Consumer Patronage and Perception Towards Shopping Malls in East of Nairobi County

Abstract

The study aimed at establishing consumer patronage and perception towards seven malls in East of Nairobi. The study was guided by the theory of planned behavior and buyer behavior theory. The study employed a descriptive cross sectional research design and used convenience sampling. The sample size was 240 calculated from GPOWER but the study relied on a total of 138 customers who filled the questionnaire. The researcher administered the questionnaire individually to the customers that visited the mall. Descriptive statistics were used to analyze the respondents’ demographics and other characteristics by getting mean, frequency and standard deviation. The findings of descriptive statistics showed that majority of the mall patron were female and those who frequently visited the mall were between 25 35years.Notably, most of the respondents were married, had a bachelor’s degree, full time employees and visited the mall once a month the regression analysis showed that the model explains approximately 15% of the variance in perception of store and non-store aspects. This finding implies that other variables not included in the model contribute 85.3% in influencing the perceptions. Key findings indicate a statistically significant relationship between customer experience with store aspects and customer perceptions. In addition, similarities and differences in perceptions and patronage behavior were noted among demographic groups in East Nairobi. Regression analysis results showed that only customer experience with store aspects significantly predicted perception of store and non-store aspects. Thus, holding customer experience with non-store elements constant, a unit increase in customer experience with store elements will lead to an increase in the perception of store and non-store elements. The ANOVA results establish the significance of the regression model indicating a significant f- value (p = 0.001). The model was statistically significant in predicting how customer experience with non-store aspects and customer experience with store aspects impact overall customer perceptions. The study recommends that further study should be conducted including more independent variables to explore a range of demographic factors. Additionally, variables such as customer preferences, mall location, type of merchandise, services offered, access, price and promotion, and within-category brand/item should be considered in future studies.