Ascendancy of store image on customer behaviour: An empirical analysis

The store is most important mode of communication between a retailer and its shoppers. Store is the place where all the sales happen or not to happen. Retailers should cater an enthusiastic and prosper shopping environment in the store to get the desired image, sales and profit from the targeted visitors. A good store image entices customers to make a purchase, spent more money and time, revisit, impulse purchase and also maintain customer interest, increase frequency to visit store. Store image has also an impact on store choice, store satisfaction, store loyalty, attitude towards store and perceived risk. Store image not only influence the customer perception, purchase intention, purchase making decisions, learning, life style, and benefits but also motivate them to spread positive word of mouth. The purpose of this paper was to analyze the influences of store image on customer behavior. Customers/visitors of shopping centers (n=200) were surveyed on random basis through printed questionnaires by face to face interview during November-December 2010. Weighted Average Score Method and Kolmogorov-Smirnov One Sample Test have been applied to test the hypothesis. A significant influence of store image has been found on customer behaviour. The study was confined to only selected region of Pune district (Maharastra) with randomly selected customers/visitors of shopping centers. The study will prove to be a great help for researchers/management students who want to do similar or related study in the future