The entertainment factor undoubtedly plays a significantly major role in
attracting shoppers to the shopping mall and it has been the concern for a good
number of researchers who realize its importance to mall patronizes. Mall developers
and designers have as well made sure that entertainment be part and parcel of the
mall with all its diversity since people especially those in the city have started casting
a new look at the modern mall as a place not only for shopping but for fun as well.
That is why nowadays malls have child play areas, cinemas, gyms, restaurants of all
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all age groups. This, many believe, will positively reflect on the mall image and
ability to compete in the retail industry.
Entertainment is related to pleasure and enjoyment. Though there is some research on entertainment, few researchers believe that there is a little academic
research on it with relation to shoppers’ satisfaction (Bellenger et al., 1977 and Sit et
al., 2002). Comprehending the effect of entertainment on shopper's satisfaction will push mall designers, managers, and researchers to take this aspect into consideration
when constructing any mall or conducting any study, respectively (Sit et al., 2003).
The idea of the mall has changed a great deal since entertainment has become part
and parcel of the shopping process in contrast with the idea that a mall is only to buy
things. Malls are now considered highly organized social spaces for entertainment,
interaction, and other types of consumer excitement (Frat & Venkalesh, 1993; Pine
& Gilmore, 1999).
Sit and Merrilees (2003) build a conceptual model to help understand the
formation of shopping satisfaction in Australia, holding that very little research has
looked into the concept of entertainment consumption in shopping centers. The
model comprised five key constructs, namely hedonic motives, functional evaluation,
affective evaluation, overall satisfaction, and behavioral loyalty. The researchers
proposed that affective experiences are also likely to be influenced by functional
attributes relative to the concept of entertainment consumption.
In order to meet the change of taste for consumers, malls have been expanded
to encapsulate entertainment. Nowadays shopping malls have turned into places with
restaurants, food courts, video arcades, movie theatres, beauty salons, dental offices,
and more. Malls have also turned into important meeting places, especially for young
people and seniors. Mall managers have utilized this trend and have started making
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grown into monumental entertainment centres, almost to the point where their
traditional retail shoppers seem secondary (Ahmed et al., 2007). Underhill (1999)
notes that when entering a mall today, you are not sure if you are in a mall or a park.
Hence, dissociating shopping from entertainment is becoming hazy and complicated
because shopping centre patronage nowadays goes beyond purchasing goods and/or
services to include the pursuit of leisure activities like entertainment (Smith, 2003).
A study claims that shopping mall entertainment is an innovation emerging
worldwide and become a major element in shopping activities (Groover, 2005). The
new shopping perspective has now blended leisure and entertainment (Erkip 2005).
Shopping is in itself a form of leisure as noted by some researchers argue that
shoppers in shopping malls are leisure seekers. One striking fact about shopping is
that it is a major leisure activity for Americans and in fact it is the second most
important leisure activity, after television watching (Goss, 1993). Shoppers’
motivation differs with reference to hedonic or utilitarian concerns. Those driven by
utilitarian concerns believe “shopping is a form of work”. Others are enticed by
hedonic concerns and they comprise enjoyment, excitement, experiences obtained
from shopping activities (Nicholls et al., 2002; Kim et al., 2003).
For more profit-making, entertainment has turned into a strategy to make
shoppers stay longer, tenants make revenues, and extend a shopping center's trading
areas (Shim & Eastlick, 1998). In other words, entertainment (such as movie
theatres, food courts and fashion shows) can boost the spaciousness of a shopping
centre necessary for an exciting and pleasant experience for shoppers (Sit et al.,
2003). Entertainment plays a pivotal role in enhancing dedication to the shopping
experience with reliance on excitement or delight. This means establishing more
loyalty and having a reguler customer to the shopping centre (Haynes & Talpade,
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affecting shopping mall visit, namely, recreational, convenience, functional and
socializing. These were dealt with in terms of the benefit that the shoppers enjoy
when visiting a super-regional shopping mall. As a finding in the study, recreation
made a great deal of benefits for shoppers who visit a super-regional shopping mall.
Entertainment can be delivered by a variety of means and take different forms.
Generally, entertainment events that are often seen in shopping centres include kids’
entertainment, fashion shows, celebrity appearances and band performances
(Barbieri, 2005). These entertainment events are seen as special event entertainment
and are usually offered on a seasonal basis (Sit et al., 2003).
Studying why a certain segment of people namely the young are interested in
coming to visit the mall has had the attention of researchers like Anselmsson (2006)
from Sweden who maintains that entertainment plays an important role in attracting
young people to the mall. Younger people use shopping malls as a place to’ hang
out’, meet friends, or to make new ones. Entertainment might be viewed from a cultural point of view as peoples generally differ in their cultural tendencies and
preferences. In a cross- cultural study, Nicholls et al. (2000) reports that Chilean
shoppers’ mall visits were mainly enticed by purchasing factors while shoppers in
the USA patronage their mall for different causes, with entertainment being a key
reason.
From an emotional perspective, Bloch et al. (1994) ),working in an American
context, investigate the impact of mall physical environment on shoppers’ emotional
states and confirmed that malls were viewed by shoppers as a place not only for
shopping, but also for entertainment. Similarly, Nicholls et al. (2002) from Chile
claims that today’s shopping mall visitors are inclined to be more enticed by
enjoyment than shoppers in the early 1990s. Barreto and Konarski (1996)
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functional duration. For instance, specialty entertainment and food entertainment are
more permanent while special event entertainment, such as fashion shows and
celebrity singing, is temporary and occasional. However, Jones (1999) made an
attempt to organize a framework in order to grasp an entertaining shopping
experience. Jones utilized the critical incident technique and came up with nine
factors contributing to the essence and experience of shopping entertainment. He
identified two categories: customer factors that include social, task, time,
involvement and financial resources; and retail factors representing selection, prices,
store environment and salespeople. Analyzing responses coming from shoppers, he
found that customer factors were rather surprisingly chosen more than retail factors.
Young people have their own motivation to visit one mall rather than another.
In essence, they differ in shopping motivation, shopping criteria, shopping patterns
and purchase behavior (Li et al., 2004). Basically, shopping malls have special
designs especially for teenagers, so that they can have a lot of fun, release their
psychological stress and loneliness, enjoy entertainment and meet their friends
(Bloch et al., 1994).
Entertainment is closely related to spending more money on things that are
not necessarily basic but joyful. As Wakefield and Baker (1998) found that the
enjoyment of shopping has to do with excitement. Basically, people who spent more
money and time in the shopping mall had most fun, but others with less time and
money did their shopping quickly and did not have any fun. So to attract hedonic
shoppers, mall managers need more than just creating utilitarian value (Wakefield &
Baker 1998). In a recent study by Rajagopal (2009) about southern residential areas
in Mexico City, leisure shopping respondents were found to have like- mindedness
in shopping behavior with regard to leisure shopping, impact of shopping mall
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process, point-of-sale arousal towards store promotions and influence of recreational
satisfaction in malls on buying.
In a Turkey-based study by Özsoy (2010) concerning the behavior of Turkish
shoppers towards the factors that attract them most to the malls, it was found that the
entertainment and leisure factors play the greatest role in enhancing the good image of the mall and they represent the most attractiveness factors for shoppers among the
other attractiveness factors.