UNDERSTANDING THE CONSUMER BEHAVIOR TOWARDS SHOPPING MALLS: A STUDY OF GORAKHPUR CITY

H.L. BHASKAR

Mohammad Osama Research Scholar, Dept. of Business Administration, D.D.U. Gorakhpur University Gorakhpur, India

Presentation at International Conference, Banaras Hindu University, India, Dec. 4, 2012

INTRODUCTION

Consumer behavior is the study of individuals, groups and the processes they use to select, secure, and dispose of products, services, experiences, or ideas to satisfy needs and the impacts that these processes have on the consumer and society. A field of study that focuses on consumer activities. Activities people undertake when obtaining, consuming, and disposing of products and services. Scope goes beyond just why and how people buy to include consumption analysis.
2

Consumer influences

Organizational influences

Obtaining

Consuming
Consumer behavior

Disposing

Consumer influences Culture Ethnicity Personality Family Life-stage Values Income Available resources Attitudes Opinions Feelings Motivations Past experiences Peer groups Knowledge

Organizational influences Brand Product features Advertising Word of mouth Promotions Retail displays Price Quality Service Store ambiance Convenience Loyalty programs Packaging Product availability
4

Why Study Consumer Behavior?

Consumer Behavior Determines the Economic Health of a Nation. Consumer behavior determines the success of marketing programs
Marketing can be used to influence brand choice and purchase, while de-marketing can influence people to stop harmful consumption. The Customer is King: Organization influenced by consumer needs and wants

Consumer behavior everyones economic health:

determines

The individuals decisions as a consumer determine their economic health by making more effective consumption decisions while avoiding deceptive practices harmful to them

Public policy leaders and social commentators study consumer behavior to alleviate over-consumption and underconsumption by educating consumers about problems and providing assistance
7

Objective of this study

The main objective of this study is to investigate the consumers behavior towards shopping malls of Gorakhpur city. This study also attempts to explore the Different variables of the consumers involvement like buying behavior of the consumers in malls, ability to spent money in the malls in comparison to Common marketplace.

RESEARCH METHODOLOGY
We had selected three shopping malls randomly, which
are situated in Gorakhpur city namely, City Mall (situated at park road), Big Bazar (Golghar), and V-Mart (Bank

road).
A total of 120 respondents were selected on the basis of Simple Random Sampling Technique at these malls. A questionnaire was employed in order to measure the responses of the consumers towards the selected dimensions. The questionnaire divided into four parts. Part 1 employed questions to measure necessary and relevant demographic details of the respondents.
9

Part 2 of the questionnaire used questions to

capture

the

shopping

behavior

of

the

respondents. This part employed a total of 27 questions to provide to the seven selected dimensions for the purpose of the study.

Each question was measured using a five point

Likert scale, which ranged 1 to 5, where 1 resembled the response as strongly disagree while 5 resembled strongly agree.
10

ANALYSIS AND FINDINGS

Total 120 questionnaires were distributed for the purpose of the study. The frequency and percentage of the respondents were constructed depicting the complete demographic characteristics of the sample & shopping behavior of the respondents; as shown in Table I (1, 2, 3, 4, 5) & Table II (1, 2, 3).
Table I. Demographic profile of the respondents

Frequency 1. Gender

Percentage

Male Female Total

50 70 120

41.67 58.33 100

11

2. Age 16-21 22-25 26-30 31-35 36 and above Total 3. Academic Qualification Undergraduate Graduate Post-Graduate Doctorate Total 4. Marital status Married Unmarried Total 48 72 120

15 40 30 20 15 120 28 61 30 1 120
40.00 60.00 100

12.50 33.33 25.00 16.67 12.50 100.00 23.33 50.83 25.00 .84 100

12

5. Occupation 1. Student 40 2. Business/ self employed 30 3. Service 42 33.33 25.00 35.00

4. Others Total

08 120

6.67 100

Table II. Shopping behavior of the respondents.

