A STUDY OF THE IRRITATING ASPECTS OF THE SHOPPING ENVIRONMENT

Abstract

The widespread presence of shopping centres that provide similar product offerings has created intense competition among these centres. Furthermore, the conveniences offered by stores that provide an online presence may cause these centres to be at risk of being "phased out". Shoppers have become increasingly difficult to satisfy. Therefore, shopping centres have to develop strategies to differentiate themselves and to continually attract shoppers through creation of a one-of-a-kind shopping atmosphere. Numerous studies have investigated the "favourable" factors that result in pleasant shopping experience. Few have examined the "unfavourable" factors which may highlight the factors that cause high degrees of irritation. This is because negative experiences are more easily recalled and the elimination of these factor(s) will indirectly lead to high levels of shoppers' satisfaction. This study aims to (1) Identify the shopping irritants that cause customers' dissatisfaction (2) Assess the degree of irritation the factors have on buyers (3) Suggest possible measures to overcome these sources of irritation and create a pleasant shopping environment that evoke positive emotions. The analysis offers important findings. First, sales and trade factors was found to be the most irritating followed by design, ambient and external factors. Second, the ANOVA analysis reveal that there is no significant difference between males and females in terms of their level of irritation. However, this was not the same when the respondents were categorized based on age. The ANOVA analysis revealed that significant differences exist between the "old" and "young" with the "old" indicating signs of higher irritability levels.