An Analysis of the Hierarchy of Goals that Guides the Consumer’s Decision to Attend Shopping Malls: a Contrast Between Men and Women

Abstract

Understanding the hierarchy of goals of the consumer is one of the issues that has guided the efforts of researchers in recent years. The objective of this study is to identify a hierarchy of goals that guides the decision of men and women to visit shopping malls. A study was conducted over a qualitative and a quantitative stage, using the Association Pattern Technique and log-linear model. In the qualitative research, 14 consumers who reside in Curitiba-PR were interviewed resulting in 42 narratives and 90 reports of visits to the mall. In the quantitative stage, with electronic data collection, we obtained a sample of 703 valid questionnaires from consumers of 66 Brazilian cities. We found that men and women go to shopping malls with different motivations and therefore have different goal structures. Men have a more utilitarian motivation, and visit malls with specific goals for the accomplishment of some task. Women, on the other hand, go to malls with more hedonic motivations. They value the comfort and pleasure that malls provide.