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This paper aims to study how retailers moving from a multi- (in-store and online) to a single- (online) channel impacts consumers’ retailer and channel choices.

The authors conduct two scenario-based experimental studies to examine consumers’ in-store and online channel shopping preferences and behavioural intentions (i.e. channel and retailer choices) when their preferred focal retailer’s physical store closes.

The findings show that when a focal retailer removes its physical store location, consumers with a strong preference for shopping online have a greater likelihood of shopping online. Their loyalty towards the retailer explains this relationship but is conditional on low levels of reactance. When reactance is high, consumers with a strong preference for shopping online are more likely to switch to a competitor.

This research paper bridges the intersection between B2B and B2C literature to understand how retailers’ channel-related supply chain decisions affect downstream consumer shopping behaviour.

Consumer perceptions of retail store attributes for a set of particular stores were examined to determine their effect on store preference. Respondents rated 13 stores. Four variables were found to affect store preference using forward stepwise logistic regression: type of clothing desired in stock, outside store appearance, shopping hours, and advertising. Significance of the effect of store attributes on store preference varied by store type. In addition, associations between customer perception of store attributes, education and age were observed. Implications for researchers and practitioners are discussed.

Conjoint analysis has become an increasingly popular approach to estimate the benefits derived from the attributes of a product. This decompositional method provides information about the structure of consumers' preferences, as obtained from the overall judgement of a set of alternative products defined as a combination of levels of different attributes. A two‐Limit Tobit Model approach for conjoint analysis has been used to examine and compare wine attribute preferences within and between different retail outlets (wine shops, direct‐from‐producer and supermarkets) in two Spanish regions: Aragon and Navarre. Three attributes have been used in the conjoint design: price, origin and vintage year. Among these attributes, price is the principal aspect for consumers who buy in wine shops, origin is the most important attribute for supermarket buyers and grape vintage has more utility for buyers who obtain wine directly from the producer. Finally, three wine consumer segments have been identified and characterised in the two regions.

Most research related to consumer choice of retailers emphasizes retailer attributes and/or consumer characteristics. Since many retail formats, including online retailing, have emerged in recent years, knowledge of how consumers select retail formats must be updated. A source of influence that has been examined to a very limited extent for store retailers but not for emerging retail formats is situational influence. From a modern interactionism perspective, this study investigates the influence of situational as well as consumer and retailer factors on preference for online, catalog, and store formats. Key results show that situational factors have significant influence on online and catalog format selection and perceptions of attributes that are crucial to that selection.

The purpose of this paper is to develop and begin to validate a scale to assess the shopping environment preferences of Hispanic consumers in the USA.

The sample consists of 160 Hispanic consumers attending a Hispanic festival in the southeast USA. A questionnaire contained items to measure shopping environment preferences and scales to measure materialism, hedonic shopping motivations, and perceived discrimination.

The findings suggest a second-order model where three factors (familiarity, price, and experience) load onto a single second-order construct of shopping environment preferences. The result is a scale consisting of three factors permitting the exploration of the retail environmental preferences of Hispanic consumers in the USA.

The study develops a scale that can be applied by US retailers to gain additional knowledge of their Hispanic consumers, thus enabling strategies to be developed that potentially enhance their engagement in retail environments.

Given the size of this segment and its increasing impact on the retail market, surprisingly, Hispanic consumers in the USA have received relatively little research attention.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the factors affecting store image and customers’ choice of hypermarkets in Oman and compares two big hypermarkets in Sohar– the prominent industrial city of Oman.

A detailed review of literature was conducted initially to identify the attributes affecting store image and choice of hypermarkets in Oman and a questionnaire was developed later using the key attributes, vetted by a panel of professionals and consumers. Data were collected using convenience sampling from the targeted customers with due care to reduce possible biases. Exploratory factor analysis (EFA), using SPSS, was then performed to arrive at the key factors affecting store image and choice of hypermarkets in Oman. Two most popular and leading hypermarkets of Sohar – Lulu and Al Safeer were selected to study consumers’ preferences for store choice and comparisons. The Mann-Whitney U-test in association with the Wilcoxon W-test was applied, using Minitab, for further comparison of the two hypermarkets.

Retailing industry in Oman is changing. The focus of consumers is shifting from traditional markets to modern retail formats. The presence of hypermarkets has attracted customers away from traditional souqs. Customers are attracted to hypermarkets for various reasons, including the local and socio-cultural ones. The factor analysis produced four components, namely, “purchase experience”, “visit experience”, “augmented experience”, and “repeat-purchase experience” affecting customers’ choice of hypermarkets and store image in Oman. A comparative analysis of two leading hypermarkets revealed that Lulu hypermarket acquired, overall, a better store image over Al Safeer on all the components. Purchase experience and visit experience, in Omani hypermarkets, were forerunners in satisfying customers than the augmented and repeat-purchase experience.

The study contributes to the narrow base of extant literature on consumer preferences of hypermarkets and their choice of related retail formats in the Islamic world. Although the use of EFA has been quite informative in revealing the findings, the limitation mainly arises due to the lack of confirmatory techniques, which were not intended at this stage of research. Whist the study opens room for researchers to contribute further in this regard, it brings forth certain implications for the managers, academics, and professionals working in the retail sector.

