Redefining Retail Store Formats - A South African Study

Abstract

The global competitive retail space is challenging and the retailers are experimenting with different strategies to gain competitive advantage in the market. Retailers are developing and designing new and improved store formats to mirror the customers’ expectations by using distinctive benefits. Thus attracting and retaining customers by creating store brand loyalty is every retailer’s dream and they are spending a huge amount of time and money in developing these uniquely attractive retail store formats. However, limited academic research is available to help retailers understand the most profitable and popular retail store format in South Africa.

This empirical research paper is an attempt to investigate the influence of the design, type and size of the retail store on the customer buying behaviour in the consumer durables market by examining a random sample of respondents from Gauteng, South Africa. The research findings, indicates that there is a varying degree of effect of retail store formats on the customer buying behaviour. Most of the variables have a positive correlation with other variables of customer behaviour. However in some cases, variables have significant inverse relationship with each other.