IMPACT OF THE AMBIANCE OF A SHOPPING MALL ON CONSUMERS’ PERCEPTIONS AND PREFERENCES: AN EMPIRICAL STUDY IN THE INDIAN CONTEXT

Abstract

Atmospheric branding is becoming one of the most important marketing communication points to create positive consumers’ perception. It has been identified that consumers’ preferences are highly influenced by the atmosphere of the shopping mall. There is a positive association between consumers’ emotions, preferences, and store atmosphere. Very limited studies have been conducted on atmospheric branding of a shopping mall, in the Indian context. This present study aims to identify the factors of the ambiance of shopping malls that influence the consumers and classify them broadly. Furthermore, the study also tries to identify the extent to which the impact is created by the factors. Lastly, the present study is being conducted to rank the factors based on their importance and find the variable that influences the most. The results statistically support that a) all the variables can be broadly classified into six categories namely: Basic Benefits, Sensitivity and Care for Customers, Brand Reputation, Exclusive benefits , Layout and Nature of the crowd, b) The result also indicates that Behaviour of the staffs, Exclusive Brands, Fire Exit, Degree of Brightness in the mall, Nature of the crowd impact the minds of the customers the most followed by the behaviour of the staffs and the Presence of exclusive brands.