An integrative theory of patronage preference and behavior

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FACULTY WORKIxNG

PAPER NO. 800

investing in Options of
Stock Announcing Splits

Frank K. Reilly
Sandra G. Gustavson

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i^'W^iiii li'iitMiii

Collega of Commerce and Business Administration
Bureau of Economic and Business Research
University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign

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FACULTY WORKIiNG
PAPER NO, 808

An Integrative Theory of Patronage Preference
and Behavior

Jagdish N. Sheth

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College of Ccmmerce and Business Adn".ini3tration
Bureau of Economic and Business Research
University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign

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BEBR

FACULTY WORKING PAPER NO. 808

College of Commerce and Business Administration

University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

October 1981

An Integrative Theory of Patronage
Preference and Behavior

Jagdish N. Sheth, Professor
Department of Business Administration

Abstract
A general cheory of store patronage preference and behavior is
developed in this paper. Store preference is presumed to be a function
of the matching of shopping moi;ives and shopping options available to
the consumer. However, store patronage is also influenced by a number
of ad hoc situational factors iuch as in-store marketing effort, lack, of
time and money, unemployment and high interest rates. A conscious
attempt is made to generate some behavior theories for retail competi-
tion and outlet typologies.

AN INTEGRATIVE THEORY OF PATRONAGE PREFERENCE AND BEHAVIOR

Jagdish N. Sheth
University of Illinois

INTRODUCTION

Contrary to the popular belief of today, patronage behavior as part
of retailing has a long tradition of empirical research dating back to
the decade of the twenties. Referring to that decade in his poetic de-
scription of the history of marketing thought, Bartels (1965) makes the
following observation (p. 56):

«

"Apart from the general development of marketing thought at that
time, one of the most impressive single advancements was in retailing
thought in the form of what has been called, 'The Retailing Series.'
Imbued with confidence in the potentialities of research for improving
retail management, a number of New York merchants and professors at New
York University produced a series of books explaining the application of
the scientific method to the solution of retailing problems. Progress in
both scientific management and in statistical analysis of distribution
practices contributed to this development in marketing thought. Begin-
ning xn 1925 with James L. Fri's Retail Merchandising, Planning and Con-
trol (Prentice Hall, 1925) , the series included throughout ensuing years
works on such retailing subjects as buying, credit, accounting, store or-
ganization and management, merchandising, personal relations, and sales-
manship. Tnis series was unequalled in the marketing literature for its
contribution to institutional operation and management."

-2-

Indeed, Journal of Retailing predates Journal of Consumer Research
by half a century. Journal of Marketing Research by four decades, and
even Journal of Marketing by at least one decade!

During this long history, it would appear that retail patronage re-
search has amassed considerable substantive and descriptive knowledge with
respect to the following aspects:

1. E.etail competitive structures including classification of retail out-
lets, retail life cycle, location, store image and positioning, and
their influences on customer patronage behavior.

2. Operational and tactical aspects of retail store management includ-
ing store hours, credit policy, advertising and in-store promotion
and customer services to attract or retain patronage behavior.

3„ Impact of product characteristics such as classification of goods,
brand loyalty and product usage situations on specific store patron-
age.

^. Fsrsonal characteristics of shoppers and buyers such as household de-
mographics, reference group influences and life styles and psychograph-
ics as correlcites of store patronage.

5. Impact of general economic outlook and business cycles including cost
of living, recession. uneraDloyraent , inflation and interest rates on
retail buying behavior.

■3-

What is conspicuously lacking in this impressive research tradition
is the development of a theory of patronage behavior. True, we do have
several interesting and useful concepts, laws and principles such as
Copeland's typology of convenience-shopping - specialty goods (1923),
Reilly's law of gravitation (1929), Hollander's wheel of retailing (1960),
and Huff's model of retail location (1962). However, there is no com-
prehensive theory of patronage behavior. The only notable exception is
the recent effort by Darden (1979) to generate a patronage model of con-
sumer behavior based on multiattribute attitude theories. Still, what
seems to be needed is some attempt at integrating existing substantive
knowledge in terms of at least a conceptual framework or, better yet, a
theory of- patronage behavior. There are several benefits associated with
developing an integrative theory of patronage behavior.

First, it will indicate areas of empirical research which needs to
be undertaken because of past neglect. In any empirically-driven disci-
pline, one always finds some aspects of the discipline's phenomenon which
has been overlooked due to either methodological problems or lack of
availability of data.

Second, it provides a common framework and a common vocabulary so
that one scholar or practitioner can communicate with another scholar or
practitioner. This was probably the biggest impact of Howard and Sheth
(1969) theory of buyer behavior in consumer behavior in recent years.

Third, it will define the boundaries of the discipline and the asso-
ciated phencmanon so that one can focus and delimit research attention and
effort rather than succumb to the temptations of broadening or extending

-4-

the discipline tc a level where it becomes a subsystem of another disci-
pline. This is particularly necessary for a young discipline in social
sciences.

Finally, it will encourage large scale deductive research which is
more theory driven and consequently enhance the benefit-cost ratio of do-
ing empirical research. Most metatheorists point out that this shift from
inductive-observational research to deductive-theoretic research is a good
indicator of the transition of the discipline from adolescence to adult-
hood in its maturity cycle. Concurrently, if any effort at generating an
integrated theory does not result in this shift, it is a prime face evi-
dence that the discipline is not ready yet for the transition.

Accordingly, the objective of this paper is to present an integrative
theory of patronage behavior. Before we describe the various components
of che theory, several preliminary observations are in order.

