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A Study on Customer Satisfaction towards Departmental

Stores in Dharmapuri Town
Dr.R.Venkatesh, D.Sripriya
Asst. Professor in Commerce, Ph.D., Research Scholar,
Don Bosco College, Dept. of Commerce
Dharmapuri-636 809. Don Bosco College,
Dharmapuri.-636 809.
Abstract Introduction
A department store is a retail establishment
Today business faces a lot of challenges.
offering a wide range of consumer goods in
The major work of today’s business is not
different product categories known as
only to face and survive with competitors
"departments". In modern major cities, the
but also to study consumer’s needs and
department store made a dramatic
analysis their behaviour. Though starting a
appearance in the middle of the 19th
business today is easy, surviving and
century, and permanently reshaped shopping
attaining success is an important issue to be
habits, and the definition of service and
given importance. Today, things are made
luxury. Similar developments were under
available in one shop, one place. These days,
way in London (with Whiteleys), in Paris
consumer buying is not more transfer of
(Le Bon Marché in 1852) and in New York
item from seller to buyer. Consumer wants
(with Stewart's).
buying to become a happy affair. They
would like to see, touch and feel the Department stores today have sections that
commodities that they buy. Understanding sell the following: clothing, furniture, home
this psychology for the consumer many appliances, toys, cosmetics, houseware,
organizations have come to make purchase gardening, toiletries, sporting goods, do it
of happy affair. Therefore Research focuses yourself, paint, and hardware and
on customers Satisfaction towards additionally select other lines of products
Departmental Stores users particularly such as food, books, jewelry, electronics,
Dharmapuri Town. Primary method of data stationery, photographic equipment, baby
collection for this study. The Data related to products, and products for pets. Customers
Departmental Stores users were collected check out near the front of the store or,
through Questionnaire method. alternatively, at sales counters within each
Convenience sampling method was used by department. Some are part of a retail
the researcher to collect the data. The chain of many stores, while others may be
statistical tools are used for Chi-square test independent retailers. In the 1970s, they
alalysis. came under heavy pressure from
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discounters. Since 2010, they have come The study of the consumer enable us
under even heavier pressure from online to analysis one’s own decision in buying.
stores such as Amazon. The very look of the departmental store
attracts people, the way in which products
Big-box stores, hypermarkets, and discount
are visited not only to buy, but also spend
stores are modern equivalent of historical
sometimes in the cafeteria and to enjoy the
department stores.
atmosphere, the consumer takes a look to
choose the product and understands the
Objectives inferential as well as the external factors.
This is done in a clean unpolluted
The objectives of the study are: atmosphere in departmental store. It is a
matter of study as to why people come and
 To study the factor influencing the buy from a departmental store.
customers to purchase house hold
articles from departmental store. Limitations of the study
 To study the needs of the customers
at the place of purchase.  The area of study is restricted to
 To analyse the customer satisfaction Dharmapuri Town.
level towards departmental stores  For convenience purpose, the
usage. population taken for the study refers
 To study the consumer’s opinion and to the customers of Ranga
ideas about the price, quality and Departmental store, Senthilkumar
services rendered by the departmental store, Smart
departmental stores. Departmental Store, Manivel
 To know the satisfaction level of Departmental store and Golumbu
customers’ towards departmental Departmental Store.
stores.  In order to complete the study within
 To offer suggestions to improve the the time frame, the number of
quality of departmental stores. respondents had been restricted to
 To study the sales services provided 1000.
by the departmental stores.
 To suggest, improve in sales and SAMPLING DESIGN
functions in the departmental Stores
based on results. In order to undertake sample, the
researcher has classified the entire
Statement of Problem customers are in socio - economic
characteristics viz., age, sex, marital status,
educational qualification, occupation and
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income. Purposive random sampling method association, so close attention to the data is
is adopted in this survey. In this chapter the required to interpret the information
collected information from 1000 provided by the test.
respondents related to Customer satisfaction
towards Departmental stores in Dharmapuri The chi-square test is based on a test
town have been tabulated and analyzed . statistic that measures the divergence of the
observed data from the values that would be
Sample Area of the study expected under the null hypothesis of no
association. This requires calculation of the
The area covered under the expected values based on the data. The
study is in Dharmapuri Town. expected value for each cell in a two-way
table is equal to (row total*column total)/n,
Statistical tool for analysis where n is the total number of observations
included in the table.
The collected data has been analyzed
using percentage analysis and diagrams. Chi Once the expected values have been
square Test: computed, the chi-square test statistic is
computed as
Statistical tool chi square test is used
to find the close relationship between
variables. This tool is used to find the
association between the variables. Variables
such Age, educational qualification, Gender,
Marital status ,occupation, Monthly salary,
family size, normal place of buying, where the square of the differences between
influence of media ,favorable departmental the observed and expected values in each
store etc have been taken for testing. cell, divided by the expected value, are
added across all of the cells in the table.
The chi-square test provides a
method for testing the association between The distribution of the statistic X2 is
the row and column variables in a two-way chi-square with (r-1)(c-1) degrees of
table. The null hypothesis H0 assumes that freedom, where represents the number of
there is no association between the variables rows in the two-way table and c represents
(in other words, one variable does not vary the number of columns. The distribution is
according to the other variable), while the denoted (df), where df is the number of
alternative hypothesis Ha claims that some degrees of freedom.
association does exist. The alternative
hypothesis does not specify the type of
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The chi-square distribution is defined need. The main objective of departmental

