Since my apprenticeship as a visual merchandiser (1988), I have been intensively involved with the topic of customer experience. Even though this term has only recently entered the German language, I specifically based my (late) part-time studies on it. I wanted to know how and why designs, placements and actions influence customer behaviour in brick and mortar retail.

After several years in the field of Retail Customer Experience, I changed industry for family reasons and did not return until 2011, when I took over the management of visual merchandising at Sport Eybl and Sports Experts. However, even during my absence, the customers were always the focus of my activities.

At the end of 2012, I decided to enrol at the JKU again (university entrance qualification examination: 01.1992, business administration: 02.1992-09.1993) and studied economics part-time (11.2012-11.2016).

In 2016 I took over the management of POS and merchandising at Intersport Austria (AT, CZ, HU and SK). My individual master's degree in business psychology was also approved in 2016 and I was able to complete it in 2019 with the master's thesis: "Gestalt principles and satisfaction in brick and mortar retail". This was followed in 2018 by the move to Leder & Schuh AG (AT, DE and CEE), where I developed and implemented customer-oriented visual merchandising guidelines.

While the development of a customer-oriented shopping atmosphere has always been at the centre of my work, the time was ripe at the beginning of 2020 to focus even more on the field of customer experience. Since my engagement at the Institute for Retailing, Sales and Marketing at the Johannes Kepler University Linz in October 2020, I have been intensively researching the topic of consumer behaviour, especially in physical environments (brick and mortar stores, city centres). Thus, I am very excited about interesting and inspiring projects.