Impact of Retail Store Atmospheric Factors on Repurchase Intention

Abstract

Shopping in supermarkets has steadily gone up over the years, especially across the non-industrialized countries due to the benefits it provides to the customer including high quality hygiene & affordable pricing. Literature has emphasized the importance of store atmosphere in providing a quality shopping experience for the customer. When referring the related research papers and articles, the researchers noticed that those are concentrating on the impact of atmospheric effect on buying behaviour, and customer satisfaction, customer relationship, customer perception and customer loyalty are rather lacking when considering the local/Sri Lankan context. However, as a country where modern trade is picking up with a significant speed, there is a real need for contextual studies. Therefore, through this research, the researcher attempts to study both exterior and interior factors which have an effect on customer purchasing intention. The questionnaires were based on four atmospheric variables namely, exterior atmospheric, interior atmospheric, store layout and visual merchandising while the re-purchase intention was used as the dependent variable. Data was collected from 150 respondents. Study found that there is a significant impact of exterior atmospheric on customers’ purchase intention. The study also found that there is a significant impact of Interior Atmospheric on customer’s purchase intention. Finally, the study accepted that there is a significant impact of visual merchandising on customer’s purchase intention. These findings are in consistence with retail marketing literature.