Frequency Percentage 1. Average Time spent for shopping (in Hours) 0.5- 1 1.5- 2 2.5- 3 3.5- 4 above 4 Total 12 35 28 23 22 120 10.00 29.16 23.33 19.16 18.33 100 13

2. Frequency of Visit Daily Once in every 7 days Once in every 14 days Once in every 30 days Once in 45 days Total 3. Monthly spending in the mall Less than 5 % 6-10 % 11-15 % 16-20 % More than 20 % Total

11 46 35 21 7 120

9.17 38.33 29.17 17.50 5.83 100

20 35 22 21 22 120

16.67 29.16 18.33 17.51 18.33 100

14

 We found that there were 41.67 % of male respondents and 58.33% of female respondents in the sample. The largest set of respondents was found to be of the age group 22-25 years (33.33%). Age groups of 26-30 years were 25% and 16-21 years were 12.50 %) respectively. Unmarried and single respondents were found 60 % and married respondents were about 40% of the total sample. With respect to the educational level, Undergraduate were 23.33%, graduates 50.83%, Post-Graduate 25% and Doctorate were .84%. Occupation of the respondents were service professionals 33.33%, students, 25% self-employed &

others (for example, Retired, Housewives) were 6.67%

15

Table 2. Indicates the shopping behavior of the respondents. Majority of the respondents (29.16 %) spend about one and a half hours to two hours for shopping purpose while 23.33% of respondents spend two and a half hours to three hours for shopping purpose. More than 4 hours were for 18.33%,while 10% were spend half an hour to one hour for shopping. In terms of number of times visiting the shopping mall, the result indicates that only 9.17 % of respondents visited the malls on a daily basis whereas about 38.33 % of respondents visited the malls at least once in a week 17.50 % of respondents were found to be visiting the malls at least once in a month whereas only a handful of respondents (5.83 %) were observed to visit the malls 16 once in 45 days or higher.

With regards to the percentage of monthly income spent in the malls, 29.16% of respondents spend about 6-10 % of their monthly income for shopping in the malls. 18.33 % of respondents spent 11-15%, 17.51 % of

respondents were found to spend 16-20 %, and

remaining 16.67 % of respondents spend less than 5% of their monthly expenditure in the shopping malls.

17

CONCLUSION
As we have already discussed, there are a number of reasons (dimensions like aesthetics, Convenience, flow etc) why consumers shop or visit malls. The response of each respondent was measured and compared among the various age groups. The more respondents agree to the various items of the selected dimensions. Most of the respondents accept the fact that they did not shop/visit malls just to flee from boredom, stress, bad traffic or loneliness. The results open that Gorakhpur customers prefer to visit malls mainly because of the energetic and attractive interior design of the mall. mall is a place where they get everything; good place to spend time with friends. 18

In the result we found that common belief for different age group was different for shopping at malls. The result from the given table shows that younger respondents visit the malls for the main purpose of disturbance from boredom, stress, bad weather, bad traffic and loneliness while this wasnt true with the case of older respondents. Younger respondents gave higher preferences to the two items in the searching dimensions namely discovering and examining new products. Younger respondents said that I enjoy visiting the mall with my friends.

Younger respondents agreed more to this than the older respondents. This result indicates that younger respondents prefer to visit the mall as means of socialization and to spend time with their friends.

19

LIMITATIONS
Time and Resource was limited to select a sampling frame for the purpose of the current research.

The use of simple random sampling method created a sense of biasness while selecting the respondents.
Only three malls were available at the time of study when undertaken, demographic profile of the customers may not be broader.

20

REFERENCES
Anselmsson, Johan (2006). Sources of customer satisfaction with shopping malls: A comparative study of different customers segments, The International Review of Retail, Distribution and Consumer Research, Vol. 16, Issue 1, p115. Alter, Shannon (2003), Its a Mall World, Journal of Property Management, Vol. 68, Issue 1, January-February, p 31. Bellenger, D.N., D.H. Robertson, and B.A. Greenberg (1977), Shopping center patronage motives, Journal of Retailing, Vol 53, Issue 2, p 29. Bloch, P.H., Ridgway, N.M. and Dawson, S.A. (1994), The consumer mall as shopping habitat, Journal of Retailing, pp. 23-42. Feinberg, Richard A, Meoli and Jennifer (1991), A Brief History of the Mall, Advances in Consumer Research, Vol. 18, Issue 1, p 426. Groeppel Klein, Andrea, Germelmann and Claas Christian (2003), Minding the Mall: Do We Remember What We See? , Advances in Consumer Research, Vol. 30, Issue 1, p 56. Loudon, D.L. and Bitta, A.J.D. (1993), Consumer Behavior: Concepts and Applications, 4th ed., McGraw-Hill, New York, NY. Rajagopal (2009), Growing shopping Malls and Urban Shoppers, Journal of Retail & Leisure Property, Vol. 8, Issue 2,May, p 99.

21

22