Consumer motivations in forecourt convenience retailing in South Afica

The proliferation of forecourt convenience shops in South Africa spawned anentirely new model within an existing fuel sales business model. Conversely SouthAfricas regulated fuel industry was stunned by a near merger of Sasol and Engen,which led to petrol stations looking for new ways to attract business. The forecourtconvenience shops are not price regulated and hence have become a strategicrevenue generator for petrol station operators. These factors made the study ofconsumer motivations in forecourt convenience retailing necessary. Specific research hypotheses were formulated, based on a literature review, in order to prove or disprove the researchers viewpoint and fully appreciateconsumer motivations. A survey of 115 convenience shop patrons wasundertaken, the data was analysed statistically and hypotheses were then eitherrejected or failed to be rejected. Petrol brands play no role in consumer motivations, while forecourt shops independently play a role in why people shop. Age plays no role in motivations, whereas gender does, as more men shop at forecourt shops than do women.White people buy more from these outlets than non-whites. Hygiene factors andmotivators do not lead to greater spending, but motivators alone lead torepatronage. Total customer experience leads people to shop more often. Priceplays no role in customers intentions to repatronise the stores. Copyright © 2006 University of Pretoria. All rights reserved. The copyright in this work vests in the University of Pretoria. No part of this work may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, without the prior written permission of the University of Pretoria Please cite as follows: Molefe, MM 2006, Consumer motivations in forecourt convenience retailing in South Africa, MBA dissertation, University of Pretoria, Pretoria, viewed yymmdd < http://upetd.up.ac.za/thesis/available/etd-03312010-124402/ > G10/246/ag