PERCEIVED IMPORTANCE OF RETAIL PRODUCT ATTRIBUTES : A CONTEXT ANALYSIS OF EMERGING RETAIL FORMATS

Dr. Kishore K Das 1 and Priyanka Tripathy 2 . 1. Dean, School of Commerce, Ravenshaw University, Cuttack, Odisha. 2. Research Scholar, School of Commerce and Management Studies, Ravenshaw University, Cuttack–753003. ...................................................................................................................... Manuscript Info Abstract ......................... ........................................................................ Manuscript History

India is a developing Country. It has a very huge retail market. India is witnessing tremendous progress but the performance of organized retailing has been dismal. Here, in India organized retailers are trying out a variety of formats. Retail is India's largest industry, accounting for over 10 per cent of the country's GDP and around 8 per cent of the employment. The innovations brought by retailers and marketers in the practice of retailing have been providing new paradigms in the way shoppers have been disposed towards their act of shopping. The emerging modern retail formats conforming to the changed shopper expectations and realignment of the choice set of stores providing new experiences and options to shop for the consumer. The present study has picturised the socio, economic and demographic profile of consumers and used ANOVA analysis to know the significant differences among consumers' choice of product attributes from different retail formats with respect to various socio, economic and demographic profile of consumers (gender, age, education, occupation, income and marital status).

…………………………………………………………………………………………………….... Introduction:-
The retail sector is one of the fastest emerging sectors in India. According to Mc Kinsey Report 2007, India is the second largest market of the world. The worth of transition is Rs. 17 trillions at present and it is expected to cross Rs. 70 trillion by 2025 AD. In India, over 94 percent of the retail sector consists of traditional mom-and-pop stores and street vendors. While in most countries it is the organized retailers who dominate the sector, in India, the unorganized retailers command about 94 percent of the market share. Most traditional retail shops have a shop forming the frontage of their residence and the business is conducted by family members who reside in the house behind. Traditional retailers usually stocked only some high-margin brands. Small shop-owners maintained good customer relations and sold products on credit to people in the neighbourhood. More than 99 percent of the retailers functioned from less than 500 sq. ft. of shopping space. With no large players, infrastructure being far from adequate, Indian retail never attracted large business houses that predominantly focused on niche product segments and luxury goods. This was till these businesses realized that retail in India is a USD 353 billion industry growing at a Compound Annual Growth Rate (CAGR) of more than 11 percent and contributing more than 25 percent to the country's GDP. In the ever-changing globalized and liberalized world of retailing, competition becomes the major organizational principle of marketing activities. In this dynamic business environment, consumer behavior, trends and issues of retailing are undergoing a sea change. This demands marketing approaches to be altered accordingly.

Int. J. Adv. Res. 4(8), 2022-2034
2023 Thus all retail formats are challenged to formulate marketing strategies that will ensure them of achieving competitive advantage over other competing formats.
The Indian retail industry has strong linkages with the economic growth and development of the economy. Consumer dynamics in India is also changing and this has created an opportunity for organized modern retail formats. These modern retail formats provide wide variety to customers and offer an ideal shopping experience with an amalgamation of product, entertainment and service, all under a same roof. Kokatnur (2009) and Satish and Raju (2010) explore that the organized market comprises of large players such as Future group, Pantaloon, Tata, RPG, Reliance, Trent, ITC, etc., having greater enforcement of taxation mechanisms and better labor law monitoring systems. They have an efficient supply chain management, with superior vender relationships, quality customer service, efficient merchandizing and timely promotional campaigns. Though Indian retail is dominated by a large number of small retailers, the last decade has witnessed the entry of a number of organized retailers, opening stores in various modern formats in metros and other important cities. Swinyard (1997) is of the view that US retailers have been more responsive to market shifts now which resulted in mergers and consolidation, franchise options, joint ventures, vertical integration, increase in financial power, information technology explosion etc. The results highlight that the reason for retail market shift is the law of natural selection -adapt to the environment or die. Retailers that continually understand and meet the expectations of shoppers will succeed. According to Levy et al (2004), pricing optimization is currently one of the hottest topics in the retail industry. This study explores how retailers typically make pricing decisions using time-honored heuristics and attempt to infer the optimal decisions. The study also provides examples of the more sophisticated competitive pricing techniques that are currently being tested and the affect of advertising, competition, and substitute products on price. Brennan and Lundsten (2000) analyzed the impacts of large discount stores on small US towns, reasons for shopping and retailer strategies, and found that consumers shop at discounters for low prices and large variety and specialty stores for the unique items they cannot find elsewhere.

