Abstract
The objective of this study is to understand to what extent hedonic and utilitarian consumer profiles are affected by situational factors and how in turn they impact shopping centre patronage. A six step multiple regression analysis corresponding to six different shopping centres has been applied to two clusters of consumers. The data are based on consumers’ hedonic/utilitarian customer profile. First, results show that in general the impact on shopping centre patronage is largely affected by proximity, convenience and accessibility variables, which are more relevant among the utilitarian profile consumers. On the other hand, in the hedonic profile segment, affect, that is, the experience of feeling or emotion is the relevant variable explaining patronage. Second, the predictive contribution of these variables on patronage varied according to the shopping centres’ positioning. With the findings of the present study, retail managers can formulate marketing strategies, which will attract retail consumers towards their shopping centre and also help them to enhance the significant factors that influence retail store consumer’s purchase decision. Also, this investigation contributes to the diagnosis of how consistent is the retailers’ in their positioning strategy in targeting the market segments. The present research integrates both situational factors and hedonic as well as utilitarian consumer profiles along with the role of situational dynamics to explain shopping centres’ patronage.
Keywords
Introduction
Consumers continuously search hedonic as well as utilitarian values from their shopping experience (Jones, Reynolds, & Arnold, 2006; Tauber, 1995). Hedonic values imitate the psychological and emotional characteristics of the shopping experience while utilitarian values reflect how efficiently consumers achieve their shopping goals (Hirschman & Holbrook, 1982). From consumers’ prospective, utilitarian values are task-oriented (Batra & Ahtola, 1991), and the joy and excitement through shopping experience are hedonic values (Arnold & Reynolds, 2003). Some studies found that consumers found hedonic value through smart purchases (Mano & Elliott, 1997); the smart purchase is characterized by reduction in time, money or energy spent on searches. This typically adds to hedonic and utilitarian values of the entire shopping experience (Atkins & Kim, 2012). Hedonic shopping is often proposed as the best reason for preserving bricks-and-mortar retailing (Reimers & Clulow, 2014). To build and bring customer value, retailers are pursuing different strategies which aim at adding hedonic and collective value in an effort to enhance shopper patronage (Rintamäki, Kanto, Kuusela, & Spence, 2006).
There are two significant factors to understand the consumer shopping behaviour. First, the equilibrium between commodity and convenience cost. This equilibrium affects the consumers’ shopping decision. Second, in order to determine shopping patronage, convenience cost is very important (Kelley, 1958). Oliver, Rust, and Varki (1997) stated that in case of retail shopping, the shopping convenience could be a utilitarian motivation and characteristically linked to accomplishing efficiency. In fact, consumers’ time perception in their personal everyday living is a crucial factor in elucidation of their shopping decisions (McDonald, 1994). Past study suggested that convenience, time perception and efficient shopping experiences are dominant in the propensity of shopping (Kwon & Jain, 2009), and also many retail studies reveal that store convenience affects shopping centre patronage positively. This is because consumers are more easily attracted towards retail stores, the one that can be reached by the consumers conveniently. However, this study focusses more on how consumers are attracted towards hedonic and utilitarian values, but it doesn’t explain to what extend these values affect their shopping behaviour and shopping centre patronage. Also, past studies have not studied the role of situational factors as an affect/emotional variable in retail.
Literature Review
In of case of retail patronage, the market geography significantly influences the retail consumer behaviour (Stephenson, 1969). The location of retailers recognized many factors such as natural competitive advantage, ability to attract consumers and the level of difficulty that they will face in marketing (Davies, 1995), and patronage is rewarded by the ideal location of retailers (Monroe & Guiltinan, 1975). Even the general assumption states that the best fit occurring not only for retailers but also for consumers is culturally or geographically close markets (Rugman & Girod, 2003). There are many customer location-specific drivers such as distance to competing store, number of the competitor nearby, distance to the store and presence of other customers of the store for word-of-mouth effects which control the patronage effect (Allaway, Berkowitz, & D’s Souza, 2003). Many likely factors influence the type and the number of shopping centres that consumers visit. Accessibility or transportation available to each shopping place may also affect the nature and number of places typically visited (Stoltman, Gentry, & Anglin, 1991).
