The Impact of the Marketing Mix and Sustainability on Shaping Consumer Preferences Towards Non-Food Stores

A major challenge for any company, regardless of its field of activity, is related to the considerable improvement of financial indicators that determine its activity, such as: market share, turnover, sales volume and value, number of customers, etc. In generating these quantitative indicators, a major role is also played by qualitative indicators, usually represented by consumers᾿ and clients᾿ reviews. These qualitative indicators include satisfaction with companies᾿ services, trust and sympathy displayed, return to the store and positive recommendations of the store to friends, relatives or other people, together with the perceived fairness of retailers᾿ treatment. They represent important vectors not only in generating behavioral success of these stores, but also in attracting and retaining customers. In shaping a favorable perception, a particular role is played by several levers - prices, assortment, store atmosphere, customer service, etc. These, together with awareness, trust, sympathy, and more recently with sustainability issues (orientation towards environment protection, reducing resource consumption, societal orientation etc.) converge towards a better positioning of the companies among target market segments.The literature highlights several approaches to the issues at stake, treated individually and in interrelation, but does not entirely succeed in outlining an appropriate research direction regarding the integration of sustainability issues in shaping customer preferences towards non-food retail stores. Fully understanding the situation, the authors conduct an empirical research in non-food retailing in Romania. The research highlights some important issues, from both theoretical and practical point of view, useful in future scientific researches, as well as in defining internationalization strategies of retailers