GENDER AND SHOPPING BEHAVIOR OUTCOMES IN THE CONTEXT OF SHOPPING CENTERS

Understanding consumer behavior can be divided into three parts: before visiting the stores or shopping centers, during the visit, and after. From the point of view of the final result intended by retailers, satisfying customers in terms of profitability, all three components are equally important. A relevant segmentation criterion for most products and stores is gender. Previous research suggests that gender influences shopping motivations, the way people shop and shopping behavior outcomes. The purpose of this article is to investigate if there are, indeed, differences between shopping behavior outputs of women and men (affective loyalty (satisfaction) and conative loyalty), as found by certain researchers, and also in terms of the factors that influence the formation of conative loyalty. The results confirm that there are few significant differences in the satisfaction level, although for women all values are slightly higher, and none in the repurchase and recommendation intentions between the two genders. Conative loyalty formation (defined as intent to repurchase and recommend) takes place differently between the two genders

STUDY ON RETAIL BRAND AWARENESS IN RETAIL

Brand awareness, together with other behavioural indicators (sympathy, trust, image, satisfaction or loyalty), is one of the main vectors that has an essential contribution to the outline of brand equity in general and to that of retail brand, in particular. The perception upon these indicators must be taken into consideration by production, service or retail companies in order to be able to identify their position on target markets, and in order to be able to create an adequate strategy that would help them reach the desired positioning. The aim of this paper is, on one hand, to reveal both the dimensions of brand awareness, and the relationship between these and consumers' brand perception and, on the other hand, to offer a suitable instrument to measure awareness level of various retail chains. Questioning of almost 4.000 consumers indicates a significant awareness of the retailers that have been on the selected market for a longer period of time.awareness, recall, recognition, retail brands

DOES GENDER REALLY AFFECT SHOPPING PATTERNS?

Movies, jokes, books and folklore are full of stereotypes on the differences between men and women. Of these, one of the most known and accepted, even in academic literature, is related to differences in shopping behavior of men and women. Women are “renowned” for indulging themselves in shopping as a form of therapy, of relaxation and pastime. Departing from this largely accepted dogma, that women love shopping, and that they spend more time and money on both products and services, a generalization on differences on all aspects of shopping may be inferred. But are they really that different from men with respect to shopping habits? The aim of the present study is to question whether these assumptions about the differences between women and men shopping behavior are indeed true. The results indicate differences in shopping orientations, but no statistically significant differences regarding the amount of money and time spent shopping and similarities on all the other facets of shopping included in the study - formats preferred, days of the week spent shopping, distance traveled to the stores, accompanying parties when shopping, impulse shopping behavior

INFLUENCE FACTORS FOR STORE FORMAT CHOICE IN THE APPAREL AND FOOTWEAR MARKET

The choice of retail formats has been a highly debated topic in international academic literature for a long time. In Romania, this topic has been hardly approached. This study investigates the buying habits of apparel and footwear, as well as the factors related to the purchase decision from a particular store format. Factors considered are both socio-demographic (education, occupation, net income per family member, size of discretionary income, household (family) size, number of cars owned and shopping motivation. A quantitative research has been conducted using a sample of 642 urban buyers, in the second largest city in Romania. The results indicate that factors showing correlation with the frequency of purchases vary by the retail format

STUDY ON RETAIL BRAND AWARENESS IN RETAIL

Brand awareness, together with other behavioural indicators (sympathy, trust, image, satisfaction or loyalty), is one of the main vectors that has an essential contribution to the outline of brand equity in general and to that of retail brand, in particular. The perception upon these indicators must be taken into consideration by production, service or retail companies in order to be able to identify their position on target markets, and in order to be able to create an adequate strategy that would help them reach the desired positioning. The aim of this paper is, on one hand, to reveal both the dimensions of brand awareness, and the relationship between these and consumers brand perception and, on the other hand, to offer a suitable instrument to measure awareness level of various retail chains. Questioning of almost 4.000 consumers indicates a significant awareness of the retailers that have been on the selected market for a longer period of time

The relationship among image, satisfaction and loyalty – innovative factor of competitiveness for shopping centers

Currently, most markets are characterized by high competition among shopping centers. Under these circumstances, the evolution in the competitiveness and performance of the centers is increasingly linked to the success in the innovation of current activities, which is aimed at improving their image and increasing customer satisfaction and loyalty. The purpose of the present research is to study the influence of innovation activities through the image components on behavioural loyalty, mediated by satisfaction (affective loyalty) and conative loyalty. The authors aim to investigate, using a questionnaire survey among the customers of Cluj-Napoca shopping centers, the relationship among the components of image and satisfaction and the various types of loyalty. The conclusions of the structural equations modelling reveal that most components of the image (assortment, price, loyalty policy, décor, service and communication) directly and positively influence satisfaction, and that satisfaction and conative loyalty mediate the relationship between image and behavioural loyalty. The results reveal important managerial implications from the point of view of innovative actions of shopping centers, which can contribute to attracting and keeping customers, these contributing not only to creating loyal patrons, but also to increasing their competitiveness and to achieving better positioning