The effects of acquisition and transaction shopping value perceptions on retail format usage intentions: an illustration from discount stores

Although it becomes increasingly important for food retailers to understand what motivates consumers to use one retail format rather than another, research on retail format choice is sparse compared to store choice. This study examines the extent to which perceived acquisition value of shopping at a retail format and perceived transaction value of shopping at one particular retail format outlet in a specific situation have an impact on retail format usage intentions. In addition, we study the influence of different situation-specific factors on perceived transaction value of shopping at one particular retail format outlet. Taking discount stores as an example, the developed conceptual model is empirically tested using a structural equation approach. The results show that perceived acquisition value of shopping at the retail format plays a dominant role in explaining retail format usage intentions, while perceived transaction value of shopping at one particular retail format outlet, which depends on certain situation-specific factors, is of lesser importance.     

Shopping streets versus shopping malls – determinants of agglomeration format attractiveness from the consumers' point of view

The decline of shopping streets and the rise of shopping malls have been major trends in European retailing for decades. So far, research has failed to investigate this shift of agglomeration format (AF) patronage from a marketing perspective, including the consumers' point of view. This paper presents a theoretical discussion of the generic similarities and conceptual differences between shopping streets and shopping malls. Subsequently, the AF-specific characteristics perceived by consumers are compared and discussed with respect to their impact on agglomeration attractiveness. This leads to the development of a conceptual framework which is empirically tested using a web-based survey of almost 1000 consumers representing a typical urban central European retail market. The relative importance of nine distinctive AF characteristics on attractiveness was analysed using structural equation modelling. The findings proved to be quite similar for both shopping streets and shopping malls; the retail tenant mix and atmosphere had the highest relative importance.     

An Investigation of Consumer Brand Choice Behavior Across Different Retail Formats

There has been a blurring with respect to the retail formats because of competition and proliferation of different types of formats. In this research, we use a unique scanner panel dataset to investigate how brand choice behavior varies for the same consumer shopping for the same brand across different retail formats. We develop hypotheses pertaining to promotion sensitivity, price sensitivity, package size preference, and effects of demographic and shopping variables on consumer brand choice behavior and test them using a multi-format probit choice model that allows for the estimation of the cross-format differences with respect to the above. We find that consumers exhibit different promotion and price sensitivities in brand choice behavior between the mass merchandise format and supermarkets. Discussions and insights are provided.     

The importance of atmospherics in the choice of hypermarkets and supermarkets

Are the atmospheric variables equally relevant for supermarket and hypermarket customers? As a contribution to the customers' choice of the store format, firstly this work aims to determine the perception of differences between hypermarkets and supermarkets in terms of store attributes. Second, it sheds light on the role played by atmospherics in the customers' decision process. This study uses a logit approach to model the probabilistic choice of the customers' store format using atmospheric and other marketing variables as important attributes of the grocery store. The model's estimation is based on personal interviews conducted during the shopping process in urban supermarkets and hypermarkets belonging to the same retail chain. The findings show that although the atmospheric variables are significantly important for both store formats, the customers perceive differently the importance of each retail atmospheric cue and other marketing variables, when buying in a hypermarket or in a supermarket: the choice of buying in hypermarket is explained by the significant importance given to the latent variables named pleasant atmosphere and accessibility and responsiveness; in contrast, the choice of buying in supermarkets is explained by the significant importance given to the latent variable nice decoration and empathy with the staff. The other latent variable designated by other marketing variables is only significantly important in the decision of choosing supermarkets.     

Shopping orientation segments: exploring differences in store patronage and attitudes toward retail store environments among female apparel consumers

The purpose of this study was to identify shopping orientation segments for US female consumers. The sample included 151 women, aged 18 years and over. This research examined differences in the segments relative to store patronage preferences (i.e. department, discount, specialty), attitude toward the environment of the store selected as first choice when shopping for a specific apparel item (i.e. a dress), and demographic characteristics. Cluster analysis revealed that four shopping segments described the female consumers. The segments were named Decisive Apparel Shopper, Confident Apparel Shopper, Highly Involved Apparel Shopper, and Extremely Involved Apparel Shopper, based on several shopping factors. Differences were found among the shopping orientation segments for store of first choice, attitude and household income. Implications and future research directions are discussed.     