In contrast to these factors which undermine consumer use of shopping centres, the recreational shopper has a profile as identified by Bellenger and Korgaonkar (1980). They described consumer profiles which exhibit the following features: engagement in non-planned purchases, more time spent shopping per trip, continued shopping after making purchase and choice of close malls for shopping. Other motivational shopper typologies also converge on this shopper characterization, notably the emphasis on shopping enjoyment, the number of department stores visited and attending exhibitions in shopping centres (Westbrook & Black, 1985). Numerous shoppers visit shopping centres for both utilitarian and experimental motives. They view shopping as a leisure activity, enjoy looking around while accomplishing their purchases, spend maximum amount of time and made predominantly planned purchases (Millan & Howard, 2007). Retail studies found that it was also costly and not convenient for long distance shoppers to purchase goods in the mall. Thus, everyday shoppers were more likely to buy goods than infrequent shoppers in the mall (Zhuang, Tsang, Zhou, Li, & Nicholl, 2006) because several shoppers would like to reduce travel time (Sinha & Banerjee, 2004).
Most classifications of shopper value and the diverse types of shopper benefits commence with the peculiarity amongst utilitarian (extrinsic) and hedonic (intrinsic) benefits (Furse & Stewart, 1986; Holbrook, 1994; Martos-Partal & González-Benito, 2013). The utilitarian benefits are functional, instrumental and cognitive while hedonic benefits are experiential, non-instrumental and effective (Hirschman & Holbrook, 1982). A shopping centre is particularly attractive to remind consumers’ hedonic and utilitarian (Chandon, Wansink, & Laurent, 2000) consumption activities (Chandon, Hutchinson, & Laurent, 1999; Langrehr, 1991). The findings of past studies show that in various ways demographics of consumers such as age and income affect the impact of hedonic and utilitarian when consumers are shopping (Noh, Runyan, & Mosier, 2014). The influence of the situational factors may vary in different parts of the globe (Roslow, Li, & Nicholls, 2000). Due to its characteristics, a shopping centre presents an ideal arena for pursuing browsing activity. The availability and high concentration of stores makes it easy to compare and gather information, for both those who intend to buy something or those who just enjoy looking around (Jarboe & McDaniel, 1987). The size of shopping centre (Yiu & Xu, 2012), assortment of stores (Theodoridis & Chatzipanagiotou, 2009) and events render a large variety of stimuli and a full range of leisure-time recreational attractions (Bloch, Ridgway, & Nelson, 1991). A shopping centre can also be an efficient and convenient way for more economic or functional shoppers to complete several purchase goals in one trip (Stoltman et al., 1991). Due to the picture of retail change, customers looking for beyond social or economic cost benefits are now expecting choice and convenience of each store (Clarke, 2000).
The situational factors such as convenience issues interfere in the way hedonic and utilitarian-oriented consu mers use the shopping centre. Ward and Robertson (1973) argued that ‘situational factors’ may account for considerably more variance than actor-associated variables. Engel, Kollat, and Blackwell (1969) advocated that both personage and situational factors need to be considered in order to explain consumer choices. While searching for evidence towards importance to consumer, situational influence is a persistent factor in consumer behaviour. Also, in many studies, it appeared that situational effects can be demonstrated both descriptively and experimentally (Chang, Yan, & Eckman, 2014; Huang & Oppewal, 2006). Although the amount of study particularly focussed on situational influence does not enlighten every loop of this area (Belk, 1975), it is the purpose of this study to investigate such concepts and to propose directions for research of situational influence in consumer behaviour and retail store patronage. Specific attributes of shopping centres in terms of proximity, accessibility and convenience may moderate the preferences and intensity of usage (e.g., Howell & Rogers, 1981; Yale & Venkatesh, 1986). Affect variables play a structural role in inhibiting or enhancing shopping decisions both directly or indirectly, via psychological processes such as memory and attitude formation (e.g., Allen, Machleit, & Kleine, 1992). Also Reimers, 2014, suggested that further research is required to confirm what is the respective influence of time convenience, transaction convenience, effort convenience, search convenience, access convenience and service convenience on perceptions of overall store convenience and store patronage (Reimers, 2014). The literature leads to the following propositions:
(RP1) The impact of hedonic and utilitarian profiles on shopping centre patronage is moderated by situational factors, such as proximity, convenience and accessibility of the stores located in it and affect (RP2) The situational factors are more likely to moderate the utilitarian-oriented consumer’s shopping centre patronage (RP3) The affect variable is more likely to moderate the hedonic-oriented consumer’s shopping centre patronage
To address the aforementioned gap of literature (Chang et al., 2014; Howell & Rogers, 1981; Huang & Oppewal, 2006; Reimers, 2014; Yale Venkatesh, 1986), the goal of present research is to analyse to what extent situational factors (proximity, convenience and accessibility of stores) and affect variable moderate the impact of hedonic and utilitarian profiles of consumers on shopping centre patronage. In addition to extending prior research on situational factors, this research might also help managers to discover those elements of the retail shopping behaviour that are more vital in hedonic versus utilitarian retail categories, and use these insights to manage their marketing mix more efficiently.