Review of literature:-
Consumers prefer to shop more from new discounters than the existing stores. According to Goldman (2001), the retailing strategies of international formats have been transferred to the developing countries now experiencing a surge in modern retail formats. Retailers have pursued different format transfer policies. Some retailers transfer their total format unchanged while others introduce extensive changes as different segments of consumers' demands differently due to changing lifestyles. According to Gopal (2006), the consumer shopping behavior during leisure is largely driven by the recreational infrastructure as a competitive strategy of retailers. This also helps in developing store loyalty, innovative concern and perceived customer values whereby individuals experience enjoyment from shopping. According to India retail report (2009), healthy investment climate, retail customer segments, growing shopping centers', malls, supermarkets and departmental stores are the major factors that have earned India the top spot among the favored retail destinations.
These developments indicate that this is just the right time to think of retail. The study by Mittal et al (2008) helps retailers to determine the most important drivers of retail store choice. The findings suggest that the retailers marketing strategy will have to take into account two sets of attributes: (1) loyalty drivers and (2) shopping experience enhancers. For apparel shopping the loyalty drivers are attractive merchandise mix, sales promotions, price, and recommendation/relationship whereas the shopping experience enhancers are store reputation/advertisements, temperature (air conditioning), return/guarantee, and ambient conditions. According to Kaur and Singh (2007), youth constitutes an important consuming class. The important dimensions of motivation for the youth are pressures of dual career families and high disposable incomes. Marketers can hence tap this important target segment by framing the promotion strategies appropriately. The study by Dalwadi et al (2010) emphasizes that the product range, store layout, shopping convenience, promotional schemes, competitive pricing, customer service, employee behavior, and store ambience significantly influence the customers.
The study also provides crucial insights to people in organized retail business by identifying important variables like i) courteous staff members, ii) customer attention, iii) free gifts and discounts, iv) comfort and elegance, v) proximity, vi) variety, vii) speedy service, viii) assurance that must be considered while designing their operations. Urbonavicius et al (2005) evaluates the image attributes importance for customers. The researchers illustrate that buyers indicated a number of image attributes of multiple retailers, which are important for them and make impact on store selection. Three latent factors that integrate multiple retailers' image attributes and explain 2024 interrelationships are, i) additional value and image, ii) store image, and iii) products. These factors assist in comparing positions of the chain stores. The study by Tender and Crispen (2009) investigates the influence of instore shopping environment on impulsive buying among consumers. In-store background music, store display, scent, in-store promotions, prices, shop cleanliness, shop density or congestion and store personnel are the major factors for in-store shopping environment.
The study by Fam et al (2010) highlighted strategies aspects of in-store marketing, by focusing on two key components of in-store marketing, namely in-store promotions and price markdowns. These seem to be the two most important aspects of in-store marketing. The results indicate that a discount marketing strategy, environmental uncertainty and emphasizes on price promotions are key to explaining retailers perceptions and use of marketing instore activities. The empirical study by Koca and Bohlmann (2008) reveals wide variety of pricing strategies among retailers. The researcher presents theoretical and empirical analyses that address these varied pricing strategies.
A retailer's strategy to discount deeply or frequently is driven by the ratio of the size of switcher segments for which the retailer competes to its loyal segment size. Malls, supermarkets and hypermarkets are growing rapidly adopting aggressive strategies to attract customers. These strategies in turn affect the existing small players. The purpose of the study is to analyze the impact of new retail formats on traditional/unorganized retailers' strategies. The results highlight that service and promotional strategies including personal selling, are the major strategies affecting unorganized players. Service and technology up-gradation are the major strategies adopted by small players to retain customers, Kokatnur (2009).
According to Gupta et al (2009) and Reichheld and Schefter (2000) retention of existing customers is five times more profitable than adding new ones. The results indicate that customer's perceived value is an important indicator of customers' continued intention, and so are the loyalty incentives provided by the store. Customers value convenience more than enjoyment. Organized retailers can increase customer retention by focusing their strategies in making customer experience more value and convenience. The study by Shih (2010) explores marketing strategies and consumer attitudes toward manufacturers' and retailers' store brands chosen from Taiwan retailing outlets. Low prices, promotion activities, brand endorsed strategies, and increasing store images, positively support the brand equity and consumer purchase intentions of retailer store brands. Retailers should improve the store image, enhance the product's perceived quality, and establish brand equity and brand loyalty among consumers. Grewal et al (2009) focuses on the role of macro factors in the retail environment and how they can shape customer experiences and behaviors. Several ways (e.g., promotion, price, merchandise, private label brands, supply chain and location) to deliver a superior customer experience are identified which should result in higher customer satisfaction, more frequent shopping visits, larger wallet shares, and higher profits. Ghosh and Tripathi (2010) recommend the various strategies for retailers in designing their outlets that would meet the expectations of shoppers and thus motivate them towards store patronage decisions. The results of the study reveal that cross-merchandise, privatelabel brands, fun and entertainment, effective sales personnel and technology adoption are the strategies recommended for retailers. According to Grewal et al (2011) innovations in pricing and promotion provide considerable opportunities to target customers effectively both offline and online. This study synthesizes recent advances in pricing and promotions findings as they pertain to enhanced targeting, new price and promotion models, and improved effectiveness. Price promotions are a key marketing instrument used by on-and offline retailers to generate sales and increase their market share.
Based upon the above literature review, twenty retail marketing strategies have been taken up for further analysis. The strategies along with the researchers supporting these are listed below: Now days, consumers are the critical component for success especially for retailers. It is not easy to satisfy the consumers as they want high quality merchandise at low price. So it is important for retailers to understand the needs of the customers and meet their requirements, Swinyard (1997) In such a competitive environment, many retailers concentrate all their attention on attracting customers rather than retaining them. It is rightly said that retaining the existing customers is five times more profitable than adding new ones. Loyalty is all about earning the trust of their customers and it can be achieved by conducting loyalty programs and by giving additional benefits to loyal customers, Reichheld and Schefter (2000); Gopal (2006); and Shih (2010). Retailers use customized technology to establish link with consumers through electronic retailing and customer relationship marketing that resulting in its corresponding benefits like customized products as per consumers' demand, early response time and accuracy, Swinyard (1997) and Kokatnur (2009).
According to Rajagopal (2007), the consumer shopping behaviour during leisure is largely driven by the recreational infrastructure as a competitive strategy of retailers. This also helps in developing store loyalty, innovative concern and perceived customer values whereby individuals experience enjoyment from shopping. The product categories that are largely affected by the leisure shopping consumption are food and beverages, apparel, cosmetics, toys, general merchandise and household electronics. The results of the study show that recreational facilities, location of the store, store loyalty, product attributes and services, brand value, perceived value and price are the major factors affecting leisure shopping behavior. Consumers often benefit from increased competition in differentiated product settings during leisure shopping season. The wide choice, atmosphere, parking facility, convenience, sales people, refreshments, location, promotional activities and merchandising policies are the important factors influencing consumers' choice during leisure shopping.