First, the proposed theory is at the individual level of patronage
behavior. A.s such, it does not take into account group choices such as
family or household patronage behavior.

Second, the proposed theory is based on psychological foundations
rather than economic or social foundations primarily because it is designed
for describing and explaining individual patronage behavior. However,
it is possible to either elevate the theory to group (segment) or aggre-
gate market behavior level through sociological or economic foundations.

-5-

Third, the integrative theory consists of two distinct subtheories
in which the first subtheory is limited to establishing a shopping pre-
ference for an outlet whereas the second subtheory is focused on actual
buying behavior from that outlet. It is argued that the two processes
and their determinants are significantly different and, therefore, cannot
be combined together into a single conceptual framework with a common set
of constructs. This is a radical departure from the traditional thinking
of attitudes leading to behavior proposition ingrained in social psychol-
ogy. In fact, we will actually focus on shopping-buying discrepancy in
the development of the patronage behavior subsystem.

SHOPPING PREFERENCE THEORY

Shopping preference subsystem consists of four basic constructs and
their determinants which attempt to integrate a vast percentage of our
existing substantive knowledge referred to earlier in this paper. It is
summarized in Figure 1. We will briefly define and discuss each construct
first and then examine their determinants.

1. Shopping Predisposition refers to the relative shopping preferences
of the evoked set of outlet alternatives for a specific product class
purchase situations such as shopping of groceries, clothing, health
care, insurance, etc. It is the output of the shopping preference
subsystem and, therefore, can be utilized as the criterion construct
which we want to explain and predict people's shopping behavior.

-5a-

Flgure 1
AN INTEGRATIVE THEORY OF SHOPPING PREFERENCE

Determinants

Personal

1. Personal Values

2. Social Values

3. Epistemic

Values

Product

Product
Typology

Usage Typology

Brand
Predisposition

>

/

Shopping

Motives

\

f

Choice

\

Shopping

Calculus

A

Predisposition

^1^
i

Shopping

1

Options

1

i
i

1

! 1. LocatJ.on

i

; 2. Retail

; Institutions

; 3. Positioning &

j Image

Market

t

1. Merchandise

2. Service

3. Advertising &

Promotion

Company
4v

Determinants

-6-

There are several aspects of shopping predisposition which need to be
described before we discuss what determines a person's shopping pre-
ferences for various outlets in his buying behavior process.

First, the preferences are limited to those outlets which a buyer
considers acceptable to shop a particular class of products. It is
quite possible that a buyer may consider one of the traditional out-
lets for a product class not acceptable to him and may find a totally
innovative or nontraditional outlet quite acceptable to him. For
example, he may consider a particular supermarket not acceptable but
electronic two-way video shopping acceptable for grocery shopping.
In addition, the number of outlets a particular buyer considers ac-
ceptable to shop a class of products is presiimed to be highly limited
and will seldom exceed more than four or five distinct outlets.

Second, the outlet preferences are defined to be relative and, there-
fore, should be measured by constant sum procedures. It is quite
possible that a buyer can have a very strong or dominant preference
for one outlet and very weak preferences for all other outlets. Con-
versely, he can be virtually indifferent among the evoked set of out-
lets and thereby have equal or near equal preferences for them.

Third, it is possible to assess the degree of potential outlet compe-
titive structures based on individual and market preference schedules.
For example, if the buyer has strong preference for a single outlet
within a product class such as shoes, that outlet will acquire ooten-
tial specialty monopoly powers over that individual's shopping for
shoes. On the other hand, if the buyer is virtually equal in his

-7-

shopping preferences across all acceptable outlets, it will result in
a potentially specialty competition among those outlets for his shop-
ping behavior. Similarly, if the same buyer has a dominant preference
for a single outlet across all product classes, that outlet will ac-
quire the potential for a general monopoly power so far as this buyer
is concerned; and conversely, if he has virtually equal preferences
across all acceptable outlets and across all product classes, it will
result in a potentially general competition among these outlets for
his shopping behavior.

Finally, depending on the distribution of preference schedules of
buyers in the market place for various outlets in various product
classes, it is possible to estimate potential market competitive
structures which can range from dominance of a general outlet such as
the emerging one-stop hyperstores to dominance of specialty stores in
each product class such as the Footlocker, Westernwear, The Limited,
Just Jeans and others. In between, we should expect coexistence of
both specialty and general outlets as is so common today in a typical
shopping mall. Figure 2 provides a classification of some of the past,
existing and futuristic retail structures based on this analysis.

2. Choice Calculus refers to the choice rules or heuristics utilized by
the customer in establishing his shopping predisposition. These
choice rules entail matching his shopping motives and his shopping
options.

The integrative theory postulates utilization of any one of three
classes of choice rules or heuristics.

-6-

There are several aspects of shopping predisposition which need to be
described before we discuss what determines a person's shopping pre-
ferences for various outlets in his buying behavior process.

First, the preferences are limited to those outlets which a buyer
considers acceptable to shop a particular class of products. It is
quite possible that a buyer may consider one of the traditional out-
lets for a product class not acceptable to him and may find a totally
innovative or nontraditional outlet quite acceptable to him. For
example, he may consider a particular supermarket not acceptable but
electronic two-way video shopping acceptable for grocery shopping.
In addition, the number of outlets a particular buyer considers ac-
ceptable to shop a class of products is presumed to be highly limited
and will seldom exceed more than four or five distinct outlets.

