Mall Preferences Essay Example for Free

Mall Preferences Essay Mall Attractiveness and Shopping Preferences is a study conducted to find out what variables attract shoppers to a mall, their preferences and how mall operators should consider this significant analysis to implement an effective strategy to position their strategy. The study involved five major shopping malls in Davao City: SM City Davao, NCCC mall of Davao, Gaisano Mall of Davao, Gaisano South City Mall and Victoria Plaza. Factor analysis is applied for this study and complimented by a cluster analysis of the demographic characteristics of the respondents. The respondents composed of mall shoppers who were equally apportioned across the malls and clustered according to classifications: Traditional shoppers, Destination Shoppers and Enthusiastic shoppers. The result of the study reveals that SM City of Davao is well positioned in attracting shoppers, the mall is favored by customers in terms of mall atmospherics, service, promotion and entertainment. SM is followed closely by NCCC mall of Davao and Gaisano Mall of Davao, while Gaisano South City mall and Victoria Plaza were far behind in their market positioning and viability. Ever since its existence, shopping malls become the integral part of the shoppers’ lifestyle because of the convenience, entertainment and products’ availability it offers to the consumers, no doubt, these establishments helped enhance the day-to-day life of the people. With several malls mushroomed in the city in recent years, people have given wide choices based on their needs and leisure like where to spend time bonding with friends and love ones and where to shop . Mall operators, due to stiff competitions, must decide what positioning strategies they would implement to lure consumers and move ahead with their competitors. In this study, which factor analysis is applied, mall operators were given an idea what are the significant factors that drive shoppers to a shopping mall. The respondents of this study, which were thoroughly clustered into three categories, represent all the socioeconomic classes of the society, which is very specific for the study to have an accurate result in identifying shoppers’ preferences on what mall attributes they will be easily attracted. The study, which revealed SM City of Davao as the most preferred followed by NCC mall of Davao and Gaisano mall of Davao, tells precisely the real and actual sentiments of shoppers in the city on where they would want to go to for pleasure and for shopping activities. I do agree with the result that Gaisano mall of Davao ranked high among the top three malls in terms of accessibility because of its proximity to the downtown area where most students and professionals are living, though the study revealed that this lead is very slim, it is still a big factor for Gaisano mall operators to carefully tap their best resources in attracting customers in order to maintain its loyalty, giving them a competitive edge against NCCC and SM in attracting more shoppers. SM City clearly shows its best advantages against competitors because of implementing a good positioning and marketing strategy, it caters and answers the needs of shoppers why they want to go to the mall in the first place, because most of the respondents can be categorized as young adults, professionals and fun-loving individuals, their preferences are always be on the entertainment, convenience, elegant products and good mall atmosphere. These shoppers can be easily attracted with a mall atmosphere that is favorable to their lifestyle choices. This result of the most preferred mall in Davao does not follow that most shoppers are price conscious, this only tells that, especially the young respondents, most shoppers prefer an establishment that is highly innovative, friendly, having cool brands of products and offers a terrific environment for socializing with friends. Therefore, the recommendations presented is appropriate as young shoppers are easily attracted to an environment which offers entertainment, greater value of merchandise and stylish amenities, but the purchasing power of the shoppers should not be ignored as shoppers from class C and D are potential market. Mall operators should also balance the elements mall atmosphere innovative products and moderate pricing of the merchandise.