Abstract
The study investigates the factors that influence store patronage among low-income consumers in a Cape Town township by exploring the relationships amongst the influencing factors and determining the factors that consumers prioritise. Based on factor and multiple regression analyses of data from a convenience sample of 113 adult shoppers, the study found that relationship-based promotion and convenient branded solutions are among the important factors of store patronage. Store location is a significant influencer of both store satisfaction and store loyalty while store location, store image, and promotion are significant influencers of store loyalty. The study concludes that low-income consumers are not homogeneous in their responses to marketing stimuli designed to elicit store patronage. Retailers need to be clear about the segments to pursue and not assume that all low-income consumers are primarily motivated by low prices. DOI: 10.5901/mjss.2014.v5n20p152
Highlights
The retail sector in South Africa has increasingly been making attempts to serve low-income consumers in areas like townships that were previously mainly served by small and or informal traders (Klemz, Boshoff, & Mazibuko 2006). This trend is consistent with other emerging markets where big and more organised retailers are making inroads into previously underserved low-income areas (D’Andrea, Ring, Aleman & Stengel 2006). It is important for both practitioners and researchers to understand the factors that influence store patronage amongst low-income consumers, how retail stores are perceived, and how choices between stores are made by these consumers
Though this is not a new area of enquiry in the marketing literature, it is not evident that this question has been addressed from the perspective of low-income consumers in South Africa, this investigation of the factors that influence store patronage amongst low-income consumers
This study set out to investigate the relationship among the factors that influence store patronage among low-income consumers and to determine the relative importance of these independent variables in predicting store patronage
Summary
The retail sector in South Africa has increasingly been making attempts to serve low-income consumers in areas like townships that were previously mainly served by small and or informal traders (Klemz, Boshoff, & Mazibuko 2006) This trend is consistent with other emerging markets where big and more organised retailers are making inroads into previously underserved low-income areas (D’Andrea, Ring, Aleman & Stengel 2006). Studies of store patronage behaviour show that consumers are influenced by a variety of factors that may be summarised into, for example, location, merchandise, service, and store atmosphere (Lindquist 1974; Mazursky & Jacoby 1986); or access, in-store atmosphere, price and promotion, cross-category product/service assortment, and within-category brand/item assortment (Ailawadi & Keller 2004) It is evident from the literature what the key determinants of store patronage are mainly based on studies undertaken in the highly industrialized countries (Paswan, Pineda, & Ramirez 2010). Ligthelm (2003) studied informal retailers nationally and observed that the retailers understand their strengths and weakness regarding various factors including location, service, and business hours; and high prices of branded goods, stock shortages, and poor customer service; respectively
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