Abstract
Namibia experienced an economic slowdown amid Covid-19 and apparel retailers were challenged to adapt to the effects of the pandemic on consumers’ behaviour. More specifically, consumers spent less on “non-essential” merchandise, such as apparel, visited stores less, and traded down for merchandise value, affordability, availability, and quality. Adapting meant that apparel retailers had to discover solutions to remain resilient, differentiable, and competitive with their retail stores. One such solution is to cater for Namibia’s largest, poorest, yet unexploited and underserved consumer segment, the bottom-of-the-pyramid (BOP) consumers. BOP consumers are a significant segment that can offer apparel retailers exponential growth.
Apparel retailers observed that the urban BOP consumer segment spends a higher percentage of its income on apparel, resulting in a growing demand for apparel. This tendency revealed that although urban BOP consumers receive low, yet relatively stable incomes, apparel shopping has become a significant part of their lifestyle and presents a lucrative segment for apparel retailers to operationalise on cost savings, fewer market competition, and profitability potential. This is evident in Namibia’s major urban regions of Khomas and Erongo. The urban BOP consumer segment’s apparel needs, motivations, and preferences differ significantly from the middle- and high-income segments, as the BOP consumers primarily purchase to satisfy their basic necessities or to obtain social acceptance and belonging, which is not always the primary apparel purchasing goal of other income segments. Most apparel retailers present homogeneous retail experience offerings based on compensatory consumption to serve this segment, since BOP consumers often purchase apparel to lessen the tension of a low self-esteem due to being perceived as disadvantaged. Therefore, marketing research has overlooked the lucrative effects apparel retailers can enjoy by empowering BOP consumers with a customised retail experience through store atmospherics. Store atmospherics is paramount to urban BOP consumers because their low literacy levels expose their unique preferences to interact with a physical store visually and emotionally. Store atmospherics and apparel anchor a sense of retail and social belonging, as they can incorporate specific consumers’ purchase antecedents that drive behavioural intentions.
Consequently, this study investigates the impact of store atmospherics on BOP consumers’ intentions to purchase apparel by validating the interrelationship between store atmospherics and BOP consumers’ purchase antecedents to attitude (perceived value, anticipatory emotion, trust), perceived behavioural control (perceived availability, perceived affordability, perceived awareness), and social norms (status consumption, social identity, self-identity) as determinants of urban BOP behavioural intentions among apparel retailers in Namibia’s Khomas and Erongo regions. The meta-theoretical approach supporting this study is a
Abstract
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systems thinking approach from a multidisciplinary theoretical perspective incorporating the stimulus-organism-response theory, relationship marketing theory, the theory of planned behaviour, social identity theory, and self-congruity theory as a holistic conceptual model for apparel retailers to explain store atmospherics and urban BOP consumers’ behavioural intentions.
This study collected data from urban BOP consumers in Namibia’s Khomas and Erongo regions using interviewer-administered questionnaires and non-probability sampling (purposive, interlocking quota, and convenience sampling), thus obtaining 881 responses. The covariance-based structural equation modelling technique was used to test the hypotheses developed for this study.
The main findings of this study reveal that store atmospherics impact urban BOP consumers’ intentions to purchase apparel and have a significant relationship with all the proposed urban BOP consumers’ purchase antecedents. This study found that urban BOP consumers’ perceived value, trust, perceived awareness, and self-identity shape their attitudes, perceived behavioural control, and social norms, which drives their behavioural intentions towards apparel. Additionally, urban BOP consumers’ attitudes are the main factor driving their behavioural intentions towards apparel. These results academically contribute insights into the under-researched urban BOP consumer segment. Apparel retailers are strategically advised to offer clear apparel prices, suitable store signs to guide consumers to what they need or want, convenient store locations near the largest concentration of the urban BOP, and display and stock apparel in different colours and sizes that reflects local traditional Namibian African in-season styles and trends. Accordingly, apparel retailers should consider training sales personal to be friendly, reliable, and treat consumers with dignity and respect to convey a feeling of equal status, importance, and recognition to foster their behavioural intentions. Therefore, apparel retailers are provided with insights to develop valuable marketing strategies to improve and align their store atmospherics with the consumption needs and motivations of urban BOP consumers purchasing apparel.