Second, the outlet preferences are defined to be relative and, there-
fore, should be measured by constant sum procedures. It is quite
possible that a buyer can have a very strong or dominant preference
for one outlet and very weak preferences for all other outlets. Con-
versely, he can be virtually indifferent among the evoked set of out-
lets and thereby have equal or near equal preferences for them.

Third, it is possible to assess the degree of potential outlet compe-
titive structures based on individual and market preference schedules.
For example, if the buyer has strong preference for a single outlet
within a oroduct class such as shoes, that outlet will acquire poten-
tial specialty monopoly powers over that individual's shopping for
shoes. On the other hand, if the buyer is virtually equal in his

-7-

shopping preferences across all acceptable outlets, it will result in
a potentially specialty competition among those outlets for his shop-
ping behavior. Similarly, if the same buyer has a dominant preference
for a single outlet across all product classes, that outlet will ac-
quire the potential for a general monopoly power so far as this buyer
is concerned; and conversely, if he has virtually equal preferences
across all acceptable outlets and across all product classes, it will
result in a potentially general competition among these outlets for
his shopping behavior.

Finally, depending on the distribution of preference schedules of
buyers in the market place for various outlets in various product
classes, it is possible to estimate potential market competitive
structures which can range from dominance of a general outlet such as
the emerging one-stop hyperstores to dominance cf specialty stores in
each product class such as the Footlocker, Westernwear, The Limited,
Just Jeans and others. In between, we should expect coexistence of
both specialty and general outlets as is so common today in a typical
shopping mall. Figure 2 provides a classification of some of the past,
existing and futuristic retail structures based on this analysis.

Choice Calculus refers to the choice rules or heuristics utilized by
the customer in establishing his shopping predisposition. These
choice rules entail matching his shopping motives and his shopping
options.

Tne integrative theory postulates utilization of any one of three
classes of choice rules or heuristics.

-7a-

Figure 2

POTENTIAL RETAIL COMPETITIVE STRUCTURE

BASED ON MARKET SHOPPING PREFERENCES

Dominant

Outlet Pi

eference

Hyperstore

Shopping

Specialty

Monopoly

Malls

Monopoly

Aggregate

Shopping

General

Competition

(Downtown

Shop
CenH

ping
:ers

Specialty

Competition

(Bazaar)

Shopping)

Separate

Product

Shopping

Weak
Outlet Preference

-8-

The first choice rule is called the sequential calculus in which the
customer sequentially eliminates shopping options by utilizing his
shopping motives in order of importance and classifying all shopping
options into acceptable and non-acceptable categories. For example,
his shopping motives may be one-stop shopping, price and brand selec-
tion in that order of importance. He will evaluate all available and
knovm shopping options first on one-stop shopping and eliminate some
which are inconvenient; he will then evaluate the remaining shopping
options on price and eliminate some more; and finally he will elim-
inate still others based on his evaluation of brand selection. This
process may result in elimination of all shopping options or in re-
tention of many. In the first case, he will either search for new
options or forego the marginal shopping motives. In the latter case,
he will have equal preferences among the retained options.

The second choice rule is called the trade-off calculus in which the
customer evaluates each shopping option on all the three criteria
simultaneously and creates an overall average acceptability score.
In the process, the negative evaluation on one criterion such as price
is compensated by the positive evaluation on some other criterion such
as oce-stcp shopping. All shopping options with an overall positive
acceptability score are retained and their relative preferences are
distributed prcporticnally to their positive scores. Once again, it
is possible that only one alternative may have a positive overall ac-
ceptability score resulting in only one shopping preference. Alter-
natively, several shopping options may be all acceptable but their
relative scores are highly skewed in favor of one or two outlets.

-9-

The third choice rule is called the dominant calculus in which the
customer utilizes one and only one shopping motive and establishes
his preferences for various shopping options by evaluating them on
it. For example, he may use price as the sole criterion and eliminate
all shopping options which are above and below an acceptable price
range. The relative preferences of the retained shopping options
will be equal or unequal depending on the price latitude. Of course,
if the dominant criterion is binary such as one-stop shopping, the
relative preferences of the retained options will be equal.

Given that the customer has three distinct choice rules or heuristics
at his disposal, which one he will use depends on the degree of past
learning and experience related to shopping of that product class.
It is our hypothesis that in a totally new or first time purchase sit-
uation, he will use the sequential calculus since it provides an or-
derly process of simplifying the choices without wrongly eliminating
a good shopping alternative or a good shopping motive. In other words,
it simplifies with a minimum risk, of making a wrong choice. With
some degree of learning, the customer is likely to be more confident
in making evaluative judgments as well as make compensatory calcula-
tions. Hence, he will shift to trade-off calculus. Finally, when he
has fully learnt the purchase behavior, he will be so certain of what
he wants as to short circuit the total process by relying on a single
criterion. Therefore, he will utilize the dominant calculus.

It will be noted that a conscious effort is made in this paper to link
the psychology cf simplification proposed by Howard and Sheth (1969)
in terms of extensive problem solving - limited problem solving -

•10-

routinized response behavior and the utilization of sequential -
trade-off - dominant rules as a function of prior learning. Of course,
this needs to be empirically tested and validated.

While the distribution of shopping preference schedules provide stra-
tegic perspectives on potential competitive structures in the retail
environment, the distribution of choice rules across customers and
across product classes are likely to provide tactical or operational
perspectives on retail competition. For example, if most customers
utilize the same dominant rule in a product class, it is obvious that
retail competition will converge on that specific shopping motive.
On the other hand, if customers utilize different rules in a product
class, it is likely to result in segmented tactics in which different
outlets will position themselves on different shopping motives and
concentrate on specific segments rather than the total market.

