The role of crowd checker technologies in consumers’ visit planning: from shopping in pandemic to shopping in the “new normal”

New technologies have been developed to support retailers in providing safer shopping experiences. The use of a few of them might well become a habit in the “new normal” post-pandemic scenario. Adopting the theoretical lenses of Terror Management Theory, this study focuses on a crowd-checking technology to understand the extent to which it could influence consumers’ shopping experience in terms of anxiety management, store attachment, and visit planning. To this end, we develop a moderated moderation model and test it on 150 consumers. Our results reveal that crowd-checking technology adoption has a direct influence on store attachment, intention to plan a visit to the store, and anxiety, as moderated by technology trust. In turn, anxiety has a ripple effect on store attachment and intention to plan. Implications for scholars and practitioners are further discussed.