The role of retail store atmosphere on purchasing decision of customers: a research on the customers of three shopping centers in Eskişehir

To be successful in highly competitive retailing sector, the only way is providing expectations and demands of customers and creating a difference. Retailer store owners who haven?t got that much chance to create a difference on their product line and price, try to attract customer attention by constituting a different and unique store atmosphere. In this thesis, first we have explained the retailing term briefly in the first section. Then, in the second part, store atmosphere; its effects and the factors which form this atmosphere are examined. To test theoretical part of the thesis, we have implemented a quantitative research on a sample of customers who shopping at three different shopping centers. The respondents are asked about their opinion on the store atmosphere and their buying decisions. The results of this research indicate that the factors which form store atmosphere have an important role on purchasing behaviour. For customers, human factor is the most important factor followed by internal, external, auditory and sensual factors respectively.