Purchasing preferences for sports shoes: An investigation of University students in Botswana

The purpose of this study was to find out factors that influence University students’ purchasing preferences for sports shoes. Several factors from literature such as comfort, advertising, brand, price, style and quality have been identified as influencing university students to purchase sports shoes. A sample (N=120) of University of Botswana sport marketing students participated in the study. The Lyons and Jackson Athletic Shoe Survey questionnaire was modified and used to gather responses from the participants. The responses of the participants were rated on a Likert scale representing strongly agree to strongly disagree on a scale of 1 - 5. Data was analysed descriptively by the use of means, frequencies and percentages for the students’ demographics and purchasing preferences. The independent t-test was used to determine if significant differences exists between the purchasing preferences mean scores of males and females at a selected probability level. The results indicated that quality is the most influential factor in purchasing sports shoes by university students. The results of T-test showed no significant differences between males and females on their preferences which signified similar purchasing behaviour. The study is useful in providing further information to shoe marketers on University students’ purchasing preferences in order to develop better marketing strategies.Keywords: Consumer behavior, advertising, brand, quality, comfort level