A Study on Consumer Perception towards Store Layout with reference to Single and Multi Brand Apparel Stores in India

Decreasing retail market share in the developed countries is direct attention to a critical evaluation of the potential in emerging markets. While store choice can be an outcome of several interdependent factors, understanding the impact of shoppers’ format perception on their decision process helps in analyzing the developing attitude of the Indian retail customers. As organized retail market in India still evolves with notable dominance in categories like apparel, the present paper aims at exploring the constructive attitude of the Indian apparel shoppers with respect to the single and multi-brand stores. Demographic profiles are found to influence format preferences. The survey reveals that the urban Indian middle class, with leisure-oriented shopping motive, desire multi brand stores to satisfy their shop and fun needs. Time-constrained urban female population along with senior citizens prefer single brand formats to suit their objective driven shopping needs. The expression of the format perception of the Indian apparel shoppers not only aids the existing and prospective retailers in formulating sustainable formats, but also serves as a foundation for a deeper probe into the retail consumer behavior research domain specific to emerging markets.