If the customers use the trade-off calculus as a basis for establish-
ing their outlet preferences, we should expect persuasive and compara-
tive tactics in the design of marketing mix programs. Finally, if the
customers use the sequential rule^ one would expect a considerable
degree of marginal competitive tactics related to marginal shopping
motives.

Based on a combination of the prevalence of specific choice rules and
customer heterogeneity, Figure 3 suggests several forms of competitive
Lactics which arise in the market place. Due to space limitations,
ue will not discuss them further.

-10a-

Flgure 3

POTENTIAL COMPETITIVE STRATEGIES BASED

ON PREVALENCE OF CHOICE RULES

Sequential

Market
Homogeneity

Tradd-Off
Rule

Dominant

Rule

Rule

Heterogeneity

-11-

3. Shopping Motives refer to a customer's needs and wants related to his
choice of the outlets from where to shop for a specific product or
service class such as groceries, clothing, insurance, appliances, etc.

Based on earlier conceptualizations (Sheth 1972, 1975), we hypothe-
size that the shopping motives consist of two types of needs and wants:

a. Functional needs related to what has been traditionally referred
to as time, place and possession needs. The specific examples
include such things as one-stop shopping, cost and availability
of needed products, convenience in parking, shopping and accessa-
bility of the outlets.

b. Nonfunctional wants related to various shopping outlets due to
their associations with certain social, emotional and epistemic
values. For example, many retail outlets acquire positive or
negative imageries due to their patronage by desirable or unde-
sirable demographic socioeconomic and ethnic groups, or they
arouse positive or negative emotions such as masculine, feminine,
garrish, loud or crude because of ;heir atmospherics, personnel
or business practices in general. Finally, customers do shop to
satisfy their novelty-curiosity wants or to reduce boredom or to
keep up with new trends and events. These are all reflections of
the epistemic nonfunctional wants.

It is important to recognize chat functional needs are clearly an-
chored to the outlet attributes whereas nonfunctional wants are an-
chored to the outlet association. In that sense, functional needs are

-12-

intrinsic to outlets whereas nonfunctional wants are extrinsic to the
outlets.

If an individual is primarily dominated by functional needs in his
make-up as a customer, we would expect him to fit the profile of the
"rational man" espoused by the economists such as Marshall (Kotler
1965). In that case, he is likely to patronize what is commonly re-
ferred to as the value oriented outlets such as McDonald's, Sears,
K-Mart, A & P, True Value and other private label outlets. On the
other hand, if the individual is primarily dominated by nonfunctional
wants in his make-up as a customer, we would expect him to fit the
profile of the "conspicuous consumer" espoused by sociologists such as
Veblen (Kotler 1965). In that case, he is likely to patronize what
is commonly referred to as status-oriented outlets such as Saks,
Brooks Brothers, Nyman-Marcus, Harrods, gourmet restaurants, and other
premium label outlets.

Since it is most likely that a customer will be functionally driven
for some product class shopping and nonf unctionally driven for some
other product class shopping, we would expect him to simultaneously
patronize both value-oriented and status-oriented outlets depending on
the product class. Similarly, it is very likely that for a given
product class, there will be some customers wh'o are functionally dri-
ven and others who are nonf unctionally driven in their shopping beha-
vior. Therefore, we would expect simultaneous existence of value-
oriented and status-oriented outlets for the same product class such
as clothing, groceries, health care, eating-out, appliances, etc.

-13-

Figure 4 is an effort at developing a typology of outlets and their
prevalence based on the above analysis. It is closely related to the
earlier typology of competitive structures and marketing tactics.

4. Shopping options refer to the evoked set of outlets available to the
customer to satisfy his shopping motives for a specific class of
products and services.

'vrtiile a large number of outlets may exist in a given trading area, it
is hypothesized that only a very small number of outlets will be avail-
able to a particular customer due to a number of supply related fac-
tors such as location, credit policy, store hours, merchandise, ser-
vice or positioning and image of various cutlets. As we evolve more
and mere to specialty chains such as Taco Bell, Magic Pan, The Limited,
Just Jeans, Footlocker, Tom McAnn, it is obvious that more and more
constraints will emerge on a particular individual customer because of
high degree of target marketing and niching espoused by these special-
ty chains.

It is our hypothesis that shopping options is more controlled by the
retail structure in a given trading area than by the customers. The
most dramatic evidence of this fact is the lack of professional ser-
vices such as legal and medical professions in the farming communi-
ties, for example.

On the other hand, given a number of shopping outlets available to the
customer, the specific outlets he would consider appropriate for shop-
ping will be determined by his shopping motives. It is our hypothesis

-13a-

Flgure 4

OUTLET TYPES FOR PRODUCTS BASED ON

MARKET SHOPPING MOTIVES

Functional

Generic

Nonfunctional

Meads

Wants

IConveniencel
\ Stores

Product
Specific

that the outlets he will consider for shopping will depend on the
benefit cost ratio associated with each outlet in which benefit is
defined by the functional and nonfunctional utility offered by the
outlet and the cost is defined by the time, money and effort required
to shop at that outlet.

Finally, the customer will narrow down the number of outlets as ac-
ceptable to him based on the use of choice calculus as described earl-
ier. If he uses the dominant rule, it is very likely that there will
be only one or two acceptable outlets. On the other hand, if he uses
sequential rule, there may be a larger number of acceptable outlets.
The use of trade-off rule will result in acceptable outlets somewhere
in between the two. It will be noted that this conceptualization is
remarkably similar to the Howard and Sheth theory's hypothesis that
the number of acceptable alternatives will decrease as the buyer
increases his learning process from extensive problem solving to
limited problem solving to routinized response behavior.

