Annexure II

TO WHOMSOEVER IT MAY CONCERN

This

is

to

certify

that

the

Synopsis carried out

titled by

________________________________________

Mr._________________ ,S/o or D/o____________ has been accomplished under my guidance & supervision as a duly registered MBA student of the Lovely Professional University, Phagwara.

His Synopsis represents his original work and is worthy of consideration for making a research project in the next term.

___________________________________ (Name & Signature of the Faculty Advisor) Date:

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Annexure III

DECLARATION

I, "________________________________(student name),_________(registration no) hereby declare that the work presented herein is genuine work done originally by me and has not been published or submitted elsewhere for the requirement of a degree program. Any literature, data or works done by others and cited within this synopsis has been given due acknowledgement and listed in the reference section.

_______________________ (Students name & Signature) Date:__________________

CUSTOMERS EXPECTATIONS OF STORE ATTRIBUTES:

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A STUDY OF ORGANISED RETAIL OUTLETS IN JALANDHAR

Submitted to Lovely Professional University In partial fulfillment of the requirements for the award of degree of MASTER OF BUSINESS ADMINISTRATION

Submitted by: Group No- QM 62

Supervisor: Name of faculty advisor Mr. Krishan Gopal

Name of the student 1- AMALTAS SINGH Name of the student 2 TUSHAR SHARMA Name of the student 3 VANDANA KUMARI

Reg. No - 3470070097 Reg. No - 3470070023 Reg. No - 11007406

Name of the student 4 SURYAKANT MALHOTRA Reg. No - 3470070064

DEPARTMENT OF MANAGEMENT LOVELY PROFESSIONAL UNIVERSITY PHAGWARA

TABLE OF CONTENTS
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S.NO

CONTENTS

PG. NO

1. INTRODUCTION 1.1 THE FUTURE OF INDIAN RETAIL INDUSTRY 1.2 STORE ATTRIBUTES 1.3 DETERMINANTS OF STORE ATTRIBUTES 1.4 CHALLENGES INDIAN RETAIL INDUSTRY ARE FACING LITERATURE REVIEW

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2 PURPOSE OF THE STUDY / INFORMATION NEEDS 3 SCOPE AND USES 4 OBJECTIVES 5 6. RESEARCH METHODOLOGY 6 6.1 RESEARCH TYPE 6.2 RESEARCH DESIGN 6.3 SAMPLE DESIGN 6.4 DATA SOURCE REFERENCES 7

8-12 13 13 13 14-16

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1. INTRODUCTION The Indian retail industry is the fifth largest in the world. Comprising of organized and unorganized sectors, Indian retail industry is one of the fastest growing industries in India, especially over the last few years. retail marketing is the act of promoting a
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product directly to the consumers who use them. Retail marketing can take on a variety of forms, such as television commercials, direct-mail pieces to consumer households, Internet banner ads or coupons. Retail marketing possesses several advantages to the retailer and to the consumer. Though initially, the retail industry in India was mostly unorganized, however with the change of tastes and preferences of the consumers, the industry is getting more popular these days and getting organized as well. With growing market demand, the industry is expected to grow at a pace of 25-30% annually. The India retail industry is expected to grow from 35,000 crore in 2004-05 to 109,000 crore by the year 2011 According to the 8th Annual Global Retail Development Index (GRDI) of AT Kearney, India retail industry is the most promising emerging market for investment. In 2007, the retail trade in India had a share of 8-10% in the GDP (Gross Domestic Product) of the country. In 2009, it rose to 12%. In 2010 it rose 22% . According to a report by North bride Capita, the India retail industry is grow to US$ 700 billion in 2010. It can be mentioned here that, the share of organized sector in 2007 was 7.5% of the total retail market. 1.1 THE FUTURE OF INDIAN RETAIL INDUSTRY The retail industry in India is currently growing at a great pace and is expected to go up to US$ 833 billion by the year 2013. It is further expected to reach US$ 1.3 trillion by the year 2018 at a CAGR of 10%. As the country has got a high growth rates, the consumer spending has also gone up and is also expected to go up further in the future. In the last four year, the consumer spending in India climbed up to 75%. As a result, the India retail industry is expected to grow further in the future days. By the year 2013, the organized sector is also expected to grow at a CAGR of 40%

