Analytical study of correlation between retail store image and shopping behaviour of Saudi Arabian consumers

In the fast-moving consumer industry, consumers' behaviour is influenced by the brand's representative character and the first-hand experience after consuming goods. While many studies have been conducted to explore the fundamental characteristics of consumers' behaviour, the industry needs further analysis, which would benefit from formulating business strategies to bridge the gap between managers' imagination about the consumers' buying behaviour and the realities on the ground. This research aims to evaluate Saudi Arabian consumers' behaviour at supermarkets, hypermarkets, wholesale stores and Baqalas (local retail outlets). It identifies the representative character of product selling establishment in the image of consumers, examines differences between expectation and satisfaction and guides to formulate strategies to strengthen the relationship between expectation and consumers' satisfaction with a last objective of making companies financially viable. During the study, 625 consumers were interacted through a structured questionnaire from eight cities in Saudi Arabia, which has a multicultural political environment with a unique theological ambience with the progress of all sections of the society. Four store image criteria were set for examination: services, price, location and atmosphere, and convenience. The study says that a store's representative character varies considerably by the class of customers, i.e. gender, age, ethnicity and social stratification that affect customers' shopping decisions. By exploring the factors affecting consumers' decisions, the findings would play a pivotal role in providing valuable inputs to managers to improve the functional adequacy of supermarket, hypermarkets, wholesalers and even baqalas (local retail outlets) with an ultimate objective to makes their presence felt in the stiff competitive scenario of Saudi Arabia.