A Study to Understand the Factors that Play Major Role in Influencing the Loyalty Behaviour of Shoppers towards Department Based Brick-and-Mortar Fashion Retailers with Special Reference to Pune City, India

Abstract

The major objective of this study is to understanding the factors that influence the loyalty behaviour of customers towards brick-and-mortar departmental fashion retailers in Pune city. The study has been conducted by keeping one of the leading departmental stores in reference, but the findings of the study are generalized and can be applied to other fashion retailers of similar or non-similar formats. Fashion is one of the fastest growing categories and continues to grow at exponential growth rate due to increased fashion awareness and aspirations. Today we can see that fashion products account for a substantial percentage of the products sold across a broad range of merchandise categories.

Research on fashion retailing has been based on varying conceptual definitions of the construct and has focused primarily on in-store retailing. A number of researchers have made important contributions to understanding of loyalty behaviour of shoppers towards fashion retailers.  Therefore, the consumer behaviour of an important sector of the millennials is worth to be researched. Here the researchers are trying to understand the variables that influence shoppers' loyalty behaviour which is nothing but the “preferential” behaviour of the shoppers towards a specific retailer’s stores. During this research the researchers found that, some of the major influencing factors are shopping atmosphere-ambience, fashion image of the retailer (retailer as a brand), fashion image of the Private Labels, and the effectiveness of the loyalty programme offered by the retailer.