1.2 STORE ATTRIBUTES store attributes are viewed as overall image of the store and can drive store selection process (Ghosh, Tripathi, & Kumar, 2010). (Martineau, 1958) identified that store attribute is the method in which the store is described in the consumers mind, one part
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by its useful qualities and other part by a feeling of emotional attributes. (Lindquist, 1974) categorized store attributes into nine items: products, service, consumers, physical facilities, convenience, promotion, store atmosphere, institutional factors and past transactions. Among these factors, product-related considerations such as assortment, quality and price seem to be the most important items. (Erdem, Oumlil, & Tuncalp, 1999) determined three store attributes including status, merchandise and price are significant for apparel shopping. (Westbrook, 1981) named a number of store attributes as source of consumer satisfaction, these store attributes were sales personnel, store atmosphere, product policy and service product, service and promotion. (Soltani, 2004) supposed that based on consumers complains, five store attributes including price, product assortment, promotion, sales personnel and store atmosphere are the main reason of store weakness and lack of consumer satisfaction in Irans hypermarket. That study named them as internal store attributes and demonstrated the need for an improved understanding of the importance of these internal store attributes in hypermarket format. Thus, this study will use them to identify their relationship with lifestyle of Iranian consumer and its influence on consumer satisfaction and loyalty to promote performance of hypermarket format in Iran.

1.3 DETERMINANTS OF STORE ATTRIBUTES

Despite the obvious importance of detecting store attributes that influence consumer decisions, research suggests that the perceived importance of specific store attributes may be partially determined by the personal characteristics of the consumers. This may lead to heterogeneous preferences that vary amongst people with different characteristic profiles. Hansen and Deutscher (1977-1978) found several differences between demographic segments with regard to store attribute importance. Their results indicate, for example, that older consumers and those with lower income and education levels tended to place more weight on store advertising and its policy on adjustments, whereas younger and better education consumers are more concerned about prices and convenience. Semenik and Hansen (1976) indicated that low-income consumers tended to be more concerned with issues related to who shopped at the store and less concerned about the stores selection of merchandise or fast checkout. Hortman, Allaway, Mason and Rasp (1990) suggested that the elderly placed importance mainly on low
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prices, the atmosphere of the stores and the quality of merchandise and convenience.Huddleston, Ford and Mahoney (1990) analysed the relationship between the importance placed on retail store attributes and lifestyle of mature female consumers. The results showed that certain lifestyle characteristics were related to the importance placed on store attributes: credit attributes, importance of quality and price attributes and age related attributes such as salespeople own age and delivery to home. Similarly, a psychographic study among the elderly by Oates, Shufeldt and Vaught (1996) found the significance of lifestyle as the primary determining factor in store attribute importance. The study revealed that lifestyle groups of elderly consumers differed significantly when considering store and personnel quality such as fair prices, quality products and well-known brands.Erdem, Oumlil and Tuncalp (1999) examined the linkage between consumer values and the importance of some salient store attributes. They found that the importance judgments for store attributes were influenced by the set of terminal and instrumental values viewed as important by the consumers. But even though the importance of store attributes were related to both kinds of values, there was a disproportionate predominance of terminal values in this influence.Apart from other personal characteristics such as lifestyle activities, values and demographics such as age, income, gender, occupation and education attainment, limited research indicates that religiosity appears to influence some aspects of retail store evaluative criteria. McDaniel and Burnett (1990) investigated the influence of religiosity on the importance of various retail department store attributes held by consumers. In their study, religiosity was viewed from two perspectives: religious commitment and religious affiliation. The results of this study show that one aspect of religiosity, religious 126 The Journal of Human Resource and Adult Learning Vol. 4, Num. 2, December 2008 commitment, particularly measured by cognitive religiosity and one aspect of behavioural religiosity are significant in predicting the importance individuals place on certain retail evaluative criteria. Consumers with a high degree of cognitive religious commitment viewed sales personnel friendliness, shopping efficiency, and product quality as being of greater importance in selecting a retail store than did those low in cognitive religious commitment. Religious contribution, a behavioral component of religious commitment, was positively and significantly associated with sales personnel friendliness/assistance and credit availability. 1.4 CHALLENGES INDIAN RETAIL INDUSTRY ARE FACING :
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The tax structure in India favors small retail business Lack of adequate infrastructure facilities High cost of real estate Restrictions in Foreign Direct Investment Shortage of retail study options Shortage of trained manpower Low retail management skill

