How loyal are the Indian Shoppers towards their malls?

“Once shoppers get what they value the most, they are expected to be more loyal to the shopping mall.”

It was often debated whether Indian loyal shoppers look for hedonic or utilitarian benefits during their visit to a shopping mall. Since shopping malls are relatively new to the Indian markets, shoppers are expected to show initial euphoria due to the novelty value of the entity.

In contrast with the traditional retail stores, shopping malls offer superior aesthetics, ambience, and marketing orientation.

This implies that shoppers look beyond the basic chore of shopping and experience while shopping plays a vital role. To attract the attention of shoppers, mall developers make huge investments in mall promotion and ambient factors in order to enhance the shopping experience.

As the Indian shoppers’ euphoria about shopping malls gets toned down with time, mall managers need to focus on something more substantive. 

Such fundamental benefits can be offered to shoppers only if mall managers know what is more relevant for the shoppers visiting the malls. 

Past studies have identified a number of factors such as—

• Ambience,

• Physical infrastructure,

• Convenience,

• Safety, and

• Marketing activities.

High-risks involved—

Shopping malls involve high capital investment that is recovered over a very long time period. At the same time, consumer preferences too evolve over a period of time. Besides high initial investment, shopping malls have a high operating cost to keep the infrastructure and facilities in good shape. Over time, the operating cost (maintenance cost) increases steadily because physical infrastructure and facilities deteriorate exponentially with time. The manpower costs also rise.

This study establishes that Indian mall shoppers predominantly look for convenience.

This strongly indicates that Indian mall shoppers are more utilitarian than hedonic. Results of this study, however, should be examined in its proper context.

—Excerpt taken from  Predicting Indian Shoppers’ Malls Loyalty Behaviour, Vikalpa: The Journal for Decision Makers.

Click here to read the full article.

You may also like:

→                        Three-Factor Model of Employee Passion

→                        To Work or Not to Work

→                        Exploring Victims’ Experiences of Workplace Bullying