Research methodology:-
In order to examine the perception and preference of the consumers, the study has used a single cross-sectional descriptive research design. The association between the dependent and independent variables has been inferred using the causalcomparative relationship.
Each of the questionnaire surveys was administered by the researcher in order to ensure the respondents were able to understand all the questions, a brief explanation and guidance was given by the researchers to assist the respondents to understand and provide more précised feedback. Missing data was also reduced through close monitoring by the researcher. None of the respondents was forced to participate in order to ensure the feedback was more precise For the purpose of carrying out this study both primary as well as secondary data have been used.
Finally, 601 consumers have been taken for the purpose of carrying out the survey, 643 questionnaires were distributed to the urban consumers from different regions of Odisha, i.e., Bhubaneswar, Cuttack, Rourkela, Berhampur and Sambalpur.
The data was collected through stratified random sampling. In stratified random sampling, the strata are formed based on members' shared attributes or characteristics. It is a method of sampling which involves the division of the population into smaller groups known as strata based on their members sharing a specific attitude or characteristics. A random sample from each stratum is taken in a number proportional to the stratum's size when compared to the population. In the present study the stratums are the five different market locations chosen. In these market cities, the respondents have been chosen on random basis.
The secondary data pertaining to the study have also been gathered from various secondary sources including peer reviewed journals, magazines, newspapers, government reports and other published data to understand the policy, its impact and likely benefits. Secondary data was collected from the various consulting firms and research organizations that are regularly into developing and generating data and periodical reports on the Indian retail industry like ICRIER retail report, RNCOS, AT Kearney, BMI India retail report, Technopak, RAI, CII, Indian Retail Forum, India Stat Data Base, India Premier Data Base, etc. Internet has also been used to get some data relevant to the study, Google, Google scholar, ebscho, Springer and J-gate online libraries were also used to get the relevant literature for the review. Various books related to marketing research, retail management, marketing 2026 management and general consumer behavior has also been referred, business magazines and journals were also used for getting the relevant data for the research. The secondary data has been used for analyzing the trends and overall retail scenario in India and Odisha.

