Black middle class township shoppers: a shopper typology

Abstract

Due to an increase in spending power amongst Black middle class, this growing segment has become a lucrative investment opportunity for many retailers in South Africa and most emerging markets. The purpose of this study is to segment township consumers according to their demographics, life stage, attitudes towards township shopping centres and Living Standards Measure, to understand shopping patterns of township consumers. A survey among Soweto Black middle class township respondents was conducted, and maximum likelihood factor analysis was used to identify attitudes towards township mall factors. The study revealed five factors namely: entertainment, convenience, mall essence, staff and mall basics, which were all consistent with previous studies, with the exception of staff and mall basics, which was revealed in this study. A Kmeans cluster analysis was then used to segment township shoppers according to their attitudes.Four shopper segments were discovered, namely: disappointed crusaders, upcoming loyals, social seekers and local loyals, which, despite investigating shopper attitudes in place of shopper behaviour alone, were similar to well-establish shopper typologies. Each segment was profiled according to demographic variables, attitudes as well as shopping patterns. Results therefore suggest that retailers and developers need to consider the unique needs and differences among Black middle class consumers when developing retail strategies as they reveal unique characteristics from typical shopper typologies. Given similarities in some emerging countries such as India, the findings of this study could be generalized to other middle class consumers from emerging markets. Similar shopper segments may arise, which may be consistent with previous shopper typology studies and new segments unique to emerging market middle class consumer may be unveiled.

Worlds apart: an investigation of South Africa’s established and emerging middle class consumers

“…Findings from this study indicate a broader scope of the EMMC, which is not necessarily limited to the broad traditional emerging black middle class but one that identifies other sub-groups within this group that are not only delineated based on racial definitions. This reinforces the need to look beyond the traditional characterization of this group, which has been the focus of anthropological studies on the middle class in South Africa, for example, Iqani (2017) and Mashaba and Wiese (2016). Hence, the study provides new insights that factor in the impact of race in categorizing a middle class in the context of sub-Sahara, an area that is not well covered by previous studies.…”

“…This has resulted in a separation of the group into two distinct classes, namely, the established middle class (ESMC) and the EMMC (Burger et al , 2015). Although others such as Mashaba and Wiese (2016) have tried to expand the discourse to looking at the shopper typology of black consumers, these studies have not addressed a key component of understanding, namely, how the nuances and environmental context factors highlighted by Sheth (2011) and Burgess and Steenkamp (2006) influence the middle class groups. This has not been examined in the context of a growing under-studied EM, such as South Africa, that has distinct sub-groups of the middle class, with key dimensions that shape distinctive middle class decision-making.…”

Exploring divergent aspects of middle-of-the-pyramid consumers’ dining experience

“…However, the importance of dining experience dimensions and the relationship between these dimensions in relation to South African consumers' satisfaction when dining out has yet to be considered (Kruger & Saayman 2016). It is therefore extremely important to understand customer needs and to take measures to address or exceed these (Mashaba & Wiese 2016). Only limited research has been done in South Africa on consumer dining needs and only on the most important dining experience dimensions, such as food, service and atmosphere (Mhlanga & Tichaawa 2016).…”

An Evaluation of the Relationship Between Spatial Form and Transport Mode in Elim, South Africa

“…The study is significant because a few studies examine the relationship between transportation and land use in locations outside the main cities in South Africa. Most studies focus on the country's leading cities, adjacent townships, and suburbs (Strydom, 2013;Mashaba & Wiese, 2016;Makgopa, 2016;Mason et al, 2019). Hence, they need to pay more attention to the medium and small towns in the outer areas regardless of their role in national economic development and counter-urbanization.…”