WViat we have attempted here is to reconcile differences in the defi-
nition of evoked set. The size of the evoked set is clearly a function of
the definition of situation and alternatives as suggested by March and
Simon t.1957) . In our case, it depends on whether we mean number of out-
lets available, considered or acceptable to the customer. This is repre-
sented in Figure 5.

-14a-

Fieure 5

EVOKED SET OF SHOPPING OPTIONS

All
Outlets

1

Available
Outlets

t

jk.

Considered
Outlets

Acceptable
Outlets

(-

Preferred
Outlets

Shopping
Options

Shopping
Motives

Choice
Calculus

Shopping
Preference

-15-

DETERMINANTS OF SHOPPING PREFERENCE THEORY

Most of the substantive knowledge in patronage behavior and retailing
relates to the correlates and determinants of various aspects of patronage
such as Shopping Motives, Shopping Options, and Shopping Preferences. For
an excellent review and summary, see Engel , Blackwell and Kollat (1978,
Chapter 19). In this section, we will attempt to classify and integrate
these diverse and numerous studies as well as establish their relationships
to the psychological constructs of shopping preference theory. There are,
however, several general comments related to these determinants of shopping
preference which must be stated and discussed before we get into their typ-
ology and relationships.

First, even though they are labeled as determinants, most of the past
empirical research has been at best correlational, despite the intent of
the researchers to demonstrate a causal relationship. We will lean toward
a causal perspective and give the benefit of the doubt, even though from a
strict scientific enquiry, it cannot be justified.

Second, while a typology of determinants will be provided, we will
make no attempt to interrelate different variables included in a given
typology. Partly this is due to lack of empirical knowledge on which to
base these interrelationships among the determinants themselves, and partly
it can be only stated as hypothesies to be tested by more complex statis-
tical procedures such as multivariate analysis or simultaneous equations.

Third, we will only provide a typology of these determinants of shop-
ping preferences rather than explain how they themselves are determined by

-16-

some other factors. In that sense, we will treat them as exogeneous varia-
bles of the shopping preference theory.

Finally, we will define and list the determinants at a level of aggre-
gation so that they are more like constructs or indices of several specific
variables. In other words, within each typology, the determinants will be
a set of generalized factors having their own structure of operationalized
variables. This is more a reflection of the difficulty of integrating di-
verse substantive knowledge and less of a preference on the part of the au-
thor. Hopefully, at a later stage such a task can be accomplished.

The typology of determinants consists of supply-oriented and demand-
oriented factors on the one hand, and specific to the individual customer/
retailer versus general to the purchase/market situation, on the other hand.
It is illustrated in Figure 6. We will describe each category of deter-
minants and their influence on shopping preference constructs in this sec-
tion.

A. Market Determinants refer to those factors which determine the competi-
tive structure of a trading area and, therefore, a customer's general
shopping options such as number and type of outlets for broad product
classes such as groceries, clothing and appliances.

Based en past research, we hypothesize three distinct market determinant

factors :

•16a-

Figure 6
DETERMINANTS OF SHOPPING PREFERENCE THEORY

All
Determinants

Supply Side
Determinants

\i>

Market

Determinants

±.

1. Location

2. Retail

Structure

3. Positioning

Company
Determinants

1. Merchandise

2. Service

3. Promotion

Demand Side
Determinants

d^

Personal
Determinants

J^

Product
Determinants

1. Personal

Values

2. Social

Values

3. Epistemic

Values

1. Product

Typology

2. Usage

Typology

3 . Brand

Loyalty

■17-

1. Location. The first and by far the most logical factor has to do
with the location of the outlets in the trading area. As we all
know, the most common explanation for success or failure in retail-
ing has been attributed to "location, location and location" among
the practitioners. It has been more systematically justified by
such pioneers as Reiley (1929), Converse (1949) and more recently,
Huff (1962),

However, location is only of several market determinants of general
shopping options and, therefore, should not be given all the credit
as is often done in marketing practice. Furthermore, location
should be defined more broadly to include not only distance but also
accessability of the outlet such as parking, traffic, highway entry
and exit and other transportation related aspects.

^- Retail Institutions. A second market determinant is the retail in-
stitutions in the trading area which includes downtown department
stores, variety stores, supermarkets, discount department stores,
and the more recent strip malls and shopping malls. We already know
that retail structures have accelerated in their life cycle from an
average of 80 years for the downtown department store to an aver-
age of 20 years for the more recent discount department stores
(Davidson, Bates and Bass 1976). The emergence of regional shopping
malls and hyperstores are likely to further influence customer's
general shopping options.

^- Positioning & Image. A third market determinant is the positioning
& image either consciously established or historically evolved for

•18-

various outlecs. Positioning refers to the specific merchandise
price-performance combination offered by a retail outlet to encour-
age certain target segments and discourage others from shopping at
that outlet. For example, an outlet such as The Limited will dis-
courage older or bigger women because of the style and size selec-
tion offered for women's clothing in that chain. Similarly, Sears
has the image of catering to middle America for shopping general
purpose functionally value-oriented products.

B. Company Determinants refer to those factors which influence and limit
a customer's specific shopping options for a given product class.

It is important to recognize that while the Market Determinants influ-
ence and limit a customer's general shopping patterns of certain broad
classes of products and services such as groceries, appliances, cloth-
ing, financial services, etc., the Company Determinants influence and
limit a customer's specific shopping options of buying a particular
product such as a refrigerator, a dress or bread or milk. In many in-
stnaces, especially in cases of convenience goods and all-purpose out-
lets, we should expect the two sets of determinants to be correlated,
although the correlation may not be perfect.