2. LITERATURE REVIEW

V. Ann Paulins, Loren V. Geistfeld, (2003) describes the Consumer perceptions

of retail store attributes for a set of particular stores were examined to determine their effect on store preference. Respondents rated 13 stores. Four variables were found to affect store preference using forward stepwise logistic regression: type of clothing desired in stock, outside store appearance, shopping hours, and advertising. Significance of the effect of store attributes on store preference varied by store type. In addition, associations between customer perception of store attributes, education and age were observed. Implications for researchers and practitioners are discussed.
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Piyali Ghosh , Vibhuti Tripathi & Anil Kumar (2010) Study emphasizes on the

phenomenal growth of retail in India is reflected in the rapid increase in number of supermarkets, departmental stores and hypermarkets in the country. However, this unperfected growth trend has been challenged by the shadow of the current economic slowdown, which has raised a fear of dip in consumption and slowdown of growth for Indian organized retailers. At a time when consumer spending is on decline, success will lie with those retailers that can drive customer loyalty by responding to the demands of the discerning consumer. This study is an attempt to address issues related to store attributes and their relevance in the store selection process. Eleven variables (store attributes) have been identified in this article based on theory and judgment. Factor analysis has yielded three factors: Convenience & Merchandise Mix, Store Atmospherics and Services. The factors identified and recommendations made in the article would be of use to retailers in designing their outlets with store attributes that would meet the expectations of shoppers and thus motivate them towards store patronage decisions.

Leanne H.Y. Too, Anne L. Souchon & Peter C. Thirkell (2001) Customer

loyalty is increasingly seen to be crucial to the success of business organisations, with the growing realisation that attracting new customers is far more expensive than retaining existing ones. It has been suggested that a way of increasing customer retention is through secure relationships between buyers and sellers. Surprisingly, however, and despite the growing body of literature on relationship marketing issues, little empirical research has been conducted on the link between relationship marketing and customer loyalty in a retailing context. This paper attempts to address this gap by presenting and testing a conceptual model of the process by which the implementation of relationship marketing can enhance such loyalty. A dyadic exploratory study of clothing store managers and their customers was conducted. Findings reveal that customers' perceptions of clothing stores' relationship marketing efforts are crucial to enhanced commitment and loyalty. Implications are drawn from these results, and future research directions are discussed.

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Leung and Oppewal (1999) They had conducted research on the roles of store and brand names in consumers choice of a retail outlet and concluded that a highquality brand or high-quality store is sufficient to attract the customer to a retail store. The study also revealed that store names have a larger impact on store choice than the brand names of the products that these stores have on offer. Mridula S. Mishra (2007) Organized retail has started to spread its roots in the

Indian market since past one decade and is gradually making mark among all sections of the society. This paper tries to explore the way organized retail has dramatically changed not only the Indian traditional retailing structure by also the consumption behavior. The consumption behavior was examined with the help of a structured questionnaire. The results show that, for consumers, the shopping mall or variant of organized retail format is the preferred type of retail store, due to convenience and variety.

