Doctoral Dissertations

Date of Award

12-1994

Degree Type

Dissertation

Degree Name

Doctor of Philosophy

Major

Human Ecology

Major Professor

Mary F. Drake

Committee Members

James Moran, Nancy Fair, David Schumann

Abstract

The purposes of this study were to determine the specific attributes of retail satisfaction across store types and if they differ for the retail executive and the customer. The study is product specific in that it is primarily concerned with apparel retailing. Therefore stated more precisely, the objective of this study is to investigate whether or not apparel retail executives and consumers purchasing apparel, perceive specific attributes of retail satisfaction across store types differently.

Data were collected in March and April 1994 via a questionnaire sent across the United States to 900 consumers and 1023 retail executives. Following the mailing of a reminder postcard, 334 consumer questionnaires were returned (37.1% return rate). Of those, 323 consumer questionnaires were usable. Two-hundred and thirty three executive questionnaires were returned (22.8% return rate). Of those, 201 executive questionnaires were usable.

The researcher fail to reject five of the six hypotheses. for Hypothesis I, the study found a significant difference between the two sets of attributes factors. When testing Hypothesis II, it appears that for these consumer, attributes of store satisfaction is not store specific. The findings from testing Hypothesis III denote that there is a significant effect of both store and product cues. Moreover, the effect of product cues showed more significance than the effect of store cues. The results of testing Hypothesis IV, that executives and customers identify benefit factors of retail stores differently, concluded that both the consumer and the executive agreed that a stores' characteristics relating to building personal esteem, saving the consumer time, and fashion are benefits to the customer purchasing clothing. Testing Hypothesis V and VI signified a relationship between how often these consumers shopped for clothing in each of the stores listed, the possible effect of organizational structure and factors of retail satisfaction.

This investigation provides an application of a unifying perspective from which to view apparel retailing and customer satisfaction. The framework generated by this research offered a more complete view of the shopping experience and thus a more complete understanding of the attributes of retail satisfaction.

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