Methodology
The objective of the present study is to understand the role of situational and affect variables on consumers’ shopping centre patronage with the reflection of hedonic and utilitarian profiles of consumers. The approach for present research was twofold: first, we confirm the measures of present study constructs with the analysis of their validity and reliability. Second, we collect the final data from respondents with the help of a structured questionnaire that is focussed on the measures of research construct with hedonic and utilitarian profiles of respondents.
The research design for the current study divided into two parts; first, we confirmed the measures of the study. In this phase, we implement qualitative and quantitative approaches to special expertise, two academic experts and two industrial experts (Schensul, Lecompte, Nastasi, & Borgatti, 1999). Also, in the first phase, we use a quantitative approach and formulate a well-structured questionnaire for pilot analysis. Second, with the help of validated measures in the pilot study, we design a well-structured questionnaire and collect the final data to achieve the objective of this research. The study analyses the data with the implementation of Exploratory Factor Analysis, Cluster Analysis, multiple regressions and reliability statistics.
In the present study, the scale reliability and validity was assessed to ensure the accurately operationalization of each construct (Sekaran & Bougie, 2009). Four experts (two academics and two managers) assessed the content validity of the several measures included in the questionnaire through an examination. Primary changes were made, with the recommendations and comments of the expert. Basically, convenience is a time-dependent construct (Yale & Venkatesh, 1986). In that sense, driving time is the ultimate measure of convenience (Brumen & Mason, 1968). Better than the travelling distance, that variable captures the traffic conditions as well as the consumer’s subjective evaluation of the time he/she needs to get to different places, using her/his standard itinerary.
Moreover, it is also essential to assess the respondents’ view on accessibility and convenience of different shopping destinations (Howell & Rogers, 1981). The shopping centre convenience attributes, which are used in this research, were partially derived from Howell & Rogers’ scales. Table 1 shows the shopping centre convenience measures. Affect is often moderated by other variables in its relationship to attitude or behaviour. The involvement acts as a moderator in the way affect influences shopping intentions (Swinyard, 1993).
Shopping Convenience Measures
Similarly, under situational pressures, attitudinal formation is inhibited, allowing affect to perpetuate an increased influence on behaviour (Allen et al., 1992). In our research, affect plays a role in delineating the nature of the relationship embodying patronage. To avoid the interference of memory or cognitive factors, the operationalization of affect followed a three-dimensional scale for shopping centre rating (Table 2). Initially, the efficient versus recreational shopper did not overlap the utilitarian and hedonic dimensions completely. The recreational shopper is mainly a recreational buyer, primarily since he/she seeks satisfaction through attaining her/his buying goals (Bellenger & Korgaonkar, 1980). The hedonic consumption concept is much broader, extending to non-purchasing shopping experiences (Hirschman & Holbrook, 1982). Browsing behaviour extends beyond concepts such as planned/unplanned behaviour, searching, enjoyment of looking around and window-shopping (Jarboe & McDaniel, 1987).
Affect Scale
Consequently, browsing behaviour is not assessed here independently but mixed with the other scales. The scales used were adapted from two sources: Bellenger and Korgaonkar (1980) and Babin, Darden, and Griffin (1994). Table 3 shows the scales employed to measure the self-reported hedonic/utilitarian profile.
