Why children leave shopping malls: A qualitative meta-method study

Recently, there have been no studies on child consumers, and it is accepted in the world that these days, children play a multifaceted role in consumption, these roles are: buyer, influencer, and persuader. Children are an important part of the economic, and their daily actions are as consumer in the economy. Many researchers have focused on the importance of children's influence on their parents' purchases, and many of them have realized the psychological effects of children's presence in the shopping experience. The purpose of this article is to identify the antecedents and consequences of children's experience as customers of shopping centers by reviewing past researches about children as retail consumers, focusing on the customer's shopping experience and consumer socialization. The approach of this research is qualitative and meta-synthesis. Data collection was done by documentary method and by reviewing all scientific sources in the statistical community of studies related to children as consumers in the period from 1988 to 2020. In this meta-synthesis qualitative study, the seven-step model of Sandelowski and Barroso (2007) was used, in this regard, 39 researches were examined in the field of the subject and finally 16 researches were selected purposefully. Among the reviewed studies, 62 codes and 5 concepts were extracted. Finally, the findings were presented in the form of a model. The findings also indicate that shopping centers should focus on the characteristics to attract children so that the desire to choose the shopping center increases.