the need for more papers. With few exceptions, the existing experiential retail literature has focused mainly on the isolated testing of static design elements (. atmospherics, ambient conditions, and services cape architecture) of retail stores (Turley and Milliman, 2000). McCole (2004) in particular recognizes this dearth of academic research in the areas of experiential and event marketing as an indication of the division between academia and business and calls for marketing theory in these areas to be more closely aligned with practice. Similarly, Gupta, (2003) identified a lack of systemic body of knowledge and conceptual framework on which to base scientific inquiry as a key tenet of experiential marketing. The current study seeks to address some of these gaps in the literature. In consequence this paper aims to gauge consumers39。 responses to experiential marketing in modern retail outlets and analyze the effect of experiential marketing on consumer behavior. Experience as defined within the realm of management is a personal occurrence with emotional significance created by an interaction with product or brand related stimuli (Holbrook and Hirschman, 1982). For this to bee experiential marketing the result must be “something extremely significant and unforgettable for the consumer immersed in the experience” (Caru and Cova, 2003, p. 273). According to Schmitt (1999) experiential marketing is how to get customers to sense, feel, think, act, and relate with the pany and brands. Customer satisfaction is a key oute of experiential marketing and is defined as the “customer fulfillment response” which is an evaluation as well as an emotionbased response to a service. It is an indication of the customer’s belief on the probability or possibility of a service leading to a positive feeling. And positive affect is positively and negatively related to satisfaction (Liljander and Strandvik, 1997). Experiential marketing involves the marketing of a product or service through experience and in the process the customer bees emotionally involved and connected with the object of the experience (Marthurs, 1971). A well designed experience engages the attention and emotion of the consumer, and bees memorable and allows for a free interpretation, as it is nonpartisan (Hoch, 2002). In contrast to traditional marketing which focuses on gaining customer satisfaction, experiential marketing creates emotional attachment for the consumers (McCole, 2004). The sensory or emotional element of a total experience has a greater impact on shaping consumer preferences than the product or service attributes Zaltman (2003). The benefits of a positive experience include the value it provides the consumer (Babin et al., 1994。 Holbrook, 1999) and the potential for building customer loyalty (Pine and Gilmore, 1998。 Gobe and Zyman, 2001). Experiential retail strategies facilitate the creation of emotional attachments, which help customers obtain a higher degree of possessive control over instore activities (Schmitt, 2003). These strategies allow consumers to bee immersed within the holistic experience design, which often creates a flow of experiences (Csikszentmihalyi, 1997). Affective reaction based on an interaction with an object can be described as a person’s subjective perception or judgment about whether such interaction will change his or her core affect or his or her emotion toward the object. Cognitive reaction toward interacting with the object involves cognitive reasoning or appraisal, and is a consumer assessment of the purchase implications for his/her well being. Cognitive and affective reactions towards an object can be quite different, for example: one might appraise taking garlic as good and useful for one’s health, nevertheless, one can at the same time consider it unpleasant due to its smell and taste. Experiential events can turn out to create both consumer and consumption experiences and can by far more effective in attaining munication goals. Caru and Cova (2003) conceptualization of