L81 - Retail and Wholesale Trade; e-CommerceReturn

A mall has a holistic solution for a variety of consumer needs. Malls have aggressively spread in small cities too. The presence of malls in tier II & III cities of India may have provided diversified experiences of mall culture to its residents. Malls offer an abundance of retail offerings with entertainment and leisure. Previous studies focused upon metro city malls and provided results towards mall attributes, consumer experiences, evoked emotional responses, and patronage intentions. Hence, it is indeed necessary to examine the behavioral aspects associated with visitors of small (non-metro/tier II & III) city malls to assess the change in consumption patterns of small city consumers. The present study attempts to investigate linkages among mall attractive dimensions, visitors’ experiences, and visitors’ emotions. A sample size of 613 (from malls of tier II & III cities, India) was analyzed using SEM through SmartPLS 3. Finding suggests significant relationships with few exceptions. Responders’ emotions (pleasure and arousal) are predicted when they are interacted with mall attractive dimensions due to experiences. The results may benefit mall management, mall tenants, consumers, and society at large.

The purpose of this paper was to compare three models of customer satisfaction with supermarkets in Poland. The authors decided to verify what kinds of satisfaction models are appropriate for describing relations between customer satisfaction and other constructs. The authors used structural equation modelling (SEM) to test and validate the models containing several latent variables, such as: perceived quality, perceived value and customer expectations. All of them were equipped with proper manifest variables, measured in a survey. The survey questionnaires were distributed using snowballing method. Verified models confirmed the significant impact of perceived quality on customer satisfaction and these two variables demonstrated the highest correlation. The study showed that the customer satisfaction reaches higher determination in more complicated models, such as value-based model and confirmation model. The study also showed that customer expectations don't have a direct impact on customer satisfaction.

Music is an inherent element of visual merchandising tools. It can affect not only the amount of time spent on shopping, but also the overall satisfaction of customers at the point of sale. Nevertheless, it is essential to find the right compromise between the combination of music genres and basic factors of store sound systems, because everyone perceives music and sound with varying sensitivity. Properly chosen music and sound system factors provide numerous advantages to retail stores, including the more relaxed and friendly-behaving staff as well as the encouraged customers spending more time inside the store. From the customer perspective, the music influences him when determining which store to choose. Last but not least, music can help the customer to overcome stressful situations such as waiting at the cash registers. We assessed the sound system and noise levels in retail stores operating in the Slovak food market through a questionnaire survey with the managers of these stores as well as by measuring the noise intensity in the particular sales departments. The survey sample included 182 store managers. The research was carried out in stores located mainly in western Slovakia and included Slovak retail chains but also companies with transnational capital ties. The questionnaire survey results showed that the store sound distribution depends on the size of the sales format and not on the ownership of particular retail chains operating in the Slovak Republic. Through measuring the level of noise a different approach of these companies can be assumed when creating cultural and pleasant shopping environment.