Is Lifestyle Centre the new retail transformation in India An Exploratory Study

This study aims to predict the next retail transformation in India. The study being exploratory in nature tries to find whether there is any change in consumer behaviour which could lead to the next retail transformation in favour of lifestyle centres. In many countries, lifestyle centres have been seen as replacement to shopping malls. Comparative analysis was done between lifestyle centres and shopping malls to measure preference of consumers over the selected attributes. Two levels of knowledge of consumers, which are subjective knowledge and usage experience (personal visit), were used to further explore their preference between the two shopping centres. The consumers preferred lifestyle centres over shopping malls on 13 of the 17 attributes, especially the hedonic attributes. While in attributes related to ease and safety, shopping malls were preferred. In many attributes, there was significant difference among respondents' choice at different level of knowledge.