for all positive values. The P-value for the stores is to make all types of merchandise
available to customers and make them free
chi-square test is P( >X²), the
from the troubles of visiting shops to shops
probability of observing a value at least as
to buy one or other.
extreme as the test statistic for a chi-square
Therefore, departmental store is such a
distribution with (r-1)(c-1) degrees of
large-scale retailing business institution,
freedom.
which is established in the center of city
areas and varieties of goods are sold out
from same roof. Separate departments deal
Meaning of Departmental stores
in separate goods. Departmental store can
Departmental stores occupy very
sell more volume of goods and attracts,
important place among the large scale
mostly women customers.
retailing institutions. Development of big
cities, mass production of goods, busy lives Methodology
of city people including several others have
become the motivating factors for the The primary methods of data collection,
development of departmental stores. The that is, questionnaire technique was used to
credit for the development of departmental collect the data required. Respondents
store goes to France because departmental include both male and female. Convenience
store was first established in Paris in 1852 sampling method has been adopted under
naming it as 'Bon Marche'. the non-probability sampling techniques and
Departmental stores are such a large scale about 1000 samples have been collected for
retailing institutions in which different the study.
departments deal in different types of goods
in the same building. They try to satisfy The questionnaire consists of four
almost all kinds of needs of consumers at the parts namely, personal information,
same place. They sell all kinds if goods purchasing pattern, details about products
through centrally organized different and customers services provided at the store.
departments. Separate departments are The questionnaire was designed in such a
established for each type of goods. Different way that the respondents were able to
departments are operated to deal in different express their opinions and ideas freely and
goods such as foodstuffs, kitchen materials, frankly.
ready made garments, clothes, medicines,
motor cars, books, electronic and electrical Review of Literature
goods, leather goods, cosmetics etc. under
one roof or in same building. The customers William E Jackson III, Purushottaman
can find all kinds of goods whatever they Nandakumar, Aleda V Roth, 2003) 42
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suggest that the optional level of service Donelda S. McKechnie, Jim Grant, Vishal
quality depends critically on the competitive Bagaria (2007) 63 , consolidate the
structure of th e market, the degree of observations of listening actions displayed
demand and the ease of imitation of by service providers when interacting with
competitors' service quality innovations. customers in retail establishments. The study
contributes to knowledge about non - verbal
Gabbott Mark (2000) 33 quotes several communication within service encounters.
psychological studies which show that non- Implications for management include:
verbal behaviour by the service provider determining the optimum frequency and
affects service evaluation, because the occurrence of listening activities; and
quality of interaction between the customer training to service providers accordingly.
and the service provider influences the
customers’ perception of service quality. Byron Keating, Robert Rugimbana, Ali
Quazi (2003) 45 explore and define two
Brent McKenzie (2006) 58 in his paper on related constructs – service quality and
“Retail service quality success factors in relationship quality – to ascertain whether
Estonia: A qualitative Approa ch”, reveals consumers can meaningfully distinguish
that the findings are limited within the between the constructs. The paper finds that,
potentially confounding effects of other although service quality and relationship
consumer specific shopping variables. quality are distinct constructs, they overlap
Within Estonia, there is a need for a greater in the area of personal interaction and
understanding of retail consumer behaviour problem solving.
theory and practice, rather than mere
consumer data gathering. According to Kim and Jin (2001),
customers’ satisfaction and the intention to
Amy Wong Lianxi Zhou (2006) 62 deals repurchase result from the customers’
with the service quality and customer emotional experience during the purchase
satisfaction as determinants of relationship stage and, hence, from the appraisal of the
quality. It explains the impact of relationship store’s image. Atmospheric variables
quality on key relational outcomes influence customers’ satisfaction regardless
(customer loyalty and customer of shopping orientation; some variables do,
commitment). The findings suggest that the however, contribute to satisfaction for
inclusion of the relationship quality specific consumer segments (McKinney,
construct in the service quality-satisfaction 2004). Customers’ satisfaction or
model can further enhance the predictive dissatisfaction and intention to repurchase
value of service quality and customer are therefore indicators of the customers’
satisfaction. perception of the store, which, in turn, is
created by store image. Customers’
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satisfaction or dissatisfaction is prevalent substantiate the significance of a store’s

