Exploring Motivational Drivers for Shopping at Physical Fashion Retail Stores: Evidence from South Africa

This study explored the motivational drivers that influence customers’ decisions to frequent physical fashion retail stores in South Africa, so as to be more competitive and customer-satisfaction driven in the face of challenges orchestrated by increased online shopping and the COVID-19 pandemic. The qualitative methodology followed an exploratory research design. Data were collected by conducting ten in-depth interviews analyzed by coding, categorization, and thematization. The findings of this study show that South African customers prefer to shop in-store due to tactile and sensory reasons, instant gratification, and social contact. Six themes were identified by analyzing the data: browsing, fitting, timeliness, therapy, socializing, and expectation. The insights gained from this study are of importance to academics, researchers, and retail administrators for deepening the understanding of why customers shop at physical fashion retail stores, and how improvement of customer experience and store attractiveness can be implemented within physical retail environments. Improving the identified motivation drivers should be attempted by fashion retailers in an effort to remain competitive, increase customer footfall and pivot on shifting customer preferences, given that it could increase customer satisfaction and loyalty.