Modelling elderly clothing shopping behaviour in suburban shopping malls

Abstract

Amid the proliferation of suburban malls and the fast aging population in Singapore, this study serves as a timely evaluation of the performance of suburban malls in the area of elderly provisions. While town and regional shopping malls are found to have performed up to expectations, there remains much to be improved for neighbourhood malls. Nonetheless, neighbourhood malls are still found to be very relevant especially to those elderly who value convenience above other mall and product attributes when choosing their destination for clothing shopping. The study also highlights the existence of a diverse group of elderly each with their own retailing expectations and this holds important implications to retailers wanting to ride the boom of the “silver” industry. Lastly, on a macro level, the study revealed short-comings in the local retail industry in the area of providing special shopping privilege for the elderly which may also be seen as window of opportunities for retailers to capitalize on.