The viability of benefit segmentation in Tier II cities of India identifying benefits sought by Indian customers
The Indian retail industry has been affected by numerous changes, one of which is the evolving behaviour of Indian customers. Customers are no longer shy to express the benefits they seek from retail environments and are driven towards stores which meet their individual needs. The purpose of this paper is to understand the benefits sought by Tier II city customers from retailers. An extensive literature review was conducted to identify variables for the study which were incorporated into a structured questionnaire. The instrument was administered via a store intercept survey among department store shoppers in Indian Tier II cities of Allahabad and Kanpur. The data was analysed with exploratory factor analysis to identify specific benefits desired by the customers from the store. These benefits may be used by retailers for the purpose of segmentation and build a unique, differentiated positioning platform to attract/retain customers.