CHAPTER 9: DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSIONS
9.4 To identify the determinant attributes that influence clothing store selection among
When developing a positioning strategy and determining which attributes or features should form the basis for the positioning approach, Aaker (2008: 46) explains that, traditionally, the firm should initiate the process with a qualitative investigation of the consumer perceptions regarding the firm and its brands or products, as well as how these are understood and recognised by the consumer. This was the first step in the research project at hand, as the research commenced with conducting four focus groups, which included using the free- elicitation method where participants were asked open-ended questions regarding which attributes they deem as important when, for instance, evaluating a particular product or brand.
The purpose of this approach was to measure the first dimension of attribute importance, namely that of salience which “represents the importance of the attribute in memory” (Van Ittersum et al. 2007: 1180). The attributes which were thus revealed by the focus group participants as being the most important were subsequently used to design the Stage 2 questionnaire. Question 3 of the questionnaire employed the direct-rating method and required the respondents to rate each of the 12 clothing store attributes, identified during the focus groups as the most important, in terms of how important they find each of the attributes when choosing a clothing retailer from which to purchase clothing. A scale of 1 to 10, with 1 implying the attribute has no influence over the respondent and 10 that the factor exerts a very strong influence over the respondent‟s choice of clothing retailer, was used. The purpose of this question was to measure the second dimension of attribute importance, namely that of relevance, which “represents the importance of the attribute to the individual based on personal values and desires” (Van Ittersum et al. 2007: 1180). As discussed in relation to the second research objective, the attributes which were revealed to be the most important, with the highest mean ratings, with regard to influencing the Generation Y respondents‟ choice of clothing retailer, were found to be: High Quality Merchandise, Value for Money, Uniqueness of
182 Merchandise, Fashionable Merchandise, Store Cleanliness, Wide Selection of Merchandise and Low Prices. This thus satisfies the second dimension of attribute importance.
With regard to the third and final dimension of attribute importance, namely the dimension of determinance, which “represents the importance of the attribute in judgement and choice” (Van Ittersum et al. 2007: 1180), this was measured using the statistical test known as Discriminant Analysis, which “determines consumers‟ perceptual dimensions on the basis of which attributes best differentiate, or discriminate, among brands” (Walker and Mullins 2008: 166). In this case, the Discriminant Analysis was used to identify which of the clothing store attributes best differentiated between the 5 clothing retailers. Ultimately, positioning may be based on one or a combination of attributes, however, when choosing which attributes to highlight, it is vital to select those which are highly important and salient to the specific target consumer (Walker and Mullins 2008: 157), as well as choosing attributes which clearly differentiate the firm and its offerings from those of competitors. It is important to remember that “even an important attribute may not greatly influence a consumer‟s preference if all the alternative brands are perceived to be about equal on that dimension” (Walker and Mullins 2008: 157). Therefore, differentiation is “the key to winning” (Aaker 2008: 46) and achieving success.
The first step in Discriminant Analysis involved identifying the most important attributes used by the target consumer when evaluating the various options within the particular competitive set (Walker and Mullins 2008: 166), in this case, the researcher identified the attributes Generation Y consumers apply when choosing between clothing retailers during both the focus group sessions, as well as from the data collected from Question 3 of the Stage 2 questionnaire. The next step in conducting this statistical test involved collecting “data from a sample of consumers concerning their ratings of each product or brand on all attributes” (Walker and Mullins 2008:
166), which was achieved using Question 5 of the Stage 2 questionnaire.
Question 5 of the questionnaire comprised the same 12 clothing store attributes and 5 clothing retailers which the questionnaire respondents were asked to rate in terms of how well each clothing store performs on each of the 12 clothing store attributes, using a 1 to 10 scale, with 10 representing very good and 1 signifying very poor. This methodology is suggested by authors such as Walker and Mullins (2008: 157) who explain that the qualitative, first stage of the research investigating consumer perceptions should then be supplemented and followed by quantitative techniques, such as questionnaires and surveys, to establish the consumers‟
perceptions “on how competing products score on these attributes” (Walker and Mullins 2008:
157).
