Abstract:
This paper is focused on the identification and evaluation of internal factors of a shop, that are affecting retail buying behaviour of customers in retail food stores. The study examines the environment in Czech retail market, which is characterized by strong competition with a predominance of foreign chains. Domestic traders very often use concatenation into franchise chains as a way of defence against their strong influence. By that a very diverse group of shops, acting as a single unit retail chain, is created. But the strength and quality level of the entire chain is limited by its weakest link. The identification of internal factors of a shop that are affecting retail buying behaviour is based on secondary data from buying behaviour studies and primary data, the customers buying behaviour survey. The questionnaire, which was answered by 175 respondents, was focused on the identification of key factors influencing the choice of the shop for customers’ routine shopping. These findings created the basis for the evaluation of shops within mystery shopping, which was focused on the evaluation of factors characteristic for a shop internal environment and processes. The 85 evaluated shops are members of Czech retail franchise chain covering about 220 small and medium-sized stores. The aim of the study is to propose a method for vulnerability assessment and finding opportunities for growth of shop sales as the way of building and strengthening of the retail chain competitiveness.
