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The purpose of this paper is to provide an understanding of the banking needs of urban informal poor consumers in South Africa. These consumers find it difficult to obtain access to banking products.

A survey of consumers was undertaken in a large informal settlement outside Johannesburg. A qualitative exploratory pilot study was undertaken first to gain a better understanding of these consumers and to develop a research instrument. Second, a quantitative analysis was undertaken among 200 households.

Banking products used by the sample are discussed as well as all their patronage motives. It was established that the majority of consumers did have a bank account and there was a significant association between having an account and various demographics such as income level, employment status and level of education.

Each informal settlement may have unique characteristics and therefore it may be difficult to generalize the findings.

Banks will have to address the patronage factors of these consumers as they have very different needs when compared to middle and upper income customers. Specify strategies are recommended to bank management.

No study has been done on the banking needs of this segment of the market and very little is known about the urban informal poor in general. This paper gives insight into how banks can play their part in uplifting the poor in societies where they make up large segments of the population.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the influence of service quality, customer’s satisfaction and religiosity on customer’s patronage decision toward health insurance products. The paper also assesses the influence of religiosity on customer’s patronage decision. The influence of customers’ satisfaction as mediation between service quality and customer’s patronage decision was also measured.

A structured questionnaire was developed and administered to a sample of 200 respondents. This research applied the exploratory factor analysis, the confirmatory factor analysis and the structural equation modeling to test the proposed hypotheses.

The findings indicate that customers’ religiosity behavior has a significant influence on customer’s patronage decision for selecting health insurance products. The results also indicated that the role of customer’s satisfaction as a mediator in between the relationship of service quality and customer’s patronage decision is significant.

This research is a cross-sectional study consisting of 200 respondents. In addition, the elements of the sample were Malaysian customers using health insurance products and services.

This study suggests that customers of health insurance products are more concerned with perceived service quality and perceived satisfaction. The role of religiosity also plays a dominant role. As a result, managers of the health insurance service providers need to focus more on benefits of service varieties centered toward their target customers in order to gain higher patronage decision of health insurance products.

The study sought to address the gap of religiosity aspects in health insurance products through intensive literature and offer a conceptual framework that tested service quality, customer’s satisfaction and religiosity in one integrated model under the perspective of health insurance industry. More importantly, it also examines the influence of religiosity on patronage behavior, thus shedding insights into the opportunities for understanding consumers in detail.

Festivals in many regions of the world are sources of attraction to tourists. Festivals have become of great significance to many people especially in areas where tradition, norms and values of the society are still being upheld of which Yoruba land in Nigeria is not an exception. Therefore, the purpose of this paper is to examine the patronage and factors influencing patronage of Olojo and Ojude Oba festival, in Southwestern Nigeria.

Purposive sampling technique was used to select Ojude Oba and Olojo festivals based on popularity among other identified festivals in the study areas. Convenience sampling technique was employed to select 210 and 114 Patrons from Ojude Oba and Olojo festivals, respectively. Preliminary survey showed that there were 4,294 and 3,124 buildings around the venues of the festivals in Ijebu-Ode and Ile-Ife, respectively. Therefore, systematic sampling technique was employed to select one out of every 40th buildings (2.5 per cent) where a household head will be sampled for questionnaire administration. Consequently, 107 and 78 household heads were sampled, respectively, from Ijebu-ode and Ile-Ife. This gave a total of 324 patrons and 185 residents for the study.

Findings established that the factors influencing patronage of cultural festival comprises festival anxiety, promotion of community cultural heritage, socio-cultural development, infrastructural development, improved town liveability, ethno-cultural unity, entertainment, income generation and public enlightenment factors accounting for 14.78, 13.20, 10.44, 6.20, 5.68, 5.59, 5.00, 4.93 and 4.88 per cent variations of the total factors that influenced patronage of Olojo and Ojude Oba festival.

The implication of the findings is that patrons attended the festival and events for leisure purpose, whereas the aspiration, promotion of community cultural heritage, socio-cultural development, infrastructural development, improved town liveability, ethno-cultural unity, entertainment, income generation and public enlightenment are the underlining factors of motivation to purchase and repurchase the festival.

This study aims to understand how retailscape of pop-up stores could influence young Chinese tourists’ emotional response and their subsequent shopping intention in the context of luxury retailing.

A quantitative approach was chosen. Building on the theoretical framework of the stimulus–organism–response (S–O–R) theory, a pop-up store retailscape behavior model was developed to explore the effect of retailscape on young Chinese tourists’ emotional response and patronage intention in a luxury retail setting. In total, 226 structured questionnaires were collected onsite.

