Deciding where to buy: store choice behaviour of Indian shoppers

Abstract

Store choice is a decision that a shopper is fairly involved in. It is important for a store to understand this behaviour for developing marketing strategies to attract and keep its clientele. It is found that shoppers choose the store based on many aspects that could be classified as primary and image based. It is also found that the importance of each of these aspects changes with the kind of store the shopper wants to visit. In the Indian context where the shopper does not have much variety in store format, the type of store is recognized by the kind of product the store deals in. The paper is an attempt to understand this behaviour of the shopper. The shoppers are explored for the primary reasons for choosing a store. Then, using a factor analysis, the several image dimensions are classified. Further, using multinomial logit regression, the store choice pattern is studied across different types of store. Implications for the managers in the retail business are drawn and future research directions have been highlighted.