Outlet Attributes as Determinants of Preference of Women between a Supermarket and a Traditional Open Market

Abstract

Supermarket as a shopping outlet is widely documented in marketing literature. This is without any cognizance to African traditional open market as a potential substitute. This gap is now recognized to warrant a comparison between these two outlets. The study was flagged off with an introductory piece and relevant literature reviewed. The methodology was structured to include research design; a specification of relevant population of study; description of sample size and the sampling technique involved; instrumentation and its tests for reliability/validity in ensuring the suitability of the instrument for data collection. SPSS tool was used to analyze data generated from 249 women respondents. Findings showed firstly that seven attributes were considered important in making a choice of outlets and the order of importance is: (i) Quality, (ii) Price, (iii) Location, (iv) Cleanliness, (v) Product assortment, (vi) Pricing method, and (vii) Parking space. Secondly, 62 percent of respondents preferred supermarket over open market as a shopping outlet. Thirdly, the null hypotheses were rejected in favour of the alternate hypotheses. Though, majority of women preferred supermarket, yet the mean scores of most of the influencing variables were equally found to be significant for the traditional open market. Consequently, it is recommended that supermarket operators need not be complacent as respondents could easily switch patronage. Further research should cover the areas of consumer and psychological attributes and their impact on outlet choice of African women.