Influence of Shopping Orientation and Store Image on Patronage of Furniture Store

Abstract

Knowledge on furniture consumers’ retail patronage will promote and enhance efforts to increase sales atfurniture stores and could guide future research. This research therefore was proposed to develop a generalmodel of retail patronage and to empirically test the relationships proposed in the model in the context offurniture market. The objectives of the study include 1) is to review existing retail patronage models and relatedliterature 2) to develop a general framework of retail patronage behavior and 3) to test the model in the furniturestore shopping patterns. Based on a review of the literature the study proposed to adapt Darden’s patronagemodel of consumer behavior. 115 data were collected through survey questionnaires and the underlyingrelationship among the variables that characterize consumers’ patronage behavior towards furniture was studied.Statistically it was found that in terms of shopping orientation, the apathetic shopper and the personalizingshopper was influenced by the lifestyle of the consumer and hence influenced the customer patronage. Storeimage on the other hand was found to enhance the impact on consumer patronage of the furniture store andmoreover acted as both the predictor and the moderator.