Retail clothing stores continually have to adapt to marketplace demands to remain competitive. Customer retention has become a major objective for many clothing retailers. This study combines the management of a number of the controllable personal and non-personal elements that a customer are exposed to and interacts within a retail store, as part of the shopping experience. The data analysis procedures closely followed the guidelines for scale development suggested by Churchill (1979). The empirical results suggest that there are five dimensions considered important by consumers when assessing their satisfaction with a total retail experience in a clothing store. These are: merchandise value, internal store environment, personal interaction with staff, merchandise variety and complaint handling.
Although attempts have been made to identify some of the dimensions of retail shopping experience, these have been largely fragmented and uncoordinated. No attempt has yet been made to combine the efforts of many retailing students into a comprehensive model that accurately describes the total retailing experience. Also, very little is known about the relationship between the individual dimensions of retail shopping and customer satisfaction. This study attempts to reduce this gap in South African retailing literature by, first modelling the total retailing experience and, then, assessing the influence of selected individual retailing dimensions on customer satisfaction. It also investigates whether the impact of these dimensions of the retailing experience differs between fast food restaurants and supermarket retailers. The empirical results suggest a fairly consistent pattern of relationships between fast food restaurants and supermarkets.
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