A study on intention of consumer shopping behavior towards retail stores in Chennai District

Consumer behavior signifies the totality of consumers’ decisions with respect to the acquisition, consumption and disposition of goods, services, time and ideas by human decision making units. Clearly, consumer behavior frequently involves decisions within retailing contexts or with retail phenomena serving as boundary or framing conditions. Nevertheless, to say the importance of understanding consumer behavior has been more important to retailers than ever. In particular, effective retail strategy satisfies consumer needs better than competitors’ strategies and understanding consumer needs and buying behavior is critical, for effective retail decision-making as well as the subsequent development and implementation of retail strategy. To woo the consumers, the retail industry must understand the behavior of the consumers. But understanding consumer behavior is complex, as it is related to psychology of consumers and also depends on various factors which have a direct bearing on consumer behavior. The study has been carried out with the following objectives:

• To analyze the shopping intention of consumers towards retail stores;

• To analyze the shopping attitude of consumers towards retail stores; and

• To offer valid suggestions for the retailers to understand the consumer behavior for the betterment of their business.

The primary data was collected through a well structured questionnaire. The questionnaire covered the questions regarding demographic factors of the consumers, shopping intention and attitude of consumers in retail stores. A simple random sampling method was used to elicit the necessary information from the consumers of retail stores in Chennai district. The sample size of 620 respondents has been duly selected to represent the entire universe.