Abstract:
The Afghan retail sector is going
through a transformation and the emerging market is
witnessing a significant change in its growth pattern. Both
existing and new players are experimenting with new retail
formats. These emerging retail formats provide wide variety
to customers and offer an ideal shopping experience with an
amalgamation of product, entertainment and service, all under
a single roof. Changing tastes and preferences of consumers
are leading to radical transformation in lifestyles and
spending patterns and this in tum is giving rise to spurt in
new business opportunities. Consumer dynamics in Afghanistan
is also changing and the retailers need to understand the
changing dynamics and its impact on shopping behavior and
formulate their strategies accordingly to deliver the
expected value to the consumers.
The present study
is a comprehensive study of both organized and unorganized
retail outlets influence on customer buying preference.
Consumers' perspective covers all the important aspects of
retailing. Firstly, it covers the types of organized and
unorganized retail formats. The study also does an in-depth
various factor influencing on consumers, to choose particular
retail formats. Furthermore, it also attempts to study the
preference of diverse retail formats for purchasing different
categories of merchandise and service. Based upon all this
analysis, a framework of consumers' perspective for emerging
retail formats has been designed to cover consumers'
preferences for organized and unorganized retail formats.
Questionnaire has been used to gather data from 385 costumers
at Kabul City. The study uses randomly sample techniques
scale for assessing data from customers. Cochron formula has
been used to identify the consumer’s perception, preferences
and attitude on unorganized and organized retail formats.
Results of the study represent that choice of emerging retail
formats are influenced by consumer demographics and other
factors. Type of product category also influence consumer's
buying from different retail formats. The results highlight
that young consumers prefer to shop more at organized retail
outlets. On the other hand, older consumers prefer to
purchase from unorganized retail store. The results reveal
that the emerging retail formats are changing consumers
preference due to changing life style, increase in income of
respondents, aware of quality, different taste and habits,
service, character, etc., which enhance the shopping
experience of consumers like: good parking facility and
friendliness of employees. Moreover, consumers are more
motivated towards developing retail formats. Regarding the
purpose of visiting emerging retail formats, consumers prefer
to go there not only for shopping purpose, but also for
entertainment and enjoying food at food courts. The study
also throws light on format- wise- preferences of marketing
strategies and the results explain that the new emerging
retail formats.
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