The multiple regression analysis reveals that a luxury pop-up store’s retailscape has a positive influence on young Chinese tourists’ emotional response, but it only has a partial influence on their patronage intention. In addition, the result suggests that young Chinese tourists’ emotional response positively influences their patronage intention in luxury pop-up stores.

The study reveals how retailscape influences behavior among the younger generation, and the results provide important references for the luxury retailers in future design and management of pop-up stores so as to attract and retain the interest of the younger generation.

This study puts retailscape effect under scrutiny in the context of luxury pop-up stores which attract young Chinese tourists, who are regarded as one of the major patrons supporting exclusive retail brands in the world. The stimuli element in the S–O–R model is, thus, reexamined in the context of luxury pop-up stores.

This purpose of this paper is to investigate the status of Islamic banking in Lebanon, through addressing the perceptions of existing and potential clients. The study has two objectives: one is to identify and measure the factors that clients perceive as important in deciding to patronize an Islamic bank, and the other is to draw a client profile for Islamic banks operating in Lebanon.

The literature review provided the theoretical framework this study builds on. A survey instrument was developed and the data were analyzed using SPSS (19.0). To draw the client profile, the researcher conducted cluster analysis followed by discriminant analysis. To identify and measure the Islamic bank selection criteria, the researcher used factor analysis followed by regression analysis.

Findings show that clients consider five variables in deciding whether or not to patronize Islamic banks. These variables are trust in Islamic banks and their true compliance with Sharia, customers’ familiarity with Islamic modes of finance, cost of financing and other transactions, accessibility of Islamic banks, and the quality of service offered by those banks. The study was also able to delineate the significant attributes of IB clients, raising the issue of changing the target market segment.

This study employed a usable sample size of 199 questionnaires collected from one MENA region nation, Lebanon. It may be useful to probe the research questions of this study using a larger sample size collected from several MENA region nations, in order to reach a more validated conclusion. In addition, it may be equally useful to assess other demographic and psychographic variables as distinguishing factors among client clusters, for the purpose of reaching a deeper understanding of Islamic bank clientele in this region.

It is suggested that Islamic banks consider the five factors identified in this study, while preparing their marketing strategy, for the purpose of increasing their market share in the non-GCC MENA region. It is also suggested that Islamic banks approach the so far neglected market segments, rather than sticking to their traditional clients.

This paper is the first to investigate the status of Islamic banks in Lebanon. The findings of this study will help refocus the marketing strategies of Islamic banks in Lebanon. They may also apply to other developing non-GCC countries in the MENA region.

This paper aims to investigate the differences in patronage factors influencing “retail customers” and “institutional clients” to bank Islamically and to identify the reasons bankers perceive that their customers’ bank with them in the United Arab Emirates (UAE).

A total of 237; 416; and 70 balanced responses were collected from Islamic bankers, retail customers and institutional clients of UAE, respectively. Weighted average scores were computed for ranking the selection criteria factors across the data set and paired comparison analysis was conducted to analyse the variation of selection criteria between the data sets.

Empirical results indicate that Islamic banking practitioners maintain an identical perception with retail customers in relation to the selection criteria of Islamic banking products and services, with the “Sharīʿah-compliance” factor dominating other factors under examination. With respect to the perception regarding institutional/corporate clients, Islamic bankers exhibited a divergent perception in connection with selection criteria of Islamic banking products and services and the factor “cost and affordability” and “rates and return” are prioritized above factor “Sharīʿah-compliance”.

The scope of the study is limited to a single country. Hence, the finding of this study cannot be generalized to the other regions. Although the study covers a considerable sample from each segment, still there is an avenue for improvement by covering more respondents into the survey. Consequently, the results of this study should be read with these limitations. Further, analysis of the variation among intra divisions of each segment such as Muslim and non-Muslim with respect to retail customers; the different level of management at the banks and focusing the specific sector of the industry is beyond the scope of this study. These directions provide avenues for future research.

The study provides useful insights for bankers to revisit their marketing strategies to attract and retain more clients. Hence, the findings also suggest policy recommendations for nascent Islamic banking markets to move to the next stages of maturity. The findings of this study have implications for firms’ strategic directions and future investments of organizations, especially when the competition in the industry is intense. Future studies are recommended in other countries where the Islamic financial market share is significant.

While ample perception studies have carried out in the Islamic banking industry of the UAE, studies that focus on institutional clients, especially with reference to the factors that determine the selection criteria; studies examining banker’s perception towards Islamic banks and their clients (retail and institutional); studies that reconcile the perception of bankers and customers (retail and institutional) are all inadequately covered in existing literatures. This study attempts to fill some of these significant gaps.

