Investigating Relationships between Shopping Complex Attractiveness and Customer Loyalty in Malaysia

Growing competition among shopping complexes in Malaysia in response to rising affluence and purchasing power has raised the challenge of customer loyalty as customers find it easier to defect to other shopping malls. Based on survey of 250 customers and multiple regression method, three models were developed to assess the strength of relationship between customer loyalty and shopping complex attractiveness. The models are (I) repeat shopping oriented customer loyalty model; (II) bring friends for shopping oriented customer loyalty model; (III) get rewards and free gift oriented customer loyalty model. The results shows that some predictors such as cleanliness of the shopping complex, convenience of wash rooms, access to bus/taxi stations, car park facility, food courts, variety of choices were prominent in terms of their contributions in the models fit. Cheaper price, variety of choices, friendliness of staff and games also contributed to the fit. In terms of model fit and predictive power, model II which accounted for 71% of variance in customer loyalty was found to be the best followed by model I which accounted for 59% of variance in customer loyalty. The third model though significant accounted for only 29 % and hence, did not yield much result in predicting customer loyalty.