The critical factors of shopping malls in urban complexes in China

Purpose: As the Chinese Government is planning to transform the economy from an export-oriented economy into a consumption-oriented economy, the impact of Chinese consumers to the economy will become more and more important. However, there is a lack of literature on Chinese consumers’ behavior and the critical factors of shopping malls in China. Hence, this study aims to determine the critical factors of a shopping mall in an urban complex in China from customers’ perspective, using Nanjing Wanda Plaza as an example for our case study. Design/methodology/approach: This study carries out ranking analysis and factor analysis to determine the critical factors of the shopping mall. Then cluster analysis is applied to divide the customers into three segments, showing the importance of each factor to different customer segments. Furthermore, correspondence analysis is conducted to investigate the relationship between customer segments and customer characteristics (gender, occupation, age and income). This method can show how customer characteristics affect the critical factors of the shopping mall. Findings: Sensual enjoyable shoppers consider the “soft factors” to be superior to the “hard factors”, whereas the pragmatic shoppers are just the opposite. Originality/value: This study can serve as a useful reference for developers in designing shopping malls in urban complexes to attract more customers.