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.