not only in the consumption stage but also image in successful retailing.
while purchasing, thus emphasizing the
importance of store image. The greater the According to Thomas, Dan R. E., (1978) 11
satisfaction of the customer during , service differentiation is necessary for the
purchasing, the greater the intention to growth and development of service
repeat purchase (Chen-Yu & Hong, 2002). businesses. Chase, Richard B, (1981) holds
that the potential efficiency of a service
Baker et al. (2002) affirmed that consumers system is a function of the de gree of
evaluate store image dimensions as reliable customer contact entailed in the creation of
information cues about product attributes, the service product.
price, quality, value and overall shopping
experience. The probability that a consumer will shop at
a given store increases as the individual's
Bitner (1990) reported that consumers perceptions of the store become more
concentrate on design and ambient positive. In general, consumers patronize
environment cues when evaluating a store. stores whose image is congruent with their
self-perceptions and unconscious needs.
According to Jacoby and Mazursky (1984), Thus, store specific attitudes (e.g. store
consumers depend heavily on pictures of image) and general attitudes toward the type
store interiors for information during the of store influence shopping behaviour (e.g.
shopping experience. Customer satisfaction shopping frequency) (Darley & Lim, 1999,
is therefore reached through a positive p.312)
evaluation of the desired store image. It can
therefore be deduced that needs satisfaction Service is a crucial element of a brand; this
and shopping satisfaction lead to store includes staff-customer interaction (sales)
choice, which underscores why stores strive (Newman & Patel, 2004). As shown above,
toward the needs and goal satisfaction of sales personnel are responsible for the social
consumers (Baker et al., 2002). In the interaction with customers through this
previous sections, the significance of store interplay between service and sales
image in corporate identity and the personnel. Service builds customer
importance AN EMPRICAL STUDY ON relationships and leads to positive-word-
FACTORS INFLUENCING STORE ofmouth and customer loyalty (Newman &
IMAGE, SATISFACTION AND Patel, 2004). Customers’ perception of
LOYALTY IN DEPARTMENT STORES social cues, which includes service,
59 thereof to retailers was pointed out. improves their perception of merchandise
Dependent and independent variables in (Hu & Jasper, 2006; Newman & Patel,
store image research were highlighted to 2004). Teller, Kotzab and Grant (2006)
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found that sales personnel service greatly preference for service is influenced by
affect store choice, even more than modern independent consumer variables.
services, such as home delivery. Service by
sales personnel through knowledge and Findings of the study:
courteousness is emphasized by Berman and  More than 53.5 percent of the
Evans (1995). Good service therefore respondents belong to the age group
contributes toward forming a positive store of 21-30 years.
image.  47.5 percent of the respondents are
female and 52.5 percent of them are
Thang and Tan (2003) concluded that stores male.
that provide good service leave shoppers  58 percent of the total respondents
with a more favourable perception which are married and others are
promotes an emprical study on factors unmarried.
influencing store image, satisfaction and  40 percent of the respondents are
loyalty in department stores 51 repeat visits
Degree /Diploma holders.
and has a positive impact on consumer
 45 percent of the respondents are
purchase behaviour. Miranda et al. (2004)
employed, followed by 21.5 percent
underscored this by concluding that
of the respondents are student.
intention to remain loyal to a store is
 49.5 percent of the respondents are
influenced by several factors, including
having the monthly income of above
service. Hellier et al., (2003) also showed
Rs.9,000.
that customers’ repurchase intention is
 More than 57.5 percent of the
influenced by service. While the repurchase
respondents belong to the family size
intention is thus influenced by service
of 2 to 4 members.
quality, Wirtz et al. (2007) stated that the
 More than 63 percent of the
effect of service on consumer behaviour is
respondents are purchasing the
moderated by emotional arousal. Huddleston
products from departmental
et al. (1990), found that mature female
stores.
consumers’ lifestyle characteristics
influence their preferences for services. In
respondents buy the goods through
contrast, Oates et al. (1996) showed that the
the word of mouth advertisement.
perception of the importance of the service
dimension is not notably different among  More than 48 percent of the
elderly consumer segments on the basis of respondents are prefer Ranga
lifestyle. Research results, however, Departmental Store.
highlight the fact that management should  More than 30.5 percent of the
take note of the impact that service can have respondent purchase the goods for
on consumer behaviour and that the convenient.
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 More than 32.5 percent of the  Majority of the respondent’s family