Patricia Huddleston, Judith Whipple, Rachel Nye Mattick, et al.(2009) The

study examines store attributes of product assortment, price, quality, and service in order to determine which attributes have the greatest impact on store satisfaction for each store format. Grocery store customers were compared to conventional grocery store customers. For both store formats, store price, product assortment, service and quality positively influenced satisfaction. Anon (1973) , Consumer demographics, store attributes, and retail format choice in the US grocery market , International Journal of Retail & Distribution Management This study provides a general understanding of grocery consumers . here the researcher tried to Identifies demographic groups who frequent specific formats (specialty grocers, traditional supermarkets, supercenters, warehouse clubs, internet grocers) and examines store attributes (e.g. price competitiveness, product selection, and atmosphere) as drivers of format choice. David Bell ,Teck-Hua Ho &Christopher Tang (2000) The findings of this study are : Once consumers have settled into satisfying the major share of their needs at one store, it is very difficult to get them to switch.
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People also develop store loyalties for particular products, according to the study. Although a consumer may do half of his or her shopping at store A and half at store B, the purchase proportion of certain products is not necessarily 50/50. For example, a person may buy 90% of his soda from one store, even though he buys half of his shopping list at another store. Stores can use advertising, promotions and private labels to create a draw on a particular category of products that causes people to perceive the benefit of buying a product at one store to be higher than it is. And, if you are able to do this over enough categories, you will eventually tip the scale so those shoppers do all their shopping at your store. It is always cheaper to keep customers than to try to attract new ones. Therefore, all stores should be creative about enhancing store-specific benefits in ways that keep customers coming back."

Visser et al (2006) He studied the importance of apparel store image attributes

as perceived by female consumers by means of eight focus groups. Results indicated that merchandise and clientele were perceived as the most important dimensions, followed by service; physical facilities were the least important.

Hedrick et al (2005) He propose that store environment and store atmospherics

can influence customer's expectations on the retail salesperson. They conducted a study on sales people and store atmosphere, and identified that customer's perceptions of a salesperson's attributes and relationship building behaviors were important drivers of customer satisfaction. In retail, intentions are usually determined by a willingness to stay in the store, willingness to repurchase, willingness to purchase more in the future and willingness to recommend the store to others.

Stephen J. Arnold, Sylvia Ma, Douglas J. Tigert (1978), The conclusion of this

study are: First, price/value for the money is an important attribute and will be determinant, it appears, with even small amounts of differentiation across competitors. Attributes either equally important or secondary to price appear to differ depending upon the environment. Among retail food stores, according to these studies, it is

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locational convenience. Among fashion clothing stores, however, it is assortment and quality. There is considerable evidence that whenever there is noticeable dispersion across supermarket chains on the economy/utility dimensions (price, location), those store characteristics dominate the store choice process. Fashion shoppers, on the other hand are not as concerned about physical convenience. They search out value, quality, wide assortments, and up-to-date fashions. They appear to be willing to travel to whatever location is required to find what they want.

Exploring Consumer Retail Shopping Experience S. Ramesh Kumar,

Professor and U. Dinesh Kumar The study concluded that stock availability, quality, brand variety, knowledgeable salespeople, layout- space, lighting, product display, category variety and convenient location are factors relevant in their order of influence in the modern retail format. While factors not significant include stocking of latest products, air conditioning, labelling, appealing interiors, ease of locating product, parking space, amenities, packaging and delivery, ease in locating store personnel, courteous and helpful salespersons, ease of return, payment ease, checkout speed, instore advertisements, competitive prices and discounts and offers. Thus, grocery retailers can refer to the factor priority when applying trade-off between factors.

3. PURPOSE OF THE STUDY India has been ranked as the fourth most attractive nation for retail investment among 30 emerging markets by the US-based global management consulting firm, A T Kearney, in its Global Retail Development Index (GRDI) 2011. Also FDI will be allowed in the coming future , due to which we will see , big retail stores all around . So it is necessary to understand their attributes which are differentiating them in competition. E.g. transportation links , parking facility , store ambience , easy reach offering , image influence , attractiveness etc are some of the attributes.

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4. SCOPE AND USES:

It can help the marketers to develop the effective marketing strategy for their retail stores. Help us gain independent knowledge about the consumer attitude of the outlets identified. Researchers and students can get additional information from this research.

