Store Patronage: An Extension of the Theory of Planned Behaviour

Abstract

The study of consumer store-choice or store patronage behavior has been an important area ofresearch in retailing for many decades. The decision on the choice of store has been modeled indifferent ways in the literature. Prediction ofBranded retail grocery store patronage has long been ofinterest to scholars and practitioners. For retailers, the importance of this theory is in gaining theideas and knowledge of how to design the retailing strategy tailored to specific consumers’ needsandwants. The present paper examines the importance of store patronage motives for major shoppingtrips using Theory of Planned Behaviour and explores how they are associated with purchasingoutcomes. In Chennai the branded grocery supermarket store likeSpencer’s, More and RelianceSupermarket are dominating the market.Most of the store patronage research available can beclassified either as store image studies or as retail segmentation or satisfaction studies. The storepatronage studies tend to focusexclusively on the perceived image of specific retail stores and on thedifferences in perceived store images across consumers (Lazer & Wyckham, 1969; Martineau, 1958;Rich & Portis, 1964; Tillman, 1967). Little attention is given to the relative importance of the variousdimensions of perceived store image to the consumer's store patronage decision. Moreover, there istypically no attempt to associate the store patronage dimensions with consistent sets theory ofplanned behaviour.