For the present research purpose, researcher implements non-probability type convenient sampling method. The advantages of this type of sampling are the availability and the quickness with which data can be gathered (Cooper & Schindler, 2007). For the final data analysis, we consider a 352 sample size. Data were collected from 400 respondents for final analysis, while 48 responses were discarded due to incomplete information or visibly manipulative data. As proposed by Hair, Black, Babin, Anderson, & Tatham, 2013, the minimum sample should have at least five times as many observations as there are variables to be analysed, and the more acceptable size would be a ten-to-one ratio. Considering the Porto (Portugal) area households as a universe, 1,000 families living in Porto metropolitan area (Portugal) volunteered to participate. The first stage of data collection focused on the demographic profile of respondents including age, family size, income and residential. (Bagozzi, 1994).
Data Analysis and Results
Utilitarian/hedonic construct presented above described the consumer’s profile and was submitted to some preliminary data analysis (see the outcome on Table 3). The factorial analysis is a means to achieve other goals, rather than an end in itself. The insights provided by this data reduction technique were incorporated into cluster analysis as input variables. Two clustering algorithms were applied. The hierarchical procedure simultaneously speeds the process respecting the theoretical underpinnings.
Cluster Centres Hedonic/Utilitarian Consumer’s Profile
The k-means non-hierarchical method benefits from the seed points previously generated to fine-tune the final output, since it is less susceptible to outliers, the distance measure used and the inclusion of irrelevant variables (Punj & Stewart, 1983). Before testing the hypotheses, the mode-rator variables have to be submitted to a prior analysis. Respondents had to rate all measures to each one of the six shopping centres operating in Porto Metropolitan area. The need to reduce the six variables specified to measure the convenience issues into a smaller set produced the following results:
1. The variables ratings characterizing each one of the six shopping centres were factor analysed. For all shopping centres, the Kaiser–Meyer–Olkin measures of sampling adequacy were below 0.6, two of them were even below 0.5. 2. The coefficients of correlation between the variables were in five out of the six shopping centre data sets, all below 0.3. This outcome makes data reduction non-viable, leaving the operationalization of the individual variables as the only option to enter into the equation. Subsequent to the guidelines offered by Diamantopoulos and Winklhofer (1999), the appropriateness of developing a summated scale from the three-affect variables was considered viable. Since within each shopping centre the degree of consistency between the three measurements of the variable (Cronbach’s alpha) was always above 0.80, the coefficients of correlation between the variables were above 0.60, with only the exception of a single pair of variables, which attained 0.57. Each one of the six shopping centres has two dependent variables: frequency of visits per month of the hedonic-oriented consumers and the frequency of visits per month of the utilitarian-oriented consumers. Potentially, the total number of multiple regressions equations is 12 (6*2). The multiple regressions allow the assessment have a joint impact on the dependent variable of several predictors (Hair et al., 2010). An examination of the last columns of Table 4 reveals the small values of R2, indicating the weak ability of the predictors to explain the variance in the dependent variable. However, accepting the limited scope of these estimations in comparing the amount of impact expressed by the regression coefficients (beta), the statistical analysis still identifies the predictors whose effect is statistically significant and the direction of that effect (sign of the coefficient). The stepwise option procedure sorts out the variables not statistically significant. Table 4 only shows those variables contributing significantly to explaining the dependent variable. To some extent, the impact of the consumers’ profile on patronage of the different shopping centres is moderated by the situational variables and by the affect scale. Thus, the hypothesis RP1 cannot be rejected. The affect scale yields a positive effect on shopping centre (SC2) patronage of the hedonic consumers, though it produces a negative effect on the patronage of two shopping centres (SC4 andSC5) among the utilitarian consumers. This result is consistent with the expected psychological characteristics of this profile, in the sense that frequency of visits is determined regardless of the consumer’s preference. Thus, efficiency prevails over affect. Situational factors intervene both for the hedonic-oriented consumers and for the utilitarian group. In general, convenience, proximity and accessibility, when reduced, undermine shopping centre patronage. A ‘close location on the way home’ is positively correlated with frequency of visits to a shopping centre (SC1 and SC4), especially among the utilitarian-oriented consumers, who naturally value practical issues such as proximity. The same tendency occurs with other variables evaluating shopping centres proximity and accessibility. However, among the hedonic group of consumers, the effect of the variable ‘there are few transportation alternatives to get there’ varies from one shopping centre to another. In SC5, the regression coefficient of that variable is positive, whereas in SC3, it is negative. Therefore, data supported RP2 fully but RP3 only partially.
