MEGA-MALLS IN SINGAPORE: A CHOICE ANALYSIS

Abstract

In view of the challenges of global competition, rapidly changing technology, new consumers' needs and shifting demographics, the survival of businesses regardless of their scale essentially entail the development of strategic marketing skills. Thus, shopping behaviour is more important than ever in today's consumer focused world. The retailing literature shows that very few studies have been done on large-scale developments, such as mega-mall. Most of the shopping literature are predominantly concerned with the investigation of shoppers' destination choice pertaining to retail outlets/ stores such as retail store, regional mall, shopping centre or shopping mall, etc. In light of the above phenomenon, this research attempts to investigate shoppers' image structure and choice of mega-mall in Singapore. The analysis of the shoppers' image structure, found that shoppers' perception of megamall is dominated by the mega-mall attributes. In addition, the mall-related characteristics are significant in shoppers' choice of mega-mall. Apart from the conventional attributes, 'Entertainment' emerges as a distinctive factor in shoppers' image structure of mega-mall. Therefore, it is critical that the relevant factors are accounted for in mega-mall research.