respondents are purchase the goods members are satisfied about the
for more than 3 years. departmental store.
 38.5 percent of the respondents  72 percent of the respondents are
purchase provision & groceries having willingness to recommend
product. other to buy in departmental stores.
 More than 41.5 percent of the  More than 66.5 percent of the
respondents are getting immediate respondents are accepting the
rectification from the damages. department stores are more
 More than 36.5 percent of the advantages than other stores.
respondents getting free door
delivery always.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Books
enjoying only two wheeler parking
 Dr.N.Rajan Nair, Sanjith R.Nair-
facility.
Marketing, Seventh Edition 1993,
Sultan chand & Sons, 23, Darya
enjoying the discounts and benefits
Ganj, New Delhi-110 002.
sometimes.
 R.S.N.Pillai, Bagavathi – Marketing
Management, First Edition 2010,
respondents are satisfied with the
S.Chand Publishing, 7361, Ram
customer care service.
Nagar, New Delhi-110 055.
 More than three- fourth (77.5
 R.S.N.Pillai, Bagavathi – Modern
percent) of the respondents are
Marketing, First Edition 2010,
satisfied about the products.
S.Chand Publishing, 7361, Ram
Nagar, New Delhi-110 055.
respondents are not satisfied about
 Philp kotler, Kevin Lane Keller,
departmental stores because of no
Abraham Koshy, Dorling
bargaining facility available in the
Mithileshwar Jha – Marketing
departmental stores. th
Management, 13 Edition,
Kindersley(India) Pvt. Ltd.,
facing some difficulties while
Education in South Asia.
purchasing.
 S.A.Sherlekar, K.Nirmala Prasand,
S.J.Salvadore Victor – Principles of
states that the departmental stores
Marketing Fifth Edition, Mrs.Meena
follow too many formalities.
Pandey for Himalaya Publishing
house, ‘Ramdoot’, Dr.Bhalerao
Marg, Girgaon, Membar400 004.
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Journals
1. Gunther Barth, "The Department

Store," in City People: The Rise of
Modern City Culture in Nineteenth-
Century America. (Oxford
University Press, 1980) pp 110–47.
2. Michael B. Miller, Bon Marché:
Bourgeois Culture and the
Department Store, 1869–
1920 (1981)
3. Kim, Ji Wan, Freddy Lee, and Yong
Gu Suh. "Satisfaction and Loyalty
From Shopping Mall Experience
and Brand Personality."Services
Marketing Quarterly 36.1 (2015):
62–76.
4. Kerrie L. MacPherson, Asian
department stores (Routledge, 2013)
However, online shopping and
pricing has become very common.
5. Richard Longstreth, "Sears,
Roebuck and the Remaking of the
Department Store, 1924–
42," Journal of the Society of
Architectural Historians (2006)
65#2 pp 238–279
WebSites
 www.wikipedia.com
 www.ebscohost.com
 www.business-standard.com
 www.google.com
 www.sciencedirect.com
 www.business.com
 www.businessweek.com

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p-ISSN : 2348-6848

International Journal of Research e-ISSN : 2348-795X

A Study on Customer Satisfaction towards Departmental

The chi-square distribution is defined need. The main objective of departmental

satisfaction or dissatisfaction is prevalent substantiate the significance of a store’s

 More than 32.5 percent of the  Majority of the respondent’s family

1. Gunther Barth, "The Department

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