Influence of Facilities on Patronage of the Various Shopping Malls in Ibadan, Nigeria

The way shopping malls have sprawled every nook and cranny particularly in the developing economy is evident from major cities to even sub-urban areas. The expansion evident in the various locations of these shopping malls can be attributed to its patronage. Earlier researchers have linked the patronage of these malls to influences resulting from location, gender, image, type of shoppers amongst other. Even though studies on facilities and how it influences patronage are evident particularly in the developed economies such work also studied other factors thereby not giving a detailed finding on the linkage between facilities provided in such malls and the level of patronage from shoppers. This present study thereby focuses on influence of facilities provided on patronage of the five (5) identified shopping malls in Ibadan, Oyo State Nigeria. The study being a cross-sectional research survey entailed the distribution of questionnaires to 143, 126, 127, 145 and 126 shoppers of Cocoa Mall; Heritage Mall; Jericho Mall; Palms Mall and Ventura Mall, respectively all located in the study area, Ibadan. A cumulative response rate of 80.3% was attained. Data collected was analysed using descriptive statistics of weighted mean and substantiated with factor analysis. It was revealed that most identified facilities in the malls have a great influence on patronage of the malls. However, in order to avoid superfluity of investment, investors could commence provision of Eatery/ Food court (Co-V1, 0.72) as recreation facility; Kids play center (Co-V1, 0.79) as children’s facility; Toilet/Restroom (Co-V1, 0.84) as service facility; POS (Co-V1, 0.91) as banking facility and free medical checkup (Co- V1, 0.91) as health facility as these have most remarkable influence on patronage of the malls. The researchers hereby advocated that investors can be guided in the provision of the relevant facilities to prevent superfluity while the keen sustenance of these specific facilities can sustain patronage of the various malls in the study area