This study seeks to examine mature consumers' motives in the selection of apparel and footwear brands and reasons for patronizing department stores. Differences in brand‐choice motives are assessed among age cohort groups within the mature consumers segment as well as mature consumer segments defined by various socio‐demographic and lifestyle factors (i.e. gerontographic segmentation).

A USA nation‐wide random sample of 10,400 head of households was surveyed in regards to reasons for choosing apparel and footwear brands and department stores.

The results show that older consumers not only differ from their younger counterparts but are also heterogeneous when it comes to reasons for choosing specific brands and department stores. Specifically, price reductions and special sales drive the majority of mature consumers' brand selection, while advice or requests of spouse or other relatives and recommendations of salespeople are important factors in brand selection. Ease of returning products or getting refunds and frequency of items on sale are the main drivers of department store patronization.

Marketing managers should consider preference differences in age and gerontographic segments when creating marketing strategies to serve mature consumers.

Typically, mature consumers are aggregated into a single age segment (e.g. over 55). This study examines mature consumer reasons for selecting apparel and footwear brands and department stores based not just on age, but also on individual characteristics, specifically, gerontographic characteristics. Suggestions for marketing strategies designed to appeal to gerontographic segments are provided.

This study aims to examine the effects of Islamic altruism, level of iman and maqasid consumer index on young intellectuals’ willingness to choose murabahah to the purchase orderer (MPO) vehicle financing. Besides, the role of the level of iman or faith as a mediator is examined.

Earlier studies have reported the limited application of the Islamic theory of consumer behaviour (ITCB) to the vehicle financing context. This lack of theoretical foundation might provide a potential explanation for the mixed empirical support that has been found. This study, therefore, uses the ITCB to study young intellectuals’ willingness to take up the facility. The data were analysed using partial least squares based on 312 respondents.

The results obtained from this study confirm that the ITCB should be applied to understand the willingness behaviour amongst young graduates in selecting MPO vehicle financing. The level of iman was found a key factor not only as an independent variable but also as a mediator.

This study is limited in terms of its generalisation and research context.

New insight into patronage factors for MPO vehicle financing is provided along with the applicability outcome of the ITCB.

This paper applies the ITCB into the MPO vehicle financing context and using young intellectuals to examine the validity and reliability of the ITCB.

Twenty-first century online retailing has reshaped the retail landscape. Grocery shopping is emerging as the next fastest growing category in online retailing in the UK, having implications for the channels we use to purchase goods. Using Sainsbury’s data, the authors create a bespoke set of grocery click&collect catchments. The resultant catchments allow an investigation of performance within the emerging channel of grocery click&collect. The paper aims to discuss these issues.

The spatial interaction method of “Huff gravity modeling” is applied in a semi-automated approach, used to calculate grocery click&collect catchments for 95 Sainsbury’s stores in England. The catchments allow investigation of the spatial variation and particularly rural-urban differences. Store and catchment characteristics are extracted and explored using ordinary least squares regression applied to investigate “demand per day” (a confidentiality transformed revenue value) as a function of competition, performance and geodemographic factors.

The findings show that rural stores exhibit a larger catchment extent for grocery click&collect when compared with urban stores. Linear regression finds store characteristics as having the greatest impact on demand per day, adhering to wider retail competition literature. Conclusions display a need for further investigation (e.g. quantifying loyalty).

New insights are contributed at a national level for grocery click&collect, as well as e-commerce, multichannel shopping and retail geography. Areas for further investigation are identified, particularly quantitatively capturing brand loyalty. The research has commercial impact as the catchments are being applied by Sainsbury’s to decide the next 100 stores and plan for the next five years of their grocery click&collect offering.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the effects of the following factors: image, awareness, Shariah compliance and individualism, on the attitude and intention of customers to use Islamic banking among Bank customers in UAE, and the mediating role of attitude in that model, using a theoretical model based on the multi-attribute attitude model, the theory of reasoned actions and the theory of planned behaviour.

The research will focus on surveying bank customers living in UAE. The researcher will use structural equation modelling to analyse the data.

Results show that attitude and awareness affect intention directly, while image, awareness, Shariah compliance and individualism affect attitude directly and intention indirectly mediated by attitude.

The sample size includes 178 bank customers living in three cities in UAE, hence, the rest of the country is not included.

The research shows the importance of Shariah compliance, individualism and image on attitude and intention and provides suggestions for banks to benefit from these aspects to widen their customer base.

The study provides an insight into individuals’ decision making and the importance of a social approach by banks when advertising.

The research is the first empirical attempt to test new factors affecting attitude towards Islamic banking in UAE.