importance of entertainment in the shopping center experience: Evidence from Singapore, The

Journal of Real Estate Portfolio Management, Sep-Dec 2002 by Ibrahim, Muhammad F, Wee, Ng C

The quantitative research supported the hypothesis that retailer attributes, customer attributes and transport mode/travel attributes significantly affect an entertaining shopping experience. In addition, this study found that twenty-eight of the thirty-four attributes have importance mean scores of more than 4. This implies that these variables influence an entertaining shopping experience. In particular, survey respondents placed high importance on the transport mode/travel attributes such as "absence of waiting time" (5.17), "absence of congestion" (5.17), "absence of crowd in transport mode" (5.15), "traveling time to shopping center" (5.15), "directness of travel to shopping center" (5.15) and "safety of travel" (5.13). This indicates that travel attributes significantly affect an entertaining shopping experience. Finally, numerous independent t-tests and ANOVA tests analyzed the effect of the various socioeconomic groups on the mean importance ratings of the respondents. Respondents with different socioeconomic characteristics considered the importance of the factors that affect an entertaining shopping experience differently.

From a theoretical perspective, this study broadens the literature by demonstrating that transport mode/travel factors significantly affect an entertaining shopping experience. Other than customer factors that are unique to each individual, retailer and shopping center management could focus on the retailer and transport mode/travel factors when creating an entertaining shopping experience. The findings indicate that an entertaining shopping experience derived from retailer and transport mode/travel factors significantly affects patronage behavior. One implication is for retailer and shopping center managers to examine the underlying attributes in their facilities so as to develop competitive marketing strategies that attract shoppers. It is imperative that there are sales and marketing promotions, discounts, a wide variety of products and stores to facilitate an entertaining shopping experience in Singapore. The findings also indicate the importance of travel in contributing to an entertaining shopping experience. Therefore, shopping center management should also consider store location, as well as the design of the transportation facilities, so that they facilitate an enjoyable shopping experience. For example, to reduce the tension and effort in grocery shopping, supermarkets should be located close to the carpark and other transportation facilities. Similarly, appropriate safety features, shelter and other features to ease travel should be provided. These arrangements would involve collaborations among the shopping center management, local councils and the relevant planning agencies. This calls for greater integration in the land use and transport planning process.

As socioeconomic groups differ in their preference, shopping center management should focus on those factors that are important to their target audience. For example, shoppers of different age groups and marital status seem to have different retailer preferences, particularly the features of the shopping centers and their environments. Therefore, the shopping center management should apply different marketing strategies for store location and tenant selection that address the needs of their entire audience.