THE DEMAND FOR WEEKDAY LATE NIGHT SHOPPING IN ORCHARD ROAD SHOPPING BELT

Abstract

Technology has made globalization possible and this has affected consumers’ lifestyle and their perception towards time and consumption. The implementation of late night shopping initiative every Saturday along Singapore’s prime shopping belt may not be enough to meet the increasing consumer demand for more retail time given current shops closing at about 930pm during the weekdays. Using a quantitative research method focusing mainly on the consumer’s perspective, this paper investigates the demand of late night shopping in Singapore Orchard road shopping malls (ORSM) during normal weekdays. A questionnaire survey was conducted on 300 shoppers to examine whether their profile as determined by internal variables, have any significant relationship on the external shopping variables on late night retailing. The findings indicate that there is a significant high demand for weekday late night shopping, particularly with shoppers who are “married without children”, “temporary citizens in Singapore”, “middle income” or motivated by “social externalities” and “institutional time constraints” when doing shopping. Using factor analysis to categorize the external variables into four main factors, namely “Controllable factors”, “Convenient”, “Shopping experience”, “Mixed services” and “Uncontrollable factors”, the study also suggests that shoppers with different profiles hold different perception towards these external shopping variables on late night shopping in ORSM.These findings will aid retail industry players in maximizing the usage of retail real estate III space and provide better insights on transferring general marketing and promotion strategies into the night time retail industry in Singapore.Keywords: Late night shopping, consumer perception, internal variables, external variables.