The more,the merrier? An exploratory study into managing channels in UK financial services

Abstract

Following the emergence of retail parks in the late 1970s in Britain, they have grown in number, scale and degree of retail specialisation. Some continue to form concentrations offering primarily ‘bulky goods’ shopping, while others have diversified to offer traditional ‘high street’ functions from stores indistinguishable from their town and city centre equivalents. Consequently, in some cases the emergence of new ‘high streets’ in the suburbs can be posited. In view of the potential impact such developments might have on traditional shopping centres, this study reviews the development of retail parks in Britain in recent years, and examines the commercial impact of a retail park in the process of transition towards a suburban ‘high street’. Evidence from surveys in 2003 and 2004 of the Fforestfach Retail Park in the greater Swansea area indicates that the transition towards a suburban ‘high street’ is beginning to impact significantly on traditional shopping centres of all types. It was evident that even small additions of ‘high street’ functions between the two recent survey dates elicited a statistically significant strengthening of their trading impact. Consequently, it is suggested that upgraded retail parks are likely to become stronger competitive threats to the full range of district, town and city centres if ‘high street’ functions continue to be added to retail parks.     

The death and life of shopping malls: an empirical investigation on the dead malls in Greater Lisbon

At a moment when new retail formats are emerging and consumers are changing their preferences, it is vital to reflect on the existing shopping malls, which are being challenged in European cities. With their vitality endangered, many become dead malls, a phenomenon that has increased over recent years. With this in mind, the objective of this study is to explain the factors behind the proliferation of dead malls through an empirical analysis of the evolution of shopping malls in Greater Lisbon, Portugal. We combine three sets of retail change theories (cyclic, conflict and environmental) with current perspectives on the resilience of urban retail. We expect that our study will contribute toward current debates on the resilience of shopping malls. The methodology of our study comprises two stages. First, we updated the Greater Lisbon shopping mall database and analysed the growth and decline of each shopping mall type over the last 44 years. In a second phase, we conducted a fieldwork survey on 150 shopping malls, which allowed us to identify and profile the dead malls of Greater Lisbon. Our results show that dead malls match declining shopping mall types, and we discuss four factors affecting the resilience of shopping malls.     

基于零售业态集聚的Shopping Mall发展影响因素分析

研究零售业态集聚概念,对Shopping Mall的概念进行重构,揭示Shopping Mall是业态种类较多、空间分布紧促、且附带诸多服务功能的零售业态集聚的本质;构建Shopping Mall发展的影响因素模型,分析经济发展水平,区位选择、交通状况,服务设施与零售业态集聚的匹配、不同零售业态之间的耦合分别作为触发因素、环境因素、调节因素对Shopping Mall发展的影响。     

Trauma's effects on shopper choice confusion: The role of psychological hardiness and retailer strategies as mitigating factors

Retailers must understand how trauma influences the consumer shopping journey and identify ways to mitigate any potential adverse effects. Two studies were conducted to explore trauma in the retail environment. First, a conceptual model was tested using structural equation modeling (SEM) based on survey data collected from 324 participants. Findings indicate that consumers who report previously experiencing traumatic events feel anxiety while shopping in retail environments, negatively influencing their ability to make purchase decisions. This outcome is due to challenges in adequately assessing stressful environmental stimuli and developing positive coping mechanisms. Consumer propensity for psychological hardiness was found to moderate this relationship. Next, a follow-up qualitative study from 110 consumers who reported experiencing instances of trauma identified potential ways for retailers to help consumers who have experienced trauma feel more comfortable in shopping environments. These findings extend research on trauma and consumer shopping behavior by identifying its impacts on choice confusion and stress appraisal and suggesting how retailers can support shoppers through a trauma-informed approach.     

Multichannel Shopping Through Nontraditional Retail Formats: Variety-Seeking Behavior With Hedonic and Utilitarian Motivations

Understanding motivations of multichannel shoppers is critical for retailers, especially in terms of how retailers can best attract shoppers to and orient shoppers across different channel options. Our study thus seeks to understand multichannel shopping through nontraditional retail formats by studying the effects of shoppers' hedonic and utilitarian motives. We used the theory of variety-seeking behavior for conceptualization, and analyzed data from a large-scale U.S. consumer survey. Our findings suggest that both hedonic and utilitarian factors are important predictors of multichannel shopping. Hedonic motivations have more explanatory power for high-level multichannel shopping than for moderate-level multichannel shopping, as compared to non-multichannel shopping.     

shopper taxonomy for retail strategy development

Segmentation of shoppers has been explored by many academic researchers and business practitioners seeking to understand shopping behaviour or to develop marketing strategies for particular customer groups. Market segmentation holds the key to successful marketing strategy as it encourages understanding of the key variables that differentiate specific segments.

