The importance retailers ascribe to the child market segment

Today, the child market segment is a viable target for retailers to pursue. Little research has empirically addressed retailer's beliefs about the child market segment. Therefore, this research was designed to identify the importance retailers ascribe to the child market segment. To accomplish this purpose, three categories of independent variables were extracted from the literature review on children as consumers and the market segmentation literature. These variables were: market classification, store manager demographics, and retail store characteristics.

A self-administered questionnaire was mailed to retail store managers within a three county area in a southeastern state. The first research question measured the importance retailers ascribe to the child market segment according to market classification (primary market, influence market, or future market). The next question asked whether the importance of the child market segment differed based on characteristics of the stores and the store managers.

The data from the survey were analyzed using frequency distributions, analysis of variance, chi-square tests, and Kruskal-Wallis tests. When looking at the importance ascribed the child market segment as the dependent variable on analysis of variance, significant differences were found in the importance placed on the child market segment in relation to the retailer's market classification of children. Analysis of variance also revealed a significant difference in the importance of the child market segment based on the gender of the store manager. Other significant differences included store safety issues and store policy.