Regression Models (Dependent Variable—Frequency of Visits)
Implication
The finding of the study presents a significant contribution, for both scholars and practitioners.
Theoretical Implication
Regarding a theoretical view, the study provides the novel space for understanding the shopping centre patronage concerning situational factors. Empirical effort suggested that it would add substantially to our understanding of the nature of the relationship between situational factors and shopping centre patronage. The information divulged here may help the marketing theorist in particular to better the perspective of shopping centre patronage and, as a consequence, to undertake more efficient future studies and strategies in retail.
Practical Implication
The result illustrated the extent to which the store location is important for store patronage, and this will definitely be helpful for retail store proprietors and managers for selection of store location and formulation of retail strategies with consideration to their location and target customers. From the manager’s point of view, this investigation can be useful since it contributes to diagnosis, how consistent is their positioning strategy with the segments they are targeting. Based on the result of this study, retail mangers can formulate their marketing strategies, which will enhance the attraction of retail consumers towards their retail store BY comparing which situational variables and affect are associated with each consumer’s profile. This will in turn help in attracting visitors. Shopping centre managers may be able to assess which image attributes are effective. It is possible to identify incongruence between the shopping centre positioning and the consumers’ evaluation (e.g., SC6 in relation to affect). Even within the same consumer’s profile segment, the same situational attribute can differently affect the shopping centre attractiveness. For example, the attribute ‘there are few transportation alternatives to get there’ undermines SC3 patronage, whereas the same situational attribute fosters SC5 patronage. This means managers should sharpen up their marketing-mix and retail-mix or eventually readdress their positioning. Simultaneously, based on the information provided by this analysis, managers can refine their segmentation strategy by matching up to their competitors’ market segments attraction. As this study demonstrates, the convenience variable positively affects store patronage. In this regard, retailers need to think more about selection store location. Most of the investigation analysed the relation between the components of the situational factors and retailing patronage (Kwon & Jain, 2009; Theodoridis & Chatzipanagiotou, 2009; Yiu & Xu, 2012). To the best of our knowledge, this research is the first to integrate situational factors with consumer psychological variables in different models based on two mutually exclusive consumer profile segments.
Discussion and Conclusions
It is quite critical for managers to understand the patronage behaviour of consumers. It enables them to discover and target those shoppers who are most likely to purchase. As a result of this, managers need a substantial volume of research that has been conducted on various elements of the shopping centre patronage phenomenon like store image, frequency of visit, store choice, the product quality and so on. Patronizing with a particular shopping centre is not an easy decision for consumers, and it begins with the impotent characteristics be it location, price or variety of goods and such. Consumers frequently apply these characteristics and make a decision on which stores can cater to their needs better. For example, the lifestyle and shopping orientations of each shopper segment can be a valuable input for understanding and influencing shopping centre patronage. Prior research explores the effects of hedonic and utilitarian values on the shopping centre patronage, but it ignores the role of situational factors and affect variable. Present research goes beyond the analysis of the relation between situational factors and patronage. It integrates both situational factors and hedonic/utilitarian with role of situational dynamics to explain shopping centres’ patronage. This research is an attempt to extend the view of hedonic and utilitarian characteristics of consumers in the occurrence of situational and affect variable.
Apart from the hedonic and utilitarian consumers’ profile, other constructs expressing psychological variables can be applied to study the moderate effect of the situational variables. Among them are consumer susceptibility to interpersonal influence (Mangleburg, Doney, & Bristol, 2004) and social distance (Dickson & MacLachlan, 1990). Also, the findings of the present study are consistent with the research by Jasper and Lan (1992) and Foscht, Ernstreiter, Maloles, Sinha, and Swoboda (2013) who highlighted the convenience as a major motive in retail purchase. Theoretical scope of this study considered three observed variables, namely, proximity, convenience and accessibility of stores, but there are many other situational factors in this context. Sample size imposes restrictions on the applicability of some statistical techniques. This was the case in cross-validation within the regression analysis within two shopping centres. Splitting the sample into two sub-samples of equal size was not viable. Cluster analysis yields mutually exclusive groups. Nevertheless, a consumer’s profile membership is a matter of degree. Although popular and scientifically sound, this method does not generate groups in the most realistic way (Steenkamp & Wedel, 1991).