Based on past empirical research, we hypothesize the following Comoany
Determinants:

1. Merchandise. Obviously, a customer's func-ional needs or nonfunc-
tional wants can be satisfied by some products and not others. To

■19-

the extent that an outlet does not carry merchandise which satis-
fies that need or want, it will limit his choice. For example, if
a customer is looking for Tall Men's jeans and Sears does not carry
Tall Men's clothing, it will be eliminated as a shopping option no
matter what Sears image or location is. In general, specialty
stores tend to offer more merchandise options but to a specific
target segment whereas the general purpose stores offer less mer-
chandise options to the mass market. This results in the coexis-
tence of both types of outlets in the same shopping mall with mini-
mal competition.

2. Service. It refers to all the in-store shopping and procurement
factors including full service vs. self service, atmospherics,
credit policy, store hours, and delivery of merchandise. It is
very difficult to make any generalized statements about the magni-
tude and direction of the impact of service on deterraining a cus-
tomer's specific shopping options because it is so highly contin-
gent upon his shopping motives for a particular purchase situation.
At best, we might hypothesize chat highly functional and frequently
purchased products will be more suitable for self service whereas
nonfunctional and infrequently purchased products will need sales
assistance. It will be more interesting, however, to measure and
quantify the elasticity of service for various product classes sim-
ilar to measuring price elasticity.

3. Advertising it Promotion. It refer? to Che ouclec's idvertislng in
mass media, sales promotions and in-store unadvertised specials
which are all designed to attract target customers and motivate chem

-20-

to buy specific merchandise. It does not include corporate image
advertising, however, since the latter is more directly related to
influencing the general shopping options as discussed earlier.

Once again, what will be more interesting is to measure elasticity
of advertising rather than to state any general hypotheses.

C. Personal Determinants. While the Market and Company Detemiinants con-
trol and influence a customer's shopping options, we hypothesize that
his shopping motives are determined by Personal and Product Determin-
ants.

Personal Determinants refer to customer-specific factors which influence
and determine a customer's general Shopping Motives across a broader
spectrum of product classes such as groceries, appliances or clothing.
In some ways, we might say that Personal Determinants may manifest in a
customer's shopping style such as an economic shopper, personalizing
shopper, ethical shopper or the apathetic shopper (Stone 1954). Al-
ternatively, we might say that a customer is a convenience shopper,
bargain shopper, compulsive shopper or store loyal shopper (Stephenson
and Willett 1969).

The integrative theory of shopping preference has identified three sets
of Personal Determinants:

1. Personal Values. It refers to the individual's own personal values
and beliefs about what to look for in shopping for various products
and services. In essence, they reflect his shopper's personality,

-21-

and may be determined by such personal traits as sex, age, race
and religion. It is the inner-directed dimension of values as
stated by David Riesman (1950) .

2. Social Values. It refers to a set of normative values imposed by
others such as family and friends, reference groups and even society
at large. It is the other-directed dimension of values as suggested
by David Riesman (1950).

3. Epistemic Values. It refers to the degree of curiosity, knowledge
and other exploratory values related to environmental scanning and
coexistence we as human beings tend to possess. It is typified by
phrases like "you climb the Sears Tower (modern day mountains) be-
cause it is there!" In a recent study on why people shop, Tauber
(1972) found that such epistemic needs as diversion, sensory stim-
ulation, learning about new trends and pleasure of bargaining were
highly prevalent.

D. Product Determinants. IVhile Personal Determinants control and shape the
general Shopping Motives, the fourth set of determinants, namely the
Product Determinants shape and control a customer's specific Shopping
Motives for a given product class purchase. We have identified three
types of Product Determinants in this theory based on past substantive
research.

1. Product Typology. It refers to classification of products into
distinct categories or typologies for which the Shopping Motives

-22-

are inherently different because they provide or possess different
types of utilities. In retailing, the classification of products
as convenience, shopping and specialty goods by Copeland (1932)
based on Parlin's commodity school of thought or the more recent
classification of goods into red, orange and yellow goods by Aspin-
wall (1961) are more prevalent and probably useful. However, from
our viewpoint, it seems better to go one level more abstract and
examine the differential values products and services possess as
satisfaction of human needs and wants. In that regard, perhaps
Macklin's (1921) identification of elementary, form, time, place
and possession utilities seems to serve a more useful function.
Based on this five element vector, it is possible to identify pro-
ducts which possess functional vs. nonfunctional utilities, as well
as generate typologies such as necessities vs. discretionary pro-
ducts, or durable, semi-durable and nondurable products.

Usage Typology. It refers to the selective situational and social
settings in which a particular product class is to be used or con-
sumed. Examples include in-home vs. out-of-home usage, personal vs.
family consumption, and household vs. guest consumption situations.

3. Brand Predisposition. It refers to the preference for specific

brand names in a product class. Obviously, a customer can be brand
loyal in one product class and not in another. Also, we can theor-
ize that some consumers are likely to be more brand loyal in gen-
eral across all product classes than others. We have accumulated a
considerable degree of knowledge on cons;-mier's brand predispositions
and it is nicely summarized by Jacoby and Chestnut (1978).

