Are lifestyle centres unique? Consumers' perceptions across locations

Lifestyle centres are emerging retail locations and yet have not been included in past studies of shopping centres. The purpose of this paper is to explore whether and how individual and retail characteristics impact consumers' patronage behaviours at three popular retail locations (i.e. central business districts, lifestyle centres, and traditional enclosed shopping malls) in the USA and understand consumers' perceptions of the three different retail locations.

A mail survey was conducted and 410 surveys were returned. Multiple regression analyses and t‐test were conducted to test proposed hypotheses.

This study revealed that shopping orientation, importance of retail attributes, and beliefs about retail attributes influence patronage behaviour (i.e. shopping frequency) at the three retail locations. Additionally, consumers' responses suggest that they did regard lifestyle centres differently from the central business district and the traditional enclosed shopping mall on many aspects of the retail attributes examined in this research.

This study is limited in that respondents were consumers of a specific geographic area with certain retail locations. Findings may not be generalizeable.

Understanding how consumers evaluate the three retail locations enables practitioners to develop and/or revise their retail strategies in order to be competitive in the current market.

This is the first study investigating consumers' perceptions of three major retail locations by including the newly emerging lifestyle centres in the USA.