Why They Buy

The term ‘shop ’til you drop’ has just taken on a whole new meaning, thanks to Georgia Southern faculty member Jacqueline Eastman.The marketing professor has collaborated with Bradley University colleague Rajesh Iyer to find out exactly what attracts and keeps fashionistas shopping in a mall.

The pair spent hundreds of hours working on “The Fashion Conscious Mall Shopper: An Exploratory Study,” which is slated for publication next year in the Marketing Management Journal. During a one-week period, 210 shoppers participated in the survey at a Valdosta, Ga., mall with questions focusing on key areas such as affordable prices, variety of styles, comparison shopping and current fashions available from retailers.

Various published studies over several years have documented the declining trend of mall shopping due to busy lifestyles and increased competition from discount stores and the Internet. Eastman’s article offers marketing solutions to mall merchants eager to keep trendy style setters shopping in their stores.

The survey results showed that the entire group of consumers had an overwhelmingly positive attitude toward shopping. The authors generally found that fashion-conscious shoppers in this economy focus on the best price, comparison shop, and seek a variety of brands and styles. Fifty-three percent of the participants were male and 47 percent were female, with 35 percent of them frequenting the mall on a weekly basis, and 69 percent visiting the mall just for the simple pleasure of shopping.

So what are some good ways for retailers to lure shoppers to the mall? Eastman suggests that mall stores have to emphasize their uniqueness versus discount stores and Internet shopping. “They have to market their mall as a leisure experience, through fine dining at restaurants and events that will draw traffic to the mall. It’s important for malls to recognize that price is a factor for shoppers, but they also need to focus on what else they can offer,” she said.

Eastman is one of the founding faculty members responsible for the development of the Georgia Southern WebMBA program, and she has parlayed her extensive marketing and research experience in the private sector to publish more than three dozen articles in national scholarly journals. Her influential studies have been utilized around the globe – including China, Mexico, South Africa and Israel.

Like most professors, Eastman’s work involves more than just typical classroom lectures. In fact, by Eastman’s own estimation, she spends roughly 30 percent of her week researching topics such as status consumption, e-commerce, consumer advocacy and ethics for two reasons – to remain academically qualified and to lead by example for her students.

“The way students learn is by rolling up their sleeves and doing the work,” Eastman said. “I ask my students to write papers, so I feel an obligation to be consistent and put my own papers through a review process to be published.” She also helps her marketing research students gain experience in the field by assisting with survey collections, such as through data collection for the University’s Bureau of Business Research and Economic Development. “The students develop some interesting ideas and measures for the surveys that we will incorporate into other areas of research,” she said.