}

-23-

In view of the fact that so auch has been theorized about brand choice
behavior in the marketing literature, it might be interesting to integrate
that knowledge with the store patronage behavior by a conceptual framework
at a macro level to be useful to marketing practitioners and researchers in
terms of channel power and forward vs. backward integration. In fact, this
is of considerable importance at the present time since many packaged goods
companies have lost significant brand loyalty as industries have begun to
mature and migrate from proprietary differentiated products (brands) to
commodities. This has been particularly true in gasoline, pharmaceuticals
and many grocery products.

In Figure 7, we have attempted to provide a behavioral explanation for
various types of channel outcomes and the resultant market competitive
structures that can arise as a consequence of the outlet vs. brand predis-
position strengths and weaknesses in the market place.

If customers have strong brand and outlet preference, it is likely to
generate a monopolistic competition structure in a product class resulting
in either dominance of a single brand - outlet combination or more likely
a segmented market. This seems to be very true in the case of many special-
ty chains such as the Foot Locker, Just Jeans, County Seat and electronic
outlets where customers have strong brand as well as outlet preferences.
It is still true for the traditional supermarkets although the brand power
of the manufacturer seems to be weakening.

If the customers have a strong outlet preference and a weak brand
preference, one would expect the emergence of distribution monopoly or oli-
gopoly resulting in backward integration. Clearly, this has been histor-

-23a-

Figure 7

A BEHAVIORAL BASIS FOR CHANNEL STRUCTURES

Brand I
Predisposition

jiL

Strong

M-

Weak

Strong

T

Outlet
Predisposition

•>

1
Weak }

— —

Monopolistic

Competition

(Segmentation)

Backward

Integration

(Distributor

Monopoly)

Forward

Integration

(Manufacturer

Monopoly)

Bazaar
(Perfect
Competition)

-24-

ically true for Sears in this country and Marks & Spencer in the U.K. The
retail giants have literally full time dedicated manufacturers whose pro-
duct identity is not known to the consumer. Instead, the retail outlet
superimposes its own name or another name clearly identified with the retail
chain. Witness the case of True Value hardward stores.

On the other hand, customers may have strong brand preference and weak
outlet preference which will then result in a manufacturer oligopoly or
monopoly by forward integration. This can be accomplished by either con-
tractual (franchise) vertical distribution systems such as most fast food
franchises, automobile dealerships or by corporate vertical distribution
systems such as Radio Shack, Bell Phone Centers and Xerox Small Business
stores.

Finally, when the market place has no strong outlet or brand prefer-
ence, we would expect the emergence of perfect competition. This is prob-
ably more typical in less organized activities such as the flea markets,
garage sales and bazaars. It is certainly not true contrary to the popular
writings for either the stock market or for agricultural crops where there
is a strong distributor ologopoly. In the more organized sector, the only
examples which come to mind relate to gasoline, and convenience grocery pro-
ducts such as milk, eggs and other selective perishable vegetables and
fruits in highly developed retail trading areas.

PATRONAGE BEHAVIOR THEORY

Now we turn our attention to patronage behavior. As mentioned earlier,
preferences and intentions do not automatically result in behavior. A

-25-

number of highly systematic and sometimes managerially planned events and
efforts intervene between preferences and behavior which result in what we
shall refer to as the preference - behavior discrepancy. The evidence is
so overwhelming (Sheth and Wong 1981) that Sheth and Frazier (1981) have
even proposed a model of strategy mix for planned social change based on
the degree of preference - behavior discrepancy.

In Figure 8, we have summarized the patronage behavior theory. The
output of the theory is Patronage Behavior. It refers to the purchase be-
havior with respect to a specific product or service from an outlet, and
consists of a vector of four behavioral outcomes: planned purchase, un-
planned purchase, foregone purchase and no purchase behavior.

The Patronage Behavior is a function of Preference - Behavior Discrep-
ancy caused by four types of unexpected events which have either no effect
or they have inducement or inhibition effect on a customer's shopping pre-
ference. We will briefly describe each factor in this section,

1. Socioeconomic Setting. It refers to the macro economic conditions such
as inflation, unemployment and interest rates as well as social situa-
tions such as presence of friends and relatives at the time of shopping
behavior.

2. Personal Setting. It refers to the time, money and physical effort
considerations of the individual shopper at the time of shopping beha-
vior.

■25a-

Figure 8
AN INTEGRATIVE THEORY OF PATRONAGE BEHAVIOR

Socioeconomic

Setting

Unexpected

Events

In-Store
Marketing

Inflation

Unemployment

Interest Rates

Friends

Relative

Shopping

redisposition

Strong

Weak

Time
Money
Effort

Al

New Brands

In-Store Promotion

Sales Effort

Purchase
Behavior

Hi

\/_

Lo

Planned
(No Effect)

Foregone
(Inhibition

Effect)

Unplanned
(Inducement

Effect)

No Purchase
(No Effect)

7^

Patronage
Behavior

Planned

Unplanned

Foregone

No Purchase

Personal f-

Unexpected
Events

Brand Availability

Relative Prices

Shelf Location

Sales Promotion

^

^ Product

-26-

3. Product Setting. It refers to the marketing mix of the product class
in the store such as brand availability, relative price structure, un-
expected sales promotion and shelf location of various product options.

4. In-Store Marketing. It refers to the unexpected changes in the store
such as presence of a new brand, change in the location of existing
brands, in-store promotions, and selective sales effort by salesclerk
which could not be anticipated by the customer.