183 Four statistically significant Discriminant Functions were revealed by the Discriminant Analysis. Function 1 accounts for 81.5% of the total variance, Function 2 accounts for 14.4%, while Functions 3 and 4 account for only 3.6% and 0.6% of the total variance explained.
According to the canonical correlations, Function 1 with the highest canonical correlation of 0.764, was found to be the most differentiating between the 5 clothing retailers, however, all four discriminant functions do play a role in differentiating between the stores.
According to the Discriminant Loadings, which indicate the degree of correlation between the original attribute and the latent discriminant function, each of the four Discriminant Functions are dominated by a particular clothing store attribute, which is evident by the highest discriminant loading for each function. Therefore, dimensions 1, 2, 3 and 4 are dominated by the attributes of Low Prices, Fashionable Merchandise, Convenient Location and Uniqueness of Merchandise respectively, with discriminant loadings of 0.78, -0.67, -0.66 and -0.82. These findings thus suggest that these four clothing store attributes serve to discriminate or differentiate the 5 clothing retailers, namely Mr Price, Edgars, YDE, Woolworths and Identity.
These findings were then compared to the previous conclusions that the most important attributes to the sample of Generation Y consumers when choosing a clothing retailer from which to purchase clothing were found to be: High Quality Merchandise (8.23); Value for Money (7.79); Uniqueness of Merchandise (7.75); Fashionable Merchandise (7.7), Store Cleanliness (7.53), Wide Selection of Merchandise (7.39) and Low Prices (7.08). Bearing in mind positioning theory which states that in order for an attribute to be classified as determinant, it must exhibit two characteristics (Arnold et al.1978: 663). Firstly, the attribute must be considered as important in terms of influencing patronage behaviour (Arnold et al.
1978: 663). Secondly, the attribute must be “perceived as being differentiated with respect to the presence of the important attribute” (Arnold et al. 1978: 663) in terms of the various alternatives being considered as part of the choice process (Arnold et al. 1978: 663).
Consequently, one can conclude that the determinant attributes, namely those which are both important to the Generation Y respondents in terms of influencing their choice of clothing retailer, as well as differentiating between the clothing retailers, are: Low Prices, Fashionable Merchandise and Uniqueness of Merchandise.
This information was subsequently used to create perceptual maps of the 5 clothing retailers according to these determinant attributes. According to McDaniel and Gates (2010: 622), discriminant analysis is a technique frequently used for generating perceptual maps. Perceptual mapping is a method regularly used to establish determinant attributes and is “constructed by surveying consumers about various product attributes and developing dimensions and a graph indicating the relative positions of competitors” (Peter and Olson 2010: 378-379). The
184 perceptual map is thus a “visual representation of consumer perceptions of a product, brand, company, or any other object in two or more dimensions” (McDaniel and Gates 2010: 621).
The perceptual map presented below was constructed using the determinant attributes of Low Prices and Fashionable Merchandise, and the mean ratings each of the 5 clothing retailers received on these 2 attributes, as shown in Table 9.2 below:
Table 9. 2 Mean Ratings for Clothing Stores on Low Prices and Fashionable Merchandise Attribute Mr Price Edgars YDE Woolworths Identity
Low Prices 8.78 4.9 3.00 4.28 5.09
Fashionable Merchandise 7.00 7.63 8.35 7.04 7.33
Figure 9. 1 Perceptual Map for Low Prices and Fashionable Merchandise
As is evident from the perceptual map above, a high score on the attribute of Low Prices represents the existence of low prices whereas a low score represents high prices. Accordingly, the attributes of Low Prices and Fashionable Merchandise mostly differentiate Mr Price from the other four clothing retailers. Identity, Edgars, Woolworths and to a slightly lesser degree, YDE, appear together in the same quadrant on the map which implies that they are perceived in a similar manner. Mr Price is perceived as offering the lowest priced merchandise which is very