Data analysis:-
The study has segregated the consumers of emerging urban retail formats by different socio-economic and demographic characteristics. Further, the study has used ANOVA for analyzing the data. ANOVA has been used to know the significant differences among consumers by different retail product attributes and socio, economic and demographic factors adopted by different retailers. The socio, economic and demographic profile of the respondents chosen for the survey is depicted in Table 1. The table features the demographic details considered for the research study. As converged from this study, the female respondents in emerging retail formats lack behind the male respondents. It is seen that the male consumers outnumbers the female by almost 15%. On the other hand the respondents in the age group of 16 -30 (young age groups) recorded almost 56% of the respondents. On the other hand, the respondents in the old age group (61 -75) is slowly improving their position in shopping in the urban retail formats. Where there is no visible upspring in the percentage of respondents from below matric, i.e., 2.5% , a clear indication of the nature of respondents show that maximum number of respondents are in the graduation and post graduation category. Analysis of the respondents reveal that with having the continuation of increased respondents from the business group (9.98%), the home makers also sign relatively higher increase (6.16%). A significant percentage of respondents are from student age groups (65.76%) followed by service (27.79%). It is clear from the study that maximum number of respondents shopping 2027 from the emerging retail formats are from single marital status. Though the study cannot trace out clearly the relationships and behavior of married couple, it has only analyzed the respondent under the category of the married from the face value and talk show of the relationship. It is well known fact that the family bonding affect the increasing growth of shoppers in retail formats as selected consumers are dominated by the married persons. Viewing shares of respondents in the retail formats by income, only 10 % of the total respondents belong to high income group. Going by the analysis of income, the maximum number of shopping is captured by the respondents belonging to the income of less than 6 lakhs.
A further look says that, the drivers of the growing retail boom in the emerging retail format are many. The increasing retail rush is due to the presence of more number of Indian middle class, that has witnessed this purchase.
The percentage of young people in retail sector is on surge (56%). It portrays well for the business of the retail formats as Indian has % of youth population and if they join the mainstream of purchase of organized retail formats it may reap well in the long run as they require more disposable goods to consume than that of other age groups.
Also the good story of retail format is that the percentage of women consumers in the retail sector is on upswing as the general perception is that women are avid shoppers of the urban retail formats compared to male folk is confirmed. Further the prevalence of higher education is contributing its might in spreading visibility of consumer awareness regarding aspiration to buy from urban retail formats.
A further look at the respondents characteristics show that most of them are graduates/ graduate + folders. The main reason for the high proportion of degree holders (78%) in the sample was probably due to characteristics of urban population for which it is not surprising that most of them are in the services sector (27.79%).
The study uses ANOVA analysis for finding out whether there is a significant difference between demographic profile of consumers (gender, age, income, occupation, education and marital status) and product attributes influencing consumers' preferences to shop from emerging retail formats. Ten product attributes have been used for the study. The related hypothesis is: H1: Consumers' preferences towards emerging retail formats are influenced by product attributes.
2028 The ANOVA results highlight that there are significant differences in seven product attributes across gender. ANOVA results are not significant only for improved quality, easy availability of products and proper display. For all other attributes there is a significant difference on the basis of gender. The ANOVA results highlight that there are significant differences in ten product attributes across different age segments. For all attributes there is a significant difference on the basis of age. Thus there is a significant difference in choice of retail format vis-à-vis product attributes on the basis of age. The results of the ANOVA, that is, choice of product attributes and education level of consumers depict that improved quality and exchange facilities are not significant at 5 percent level. Other attributes like reasonable price, variety of brands, assortment of merchandise, easy availability of products, proper display, warranty of products, proper packaging and bundling offers are significant with education level of consumers. Thus education emerge as a significant factor influencing consumers' buying preferences based on product attributes. The ANOVA results highlight that there are significant differences in product attributes across different occupation segments. Thus there is a significant difference in choice of retail format vis-à-vis product attributes on the basis of occupation. The results from the above highlight that there is no significant difference between all the ten product attributes and yearly household income of consumers at .05 percent level. Hence yearly household income do not emerge as an important factor. The results from the above highlight that there is significant difference between all the ten product attributes and marital status of consumers at .05 percent level. Hence marital status emerge as an important factor.

Conclusion:-
In summary, the shoppers are not just about a format rather understanding the shoppers' dynamics vis-à-vis product attributes holds the key to the retail business. Retailers need to create more user based shoppers platform. In general, it is found that the consumers are effected in purchase preferences for different retail product attributes except income levels which is not an exception. Odisha's consumers in urban retail formats are family driven entities. Since their decisions in market are normally group decisions indicating the future scope of research in group interest. The retailers need to continuously monitor the shopper's buying behavior for developing different product attributes and understanding the psyche of them and suitably re-draft the product attributes strategy.