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Abstract
Consumer's store preferences are associated with the quality of services delivered by the retailer. The present study is carried out to measure the preferences of consumers based on quality of services delivered by retail stores. To measure the service quality of grocery retail stores, traditional scale SERVQUAL, developed by Parasuraman, Zeithaml, & Berry (1985) is used. Variables associated with delivering service quality are grouped on RATER model. The data has been collected through questionnaire and the results have been concluded using ANOVA on SPSS 17. The study confirms that retail service quality parameters play vital role in determining consumer preferences for a specific format. Customer satisfaction is also based on the efficacy of services delivered by the retailers which results into developing their preferences for a specific retail format in grocery.
Keywords: Retail formats, Retail service quality, Service delivery, Store preferences
INTRODUCTION
Retail sector is one of fastest growing sectors of India. The grocery and FMCGs, sector has grown in terms of shopping malls and hypermarkets in past few years. The retail sector in India has been categorized into two parts. The unorganized retail has captured a major portion of a pie with 95% of total share. The organized retail sector with mere 5% share consists of super markets, departmental stores, shopping malls and hyper markets. The existing formats primarily deal in grocery items, FMCGs and personal care products.
India's grocery retail segment is the most attractive segment in the world. India's strong growth fundamentals along with increased urbanization and consumerism opened immense scope for retail expansion for foreign players. (IBEF Retail 2013). Availability of retail services and consistency in their delivery process is an important element for consumers' choice of a retail store. Traditional retail stores on one hand are focusing on personalized services where as modern retailers are focusing on delivering 'Shopping Experience' by improving the quality of services provided by them.
SERVICE QUALITY SCALE
A Retail Service Quality Scale was designed by Zeithaml, Parasuraman, and Berry in mid 1980s to measure five dimensions of service quality: Reliability, Assurance, Tangibility, Empathy and Responsiveness. This scale was later known as RATER scale and has been used as a basis of measuring service quality by many researchers. (Parasuraman et. al. 1994 Dabholkar et....