The shopper taxonomy determined through this study is based on a set of variables that is relevant and appropriate for shopper segmentation and reflects the key aspects important to shoppers in motivating shopping behaviour towards a specific retail location. This taxonomy extends the proposed motivational taxonomy of Westbrook and Black (1985), derived from Tauber's (1972) earlier research. Westbrook and Black defined this taxonomy through shopping motives, and identified categories of product-oriented, experiential and a combination of product and experiential shoppers. Their research findings, however, pointed to a six-cluster typology, defining department stone shopping around seven motivations aligned with evaluating options and acquiring the products, engaging in the sales process and gaining stimulation and affiliation through the retail environment.

The “apathetic”, “shopping-processed involved” and “choice optimisation” shopper segments described by Westbrook and Black align with the “have to” “experiential” and “practical” “segments found in this study in terms of their focus on the shopping activity itself and the affiliation and stimulation motives associated with the shopping activity. Other associations between shopper segments across the two studies are less clear, and may be explained through the differing purposes for which the studies were undertaken and resulting variation in the measures used to define the motivational constructs.     

Evaluating the potential of agent-based modelling to capture consumer grocery retail store choice behaviours

Evolving consumer behaviours with regards to store and channel choice, shopping frequency, shopping mission and spending heighten the need for robust spatial modelling tools for use within retail analytics. In this paper, we report on collaboration with a major UK grocery retailer to assess the feasibility of modelling consumer store choice behaviours at the level of the individual consumer. We benefit from very rare access to our collaborating retailers’ customer data which we use to develop a proof-of-concept agent-based model (ABM). Utilising our collaborating retailers’ loyalty card database, we extract key consumer behaviours in relation to shopping frequency, mission, store choice and spending. We build these observed behaviours into our ABM, based on a simplified urban environment, calibrated and validated against observed consumer data. Our ABM is able to capture key spatiotemporal drivers of consumer store choice behaviour at the individual level. Our findings could afford new opportunities for spatial modelling within the retail sector, enabling the complexity of consumer behaviours to be captured and simulated within a novel modelling framework. We reflect on further model development required for use in a commercial context for location-based decision-making.     

An empirical examination of perceived retail crowding,emotions, and retail outcomes

Crowded retail shopping conditions can result from many shoppers being present during a given time and at a given place, as well as from limited customer space owing to inadequate floor layout design and allocation of fixtures and merchandise on the floor. This study investigated the effects of the perception of human crowding and spatial crowding on consumer shopping behavior through mediation of emotions of pleasure, arousal, dominance, and a feeling of satisfaction in an international market. A store intercept survey was conducted on 554 hypermarket consumers in Taipei, Taiwan. The proposed structural relationships among perceived retail crowding, emotions, and retail outcomes were analyzed by using confirmatory factor analysis and structural equation modeling with Lisrel 8.54.

The results of the study demonstrated the effectiveness of the proposed model in delineating the relationships of retail crowding-emotions-satisfaction-retail outcomes under actual retail environments. The study found that while human crowding perceived during shopping at a hypermarket store positively impacted shoppers' feelings rather than negatively, spatial crowding perceived due to high spatial density negatively impacted shoppers' positive emotions. The findings supported the view that retail crowding affected various shopping activities through influencing positive emotions and summary feelings of satisfaction. Managerial implications of the study were also discussed.     

Factors affecting donations in U.S. retail stores: A conceptual framework

The purpose of this study is to identify the factors that influence consumer donations in U.S. retail stores. The study provides a conceptual framework of factors derived from the cause-related marketing, consumer behavior and psychology literatures. These factors are categorized as consumer-related factors, retailer-related factors and context-related factors. Consumer-related factors include consumer-retailer identification, consumer-cause affinity, impure altruism, civic engagement and post-purchase cognitive dissonance. Retailer-related factors consist of retailer-cause fit, retailer's commitment to the cause, retailer image as being altruistic, and retailer credibility. Context-related factors include time pressure, social pressure, shopping amount, and perceived savings during the shopping trip. This conceptual framework serves as a foundation for future empirical studies.     

The modernization of fresh food retailing in China: The role of consumers

Since 2002, the Chinese government has initiated the “Wet Market Transforming into Food Supermarket (WMTFS)” program that aims to transform the traditional fresh food retailing system into a more efficient system that adopts a supermarket operation mode. However, after years of effort, the process of implementing the WMTFS program has been painfully slow. In addition to several supply side factors, this paper focuses on the consumer demand side using survey data in three large Chinese cities to identify the factors affecting consumers' decisions to buy fresh food from traditional vs modern retail formats. It further explores regional differences in consumers' shopping behavior. We find that freshness, accessibility, and whether buyers can bargain are influencing factors and the effects of socioeconomic factors such as income and storage facility are very limited. In addition, we find regional difference exists in consumers' retail format preferences. We suggested that managers of fresh food supermarket should enhance product freshness and safety in the future. Meanwhile, since traditional retail formats are still preferred by many consumers, the policy-makers should give a further thinking on the specific way of transformation.     

