Tug of War for Survival and Sustainable Growth: The Race for Services Offered by Shopping Malls for Consumers’ Loyalty

Abstract

Shopping malls in Pakistan consist of a billion dollar market that provides a wide variety, choices, convenience, and an environment containing entertainment as well. There occurs a tug of war among the significant mall players, who strive hard to snatch market share from each other in the era of survival of the fittest. Consumer loyalty plays a pivotal role in consumer buying decisions and purchases choices from shopping malls. This probe critically examines the variables affecting shopping malls and dimensions of consumer loyalty. In this inquiry, pragmatism research philosophy is applied with inductive cum deductive approaches to ascertain this context by conducting mixed methods' research with multi-method of data collection, which includes in-depth interviews followed by survey questionnaires. The purposive sampling method is used to take input from consumers in shopping malls, and 200 survey forms are filled from consumers of three leading malls in Karachi: Ocean Mall, Park Towers, and Dolmen Mall Clifton, Karachi-Pakistan. The data is analyzed via many techniques, including Grounded Theory for interviews and Cron Bach Alpha, Factor Analysis, One-way ANOVA, Correlation Matrix, and Multiple Regression for survey analysis. First, the qualitative results explored essential factors and then, the quantitative results explicated positive cum significant relationship among pertinent variables including Environment (of the Shopping Malls), Brands Diversity, Entertainment, and Accessibility and Convenience as having a substantial impact on consumer loyalty towards the shopping malls. The findings of this research have practical implications as they appear beneficial for the shopping malls owners, business people, and brands to increase consumers' attraction leading toward their loyalty cum patronage.