Purpose
This study aims to investigate the effect of store formats (traditional vs modern vs online) on consumer satisfaction and future purchase intentions in the context of embarrassing product purchases in an emerging economy, India. This study further examines the mediating role of consumers’ privacy perception and the moderating role of public self-consciousness and purchase urgency.

Design/methodology/approach
First, the authors conduct a pretest to identify embarrassing products purchased across various retail formats in India. The authors test the hypotheses using four experiments with 581 consumers (Studies 1a, 1b, 2 and 3). The authors test the findings using ANCOVA and PROCESS macro.

Findings
The pretest reveals that consumers experience embarrassment while purchasing daily necessities like personal hygiene and sexual wellness products and medicines from retail stores such as mom-and-pop shops, departmental stores and pharmacies. Results from Studies 1a, 1b and 2 demonstrate that perceived privacy and satisfaction serially mediate the relationship between store formats (traditional vs modern vs online) and future purchase intentions, such that individuals experienced reduced privacy perceptions in traditional (vs modern vs online) stores, leading to a reduction in satisfaction and future purchase intentions. Furthermore, the authors identify public self-consciousness as a boundary condition, such that the effects are present only for individuals with high (vs low) public self-consciousness. Moreover, when the purchase urgency is high (vs low), the effect of store format on future purchase intentions dissipates.

Originality/value
To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this study is the first to reveal the unfavorable consequences of embarrassing product purchases made at an emerging country’s dominant traditional store formats on customer satisfaction and future purchase intentions. The conversation-intensive buying at traditional stores impedes consumers’ perceived privacy, which is crucial when purchasing embarrassing products.