'I hope this seller won't talk to me!' Social anxiety and the influence of verbal intimacy on the intention to return to a store

This article demonstrates that socially anxious consumers avoid close relationships with merchants. An experimental approach (n=102) shows that socially anxious consumers prefer small talk with merchants rather than intimate conversations, whereas non-socially anxious consumers prefer intimate conversations rather than small talk. The results also show that the intention to return the store is lower among socially anxious subjects than among non-socially anxious ones, even in the small talk condition