Perception of Shopping Centers: An Empirical Study

Previous research has indicated that shopping center images consist of various components and that different images are held by consumers, retailers, and mall management. The study examines the consumers’, retailers’s, and mall managements’ images of two shopping centers in the City of Waterloo. One center is Conestoga Mall; the other is Westmount Place. Responses were obtained from shoppers, retailers, and management by use of questionnaires and interviews. The data was analyzed using Biomedical Programs (BMD), a frequency count, factor analytic work, and step-wise multiple regression. It was determined that the image components of consumers, retailers, and mall management were different for Conestoga Mall. Consumers and retailers at Westmount Place selected the same image components by differed in the ranking of their importance. Consumers, retailers and mall management felt that Conestoga Mall and Westmount Place had or generated different images