Visibility and Shopper Type in Explaining Navigation within a Shopping Mall

Abstract

The purpose of this paper is to establish a framework for understanding navigation behavior in a mall in terms of achievement orientation and visibility and extending the knowledge in location decision of shops. Navigation of customers within a shopping mall is significant for achieving economic sustenance as reflected in retail management literature. Visibility on the other hand has been identified in the field of architecture and urban design as predictor of movement within a built environment. Visibility, therefore, has been selected in this paper as the environmental factor responsible for navigation in malls along with signage. Achievement orientation is selected in lieu of personal factor. The influence of achievement orientation on navigational preferences has been tested for respondents based on their pre and post signage predilection. It is found that low achievement orientation shoppers explore a built environment based on high visibility and vice versa. Visual configuration can be selected as a potential tool for location of stores in a shopping mall