Consumer Shopping Decision Making Styles at Departmental Stores: An Exploratory Study of Gender Differences
Keywords:
Decision making styles, Consumer Style Inventory, Consumer behavior, Departmental StoresAbstract
Retailing has brought about an immense change in the economy today. It entails direct access to a customer’s needs. The present study focuses on the Organized Retailing Sector. It has been argued that gender is of immense importance when it comes to a retail activity. Since gender has been identified in much literature on consumer shopping behavior as a significant factor in understanding consumer behavior and as a fundamental market segmentation index for companies to meet their customers’ needs and wants, marketers should strive to understand the gender differences in decision-making styles. Research addressing the issue of gender differences in decision-making styles could help marketers to find better ways of communicating with both sexes and to guide marketing mix decisions (Mitchell & Walsh, 2004). This research will contribute to the body of consumer behavior literature by investigating the decision-making styles of male and female consumers in Mumbai using the Sproles and Kendall’s (1986) 40-item Consumer Style Inventory (CSI). Specifically, this research examined the interrelationships among observed variables and subsequently, a model of interrelationships was created by means of exploratory factor analysis. The sample for the study was 100 respondents from Mumbai. One of the key findings of this study is the confirmation of gender differences in decision-making styles among young-adult consumers.
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