Measuring Clients’ Satisfaction toward Shopping Centers – Empirical Evidences from Romania

AbstractAlthough shopping centers are a relatively recent phenomenon in the landscape of local retailing in most Romanian cities, one can notice the increase in size of their retail floor, as well as the rise of local investors that are willing to invest in such businesses. The development of shopping centers in Romania undergoes such a tremendous evolution, that some academicians even argue that the shopping centers market has reached its mature stage. While still a “fashionable” concept, the afflux of clients is still considerable high. Under such conditions one would ask himself if customers can be properly satisfied by shopping centers, as well as which the relevant satisfaction dimensions would be. The present study aims to measure shopping centers clients’ satisfaction by means of different dimensions. Contrary to initial expectation underlined by the literature, that the image is a unitary concept, the obtained results show that overall clients’ satisfaction is determined both by the satisfaction with clothing stores and by that of the main anchor food stores as well as of that purchased products quality and the felt pleasantness when visiting a shopping center