is an associate professor and Head of Department of MBA, Shri Shankarcharya college of Engineering and Technology Bhilai, with 15 years of experience. She completed her doctorate in the fi eld of Marketing. Her areas of interest are Retail management and Change management. She has more than 30 papers to her credit both in national and international journals. Shikha Sondhiis senior lecturer in the Department of MBA, Shri Shankarcharya college of Engineering and Technology Bhilai. She has 5 years of teaching experience. She is a postgraduate in Management with Marketing and Finance as her specialization. Her area of research work is retail management. She has 10 research papers to her credit that are published in conferences both nationally and internationally, as well as national journals of repute.ABSTRACT The onset of the global fi nancial crisis is spurring customers to spend cautiously , thus decreasing the average amount of money spent per shopping trip. A dip in the customer conversion ratio has marred the profi tability of retailers, and therefore making customer conversion an imperative issue. Today, retailers are increasingly making use of various in-store infl uencers for converting browsers to spenders. However, success depends on how the customers perceive these infl uencers. This article empirically evaluates the perception of the customers towards various in-store stimuli that is, price, merchandise, promotion, displays and ambience, across stores located in a cross section of the retail market of Chattisgarh. The fi ndings of this article help in developing a strategy for improving conversions, therefore the profi tability of a retail outlet.

No abstract