Multi-purpose shoppers and their preferences between different retail formats

Abstract

As retail malls ultimately serve consumers, it is imperative to understand the effect of consumers’ shopping behaviours on the success of these malls. Unsurprisingly, many studies have been done on consumers’ shopping behaviours, underscoring the importance of it. However, there has been no study done on types of multi-purpose shopping behaviour in Singapore and its impact on retail format. This dissertation hence aims to fill in this gap through discovering the relationship between the types of multi-purpose shopping behaviour and the choice of retail formats. As motivations for patronising a mall in town may differ in different regions, the study would be carried out in three distinct regions – Core Central Region (CCR), Rest of Central Region (RCR) and Outside of Central Region (OCR) – to obtain a fair representation of the population. Interesting trends were observed for some behavioural factors such as purposes and durations of shopping trips as well as demographic variables like age and gender. However, only purposes of shopping trips and gender have significant impact in influencing preference between the two different retail formats. Recreational, variety and atmosphere seeking shoppers favoured clustered malls as opposed to economic shoppers, whereas convenience shoppers were indifferent towards retail format. Females also tend to patronise clustered malls more than their male counterparts.