Analysis and discussions reveal that hypermarkets, particularly in Oman, need to take into account the factors, as identified in this study, and the differences in context of local conditions and religion. The study emphasizes that managers of retail formats in Oman need to give due importance to consumer experience to secure better store image and consumer patronage.

The study makes a pioneering attempt to analyse consumer preferences for retail stores, especially hypermarkets in Oman. It recognizes that the consumer expectations and business requirements of Oman, in particular, or Gulf countries in general are somehow different than the rest of the world. A heed to the identified factors and underlying variables would help the retail sector in serving consumers better as well as in increasing the store image and consumer patronage.

The study investigates the cross-format shopping behaviour in the apparel sector. The purpose of this paper is to relate the number of store formats patronized to a set of consumer characteristics under a unifying theoretical framework emphasising cost-benefit analysis.

The research involved questionnaire telephone surveys from a sample of 1,722 apparel shoppers in a European region.

Among shoppers’ socio-demographic characteristics, age, gender, employment status and citizenship were found to have an impact on multi-store format patronage patterns for apparel purchases. Moreover, the store format preference and the sale proneness proved to be additional determinants of cross-format mobility.

The findings provide retail managers with valuable insights for effective marketing strategies aimed to exploit customer loyalty potential.

Despite consumers’ regular use of various alternative store formats for apparel purchases, literature on the determinants of cross-format mobility is scarce. Addressing the inter-type cross-shopping behaviour of consumers from a cost-benefit viewpoint, this study makes a new contribution in the area of customer loyalty and the complementarity and substitutability of store formats.

Hypermarkets have emerged as an important retail format in many parts of the world. The purpose of this paper is to explore consumer behaviour towards store preferences, particularly hypermarkets, in Oman.

Following a mixed method approach, primary data, collected mainly using questionnaires and focus groups, were analysed to reveal consumer preferences. After pilot testing, 300 structured questionnaires were administered, of which 164 completed questionnaires were accepted for analysis. Data on store choice attributes were collected and analysed to reveal respondents’ preferences. Respondents’ characteristics were also measured using socio-demographic variables and were compared with their purchasing behaviour.

By offsetting traditional markets, hypermarkets have emerged as one of the important retail formats in the urban areas of Oman. Their emergence has impacted trade in the traditional markets, the souqs. A weekly trip to the hypermarket is becoming an established feature of Omani life. Employed, educated or prosperous Omani consumers and expatriates prefer hypermarkets and these preferences surge during hot weather conditions. Consumers visit hypermarkets not only for purchases but also for recreation. Several factors affect consumer choice of hypermarkets in Oman, and these are listed in the outcomes of the study.

This study mainly focusses on consumers from selected hypermarkets in the Muscat and the Batinah regions of Oman. Although these regions are home to more than half of the Omani population, similar studies on other prominent regions will help in generalizing the preferences of consumers.

Beyond an academic investigation to better understand the issue, the findings are important to help policy makers, town planners, and retailers better understand, plan, and evolve a consumer friendly retail sector. The findings will also help in understanding the regional imbalances in retailing activities, locally and globally.

The findings will help in the planning of certain retail policies to assure the notion of accessibility, affordability, and availability of global products and services to Omani consumers and also in striking a balance between traditional and modern retail formats to maintain diversity, growth, and overall consumer satisfaction.

This paper furthers understanding of retailing issues in a conservative Islamic society in general; and in an area, Oman, that has not been covered before, in particular.

The purpose of this paper is to establish a measurement process for consumer perceptions and judgments of strategic importance to apparel retailers like hedonic and utilitarian shopping behavior, as well as internal process benchmarks such as apparel brands' names, store signage, and textile preferences. The paper aims to provide a simple, flexible and easy to use measurement technique that can be applied to small samples of respondents in order to capture their overall perceptions and judgments of key interest to management.

Magnitude estimation, along with a repeated measures design, was tested and evaluated based on the validation process put forth by Steven's power law. Data were collected from three focus groups whose respondents were selected based on their store loyalty and prior purchase of women's petit apparel in a discount outlet store. Their responses were benchmarked with those of other competitive discount retailers and with selected internal process measures.

All applications of the measurement technique were validated. Loyal shoppers for apparel purchased in a value store were found to have a preference to a competitive set of value stores but perceived all other discount stores as higher in store shopping experience. Findings were presented to articulate the resolution and clarity of the magnitude‐determined ratio scales versus those of typical interval scales and multi‐attribute measures.

The comparisons provided here are for illustrative purposes only and are based on a selected group of one company's loyal customers during a defined shopping season.

Consumer perceptions of key interest to retail management are shown to be measured and benchmarked in a practical setting using this technique.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate how three dimensions of retailer brand architecture – share or retailer brands, quality of retailer brands and visibility of retailer brands – affect consumer intention to shop at stores

A conjoint analysis is conducted with a sample of 599 Danish consumers, which rated intention to shop at hypothetical new shops based on profiles derived from an orthogonal design

Two segments of consumers emerge, one price conscious and one more differentiated. Consumers prefer shops with lower price levels, with dominantly manufacturer brands, with quality of retailer brands at the same level as manufacturer brands, and with good visibility of retailer brands.

The results are based on the evaluation of hypothetical stores, and many additional factors affect store choice in the real world.

Results suggest that we may be heading towards a polarized retail market, mainly divided between discount concepts and high quality retailer brand concepts.

The paper is innovative in isolating the effect of dimensions of retailer brand architecture on consumer store preference.