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University students often view economics as one of the most challenging subjects. In this paper, we explore whether the same attitude is shared by students at an offshore campus. The analysis is based on a survey of onshore and offshore students in an Australian university. The focus of the paper is on identifying similarities/differences in student attitudes towards economics, their degree of motivation, satisfaction with the content and the delivery of lectures and tutorials, major challenges, and student profile characteristics. A non‐parametric test indicates significant differences between the two cohorts, in terms of their age, enrolment status, paid work commitments, prior study of economics, their motivation and approach to studying the subject, and satisfaction with both the content and the delivery of the lectures/tutorials. The findings in this study are helpful in developing strategies for enhancing student learning in culturally diverse cohorts.

Significant number of consumers in Australia patronizes non‐scanning stores in spite of not being issued itemized receipts for the goods they purchase. In order to understand the attitude of consumers to receipts that give only limited information, shoppers exiting non‐scanning stores were surveyed for their use of purchase receipts. This study compares consumers' use of purchase receipts issued by non‐price scanning stores and those issued by price scanning stores. It appears that shoppers are largely indifferent to the details on the purchase receipt except when they are concerned with returning or exchanging the item(s) purchased.

To identify the factors that influence shoppers' satisfaction with their “primary” grocery store, and those that encourage them to continue patronising it despite being presented with a significant inducement to shop elsewhere.

A structured questionnaire containing 31 variables relating to shopping behaviour and satisfaction was administered to 934 shoppers leaving a number of grocery stores in an Australian city during a two‐week period. Results were used to construct two mathematical models predicting customer satisfaction and store loyalty, from which two research hypotheses were derived.

The results of model estimation show that factors with a significant influence on store satisfaction have little in common with others that impel shoppers to remain loyal to one store. Indeed, there was no evidence in this study that shoppers' overall satisfaction was by itself a significant influence on continued patronage.

The questionnaire did not ask questions, judged to be intrusive, relating to respondents' income level, education background, employment status or household size – characteristics known to have a bearing on perception of risk associated with switching to an unfamiliar store and hence potentially to inhibit action. It would be instructive in future research to assess the extent to which demographic characteristics mediate perceptions of financial, psychological and social risk, and their influence on satisfaction and loyalty.

Retailers often do not recognise that what influences customer satisfaction is not the same as what engenders store loyalty, and consequently do not allocate scarce resources systematically among tactics influencing one or the other. Unless they are vigilant to changing consumer behaviour patterns, they will not be able to isolate in their strategy the elements of the retail mix that could insulate their loyal customers from responding to competitors' special offers.

This study introduces intelligence gatherers and strategic planners in the retail context to an important distinction between general satisfaction and specific loyalty.