Influence of Store Atmospherics on Retail Store Patronage : A Study of Apparels and Lifestyle Products

The research focus is on determining the key store atmospherics influencing consumer's decision to patronize a retail store especially in context to shopping of Apparels&Lifestyle products. The store atmospherics were selected as constructs from retail and marketing literature and reduced to manageable factors using Exploratory Factor Analysis. The data was collected from 400 respondents through multistage sampling technique from districts of Jalandhar, Amritsar, Ludhiana, Chandigarh (U.T.) and N.C.R. (Gurgaon).The Multiple Regression Analysis technique is applied to ascertain relationship between key store atmospherics and retail store patronage. The results of the study revealed that consumers perceptions towards retail store atmospherics can be grouped into four factors - Store Location and Customer Services ; Store Ambience and Design ; Product Quality and Features and Instore Customer Convenience and all the atmospheric factors except store location and customer services were critical determinants in influencing the consumer's retail store patronage behavior for apparels and lifestyle products. The study has been an effort in the direction to understand apparels shoppers changing preferences for the choice of a retail store. The study offers retail marketers to identify the significant dimensions of store atmospherics and tested the same to develop a holistic customer experience while shopping. The study is limited in geographical terms as it covered principal cities of Punjab and one region of Haryana i.e. Gurgaon. Due to this the study can offer implications restricted to the regions covered.