Cross-Cultural Retailing Research

Relatively little is known about consumer perceptions of retailers in Central and Eastern Europe. What store attributes do consumers in these markets emphasize? Do these attributes reflect the culture of the region? These questions are addressed in the case of Estonia. However our main objective is to contrast the Estonian situation with that of a typical Western country, Canada. Two key shopping experience constructs are selected, namely merchandise selection and the interactivity between the store and the consumer. To make the comparison meaningful we have chosen a single retail category, namely discount or low-price department stores. In both countries there were two stores that dominated their respective market, so this facilitates the collection of consumer perceptions. Structural equation modeling using AMOS software has been used to test the equivalence of the constructs across cultures. Our main findings are that (1) both merchandise selection and store-customer interaction are valid constructs across both countries, (2) that the factor patterns have configural invariance or equivalence for each construct across the two cultures and (3) that the factor patterns do not have weak factor invariance across the cultures. In short, we conclude that there are major differences in consumer's discount store shopping experiences across the two cultures.