Drivers of agglomeration effects in retailing: The shopping mall tenant's perspective

Abstract

Retail and service enterprises seek benefits and synergies from locating their stores within retail agglomerations, such as shopping streets and malls. The aim of this paper is to identify the main drivers of such synergetic or ‘agglomeration effects’ for tenants. A literature review reveals four sets of drivers that are related to the location, the tenant mix, the marketing, and the management of an agglomeration. Based on a survey of 217 managers representing stores that are located in five regional and four supra-regional shopping malls, we demonstrate that location-related drivers including geographical location, accessibility, and parking conditions have a the highest impact on agglomeration effects in terms of the economic success of tenants. The results were consistent amongst different types of tenants differentiated by store size, customer footfall, industry affiliation, and perceived role within the respective mall (as footfall taker or generator within the network).     

Urban place marketing and retail agglomeration customers

Abstract

Through identifying the attributes of a place that have an influence on the patronage behaviour of urban retail customers, this paper presents a conceptual model that proposes direct and indirect antecedents regarding the different retail-related dimensions associated with urban place attractiveness. An empirical study was conducted whereby the model was tested by surveying approximately 500 actual customers at the time they visited a particular town centre for the purposes of shopping. The results showed that the retail tenant mix, the merchandise value, and the atmosphere had a direct impact, and the product range and the sales personnel an indirect impact upon the evaluation of attractiveness. Furthermore, a number of additional effects towards these antecedents were identified with respect to parking conditions, the non-retail tenant mix, manoeuvrability, and orientation. This revealed that retailing activities were a major driver of attractiveness for an urban place. The practical implication of these findings suggests that place marketing activities should be proactive in supporting and enabling retailers in fulfilling their roles.     

Exploring the choice between in-store versus online grocery shopping through an application of Semi-Compensatory Independent Availability Logit (SCIAL) model with latent variables

This paper examines individuals' choice of in-store and online grocery shopping channels using stated preference (SP) choice experiments. The study uses 1,391 records from a stated preference choice experiment in the Greater Toronto Area (GTA), Canada. It applies a Semi-Compensatory Independent Availability Logit (SCIAL) Model with latent variables. The methodology accounts for semi-compensatory choice behaviour through probabilistic choice set formation considering effects from socioeconomic and psychological variables. This study demonstrates the advantage of considering probabilistic choice set formation and semi-compensatory behaviour in modelling the adoption of innovative products. Empirical results reveal that shoppers demonstrated similar myopic behaviours once they firmly considered in-store grocery and subscribed free delivery services in their choice sets. They are equally likely to choose both channels without careful comparison to alternative channels once they firmly consider both channels in the choice set. However, considering the latter in choice sets is much costlier than in-store shopping. Therefore, in-store grocery shopping will still dominate the grocery shopping channel unless all home delivery services become free. Moreover, grocery shoppers value same-day delivery service. For typical delivery services charged between $4 and $20 in the GTA, Canada, grocery shoppers are willing to pay between $3.91 and $8.44 for same-day delivery. The latent variable describing shoppers’ perceived pandemic fear significantly contributes to the choice set inclusion probability of in-store grocery pick-up services, but the effect is not significant for other home delivery channels. This highlights heterogeneity in grocery shoppers' choice behaviour within the online channel.     

Brand presentation order in voice shopping: Understanding the effects of sequential product presentation

Nearly half of US households own a smart speaker with voice shopping functionality. Voice shopping product presentation is inherently sequential due to the audio delivery of information, which may give retailers the opportunity to influence customer decisions through the order in which brands are presented. This research examines the effect of brand order presentation in voice shopping and its impact on high-equity versus low-equity brands. Moreover, this research considers the moderating effect of product presentation format (simultaneous vs. sequential, audio vs. visual) on the impact of brand presentation order. The results of six experiments with more than 1,000 participants provide evidence that consumers attempt to balance competing concerns about risk in voice shopping with search costs because products are presented sequentially and information is reduced. If high-equity brands are presented first, the choice distribution in voice shopping is unimodal, with a peak at the first-presented products. However, a bimodal choice distribution results if low-equity brands are presented first. Importantly, choice distribution in voice shopping differs markedly from choice distribution when products are presented simultaneously and visually, as in online shopping.