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5. OBJECTIVES To find out the attributes of the retail store which affect/attract customers to shop there. To find out customers expectation from organised retail stores. To find out the factors for customers switching from one store to another.

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6. RESEARCH METHODOLOGY Research is an organized inquiry designed and carried out to provide information to solve the problem. The fact, search is an art of scientific investigation of a certain problem. Research is the process of systematically obtaining accurate answers to significant and pertinent questions by the use of the scientific methods gathering and interpreting information.

6.1 RESEARCH TYPE Descriptive research: Descriptive researches are those studies which are concerned with describing the characteristics of particular individual or of a group. The major purpose of descriptive research is description of the state of the affairs as it exists at

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present. The main feature of this method is that the researcher has no control over the variables and he report only what has happened or happening.

6.2 RESEARCH DESIGN A research design is the arrangement of conditions for collection and analysis of data in a manner that aims to combine relevance to the research purpose with economy in procedure. In this research, Descriptive Research Design will be used. 6.3 SAMPLE DESIGN a. Population of the study:- People of Jalandhar city who shop in organized retail stores.

Retail stores we will visit : viva collage , vishal mega mart , reliance trends , reliance digital ,Ritu wears , Chunmun mall , and easy day.

b. Sample size:- 300 c. Data collection instrument: - As a survey will be conducted to collect the data from respondents; so for this purpose a questionnaire will be designed. 6.4 DATA SOURCE Primary data and Secondary data Primary data:-It is the first hand information collected directly from customer. The primary data is that, which is collected fresh and for the first time. Techniques which we will use for collecting primary data will be questionnaire. Secondary Data: - Secondary data will be collected through Internet, Journals and Newspapers.

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7. REFERENCES V. Ann Paulins, Loren V. Geistfeld, (2003) "The effect of consumer perceptions of store attributes on apparel store preference", Journal of Fashion Marketing and Management, Vol. 7 , No 4, pp.371 385 Piyali Ghosh , Vibhuti Tripathi & Anil Kumar (2010) Customer expectations of store attributes: A study of organized retail outlets in India , Journal of Retail & Leisure Property, Vol 9, pp 7587 Leanne H.Y. Too, Anne L. Souchon & Peter C. Thirkell (2001) Relationship Marketing and Customer Loyalty in a Retail Setting , Journal of Marketing Management .Vol 17,No 3 , pp 287-319 Mridula S. Mishra (2007), The Consumption Pattern of Indian Consumers: Choice between Traditional and Organized Retail Patricia Huddleston, Judith Whipple, Rachel Nye Mattick, et al.(2009) "Customer satisfaction in food retailing: comparing specialty and conventional grocery
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stores", International Journal of Retail & Distribution Management, Vol. 37 No: 1, pp.63 80 Anon (1973) , Consumer demographics, store attributes, and retail format choice in the US grocery market , International Journal of Retail & Distribution Management David Bell ,Teck-Hua Ho &Christopher Tang (2000) ,How Store Location and Pricing Structure Affect Shopping Behavior

Stephen J. Arnold, Sylvia Ma, Douglas J. Tigert (1978), "A comparative analysis of determinant attributes in retail store selection", vol 5, pp: 663-667.

Exploring Consumer Retail Shopping Experience S. Ramesh Kumar, Professor and U. Dinesh Kumar

WEBLINKS

http://www.emeraldinsight.com/journals.htm?articleid=858559&show=html

www.palgrave-journals.com/rlp/journal/v9/n1/abs/rlp200927a.html
http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1362/0267257012652140 http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=994238 http://www.emeraldinsight.com/journals.htm?articleid=1769011&show=pdf

http://www.emeraldinsight.com/journals.htm?articleid=1556603&show=html http://knowledge.wharton.upenn.edu/article.cfm?articleid=203 http://www.acrwebsite.org/volumes/display.asp?id=9500

http://tejas-iimb.org/articles/82.php

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