Using conjoint analysis to study consumers choice of supermarkets.

Abstract

This paper applied conjoint analysis to investigate the relative importance of supermarket attributes and part-worth utilities of attribute levels that affect consumer choice of supermakets. A study was carried out on consumers working at the Penang free industrial zone factories. The attributes identified to describe a supermarket are: distance of the supermarket from the respondents house or office,availability of other nearby stores,product price, availability of parking space and service level provided by the supermarket. The outcomes show that,in general most shoppers are attracted to low prices and availability of parking space. Several segmented models indicate that respondents with different sicio-economic background tend to have slight different preferences on the attributes of the supermarkets.This study hopes to provide valuable inputs to the present and future supermarket retailers on the factors that influence consumer choice of supermarket.