It must be reiterated that all these four factors represent unexpected
events which the customer could not anticipate in establishing his shopping
preference. As such, they occur between the time and place when shopping
preference and intentions are established and actual shopping behavior takes
place. It is our contention that it is impossible to establish attitude -
behavior correspondence as suggested by Fishbein and Ijzen (1975) in most
real life dynamic situations, that nximerous events do intervene and influ-
ence a person's intentions with respect to its manifestation into behavior
and, therefore, we need to provide a separate mediating construct such as
Unexpected Events as proposed by Sheth (1974). At the same time, these Un-
expected Events and their impact on intention - behavior discrepancy are
neither too small nor too idiosyncratic to be treated as random effects to
be accomodated by any stochastic preference theories as suggested by Bass
(1974). In fact, they are so systematic and sizeable that managerial mar-
keting planning and budgeting has been significantly diverted toward util-
izing them in place of the traditional persuasive advertising on mass media.
In the process, we are, at present, witnessing a greater use of behavior
change strategies as opposed to attitude change strategies in the retail
environment.

-27-

THE NEXT STEP

An integrative theory of patronage preference and behavior of this
magnitude and scope, of course, will be more difficult to diffuse unless
some suggestions are made as to how to keep it alive and active. We make
the following recommendations to other scholars and doctoral students.

1. Perhaps the most exciting and managerially relevant aspect is to em-
pirically investigate the degree to which various types of Unexpected
Events influence a person's intentions and, therefore, provide what we
refer to as the behavioral leverage for a marketing practitioner.

It would be very interesting, for example, to investigate the relative
magnitudes of attitude leverage, behavioral leverage and no leverage
of marketing mix efforts across a group of products and services in
terms of shopping preference and patronage behavior.

2. A second and equally exciting area of unexplored research is the utili-
zation of specific rules (sequential, trade-off and dominant) in
choosing a retail outlet for specific product choice situations. For
example, do consumers use the sequential rule for shopping goods, the
trade-off rule for specialty goods, and the dominant rule for conven-
ience goods?

3. What are the specific functional needs and nonfunctional wants for
shopping behavior and is there any significant correlation between them
and various types of shopping options such as shopping malls, depart-

-28-

ment stores, discount stores, strip nialls, downtown shopping and other
retail establishments?

4. How much of the shopping options is determined by the Market Determi-
nants and by the Company Determinants? This will enable a company to
decide what is the balance of power between external noncontrollable
factors in its strategic planning for store life cycles.

5. What is the relative contribution of Personal Determinants vis-a-vis
Product Determinants across a group of products with respect to their
shopping motives? For example, we might suspect that for highly func-
tional products shopping motives may be more determined by the Product
characteristics but for highly nonfunctional products, they might be
more determined by Personal characteristics of the individual shopper.

Underlying all these suggestions, there is a latent theme: Do not try
to test the full theory in one single study and try to apply the individual
behavioral concepts at the aggregate product/market relationships. In
other words, the theory of patronage preference and behavior is likely to
be more useful in its generative function rather than in its descriptive
function.

REFERENCES

Aspinwall, Leo V. (1961), "The Characteristics of Goods and Parallel
Systems" in Four Marketing Theories, Business Division Research, Uni-
versity of Colorado.

Bartels, Robert (1965), "Development of Marketing Thought: A Brief His-
tory" in G. Schwartz (ed.), Science in Marketing, Wiley, 1965, pp. 47-69.

Bass, Frank M. (1974), "The Theory of Stochastic Preference and Brand
Switching," Journal of Marketing Research, Vol. 11, pp. 1-20.

Converse, Paul D, (1949) , "New Laws of Retail Gravitation" Journal of
Retailing, Vol. 14 (October 1949).

Copeland, Melvin T. (1923), "Relation of Consumers' Buying Habits to Mar-
keting Methods," Harvard Business Review (April 1923), pp. 282-289.

Darden, William (1979), "A Patronage Model of Consumer Behavior," paper
presented at the 1979 AMA Special Symposium on Department Sotres.

Engel, James; R. Blackwell & D. T. Kollat (1978), Consumer Behavior,
Third edition. Holt, Rinehart & Winston.

Fishbein, Martin & Icek Izjen (1975), Belief, Attitude, Intention and
Behavior, Addison-Wesley .

Hollander, Stanley C. (1960), "The Wheel of Retailing," Journal of Mar-
keting, 25, July 1960, pp. 37-42.

Howard, John A. and J. N. Sheth (1969), The Theory of Buyer Behavior,
Wiley.

Huff, David L. (1962) , Determination of Intra-Urban Retail Trade Areas,
Real Estate Research Program, UCLA.

Jacoby, Jacob and Robert Chestnut (1978), Brand Loyalty.

Kotler, Philip (1965), "Behavioral Models for Analyzing Buyers," Journal
of Marketing, 29, (October 1965), pp. 37-45.

Macklin, T. U921), Efficient Marketing for Agriculture, McMillian Company.

Reilly, William. J. (1929), Methods for the Study of Retail Relationships,
Bureau of Business Research, University of Texas Press.

Sheth, J. N. (1974), "A Field Study of Attitude Structure and Attitude-
Behavior Relationship" in J. N. Sheth (ed.) Models of Buyer Behavior,
Harper i Row, pp. 242-270.

Sheth, J. N. and Gary Frazier U981; , "A Model of Strategy Mix Choice for
Planned Social Change," Journal of Marketing fin press).

REFERENCES (Cont.)

Shech, J. N. and John Wong (1981), "Intention - Behavior Discrepancy:
A Laboratory Experimental Study," Faculty Working Paper, College of
Commerce, University of Illinois, August I98I.

Tauber, Edward M. (1972), "Why do People Shop?" Journal of Marketing,
Volume 36, (October 1972), pp. 46-59.

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