Abstract:
In the contemporary marketplace, customer switching hasbecome a popularly addressed phenomenon. This studyendeavoured to provide an approach to understand thecustomer switching behaviour and identify the major factorswhich influence customer switching in apparel stores.Clothing has become a major requirement for each andevery customer in this modern society. Customers use theirpreferred brand, material and style etc. and become loyalto particular apparel store/s where they can enjoy theexpected benefits in choosing preferred clothing items.However, customers may switch their apparel stores due tovarious reasons. Even though many clothing brands atdifferent quality and price levels are available, manycustomers still switch among different apparel stores. In thefield of apparel industry, researchers have put more weighton the fashion clothing, nature of purchasing decisions, andclothing brand loyalty etc. However, the research studieswhich focus on customer switching is scarce. Therefore, thisstudy attempts to study the factors which cause customerswitching in appreal stores. The survey method was adoptedas the main research method to conduct the study. Thesample consisted of 300 customers who were met at theirvisits to textile shops in the city of Matara in Sri Lanka. Anexploratory factor analysis was employed to identify themajor factors of customer switching. According to the resultsof the exploratory factor analysis, five major factors such asinferior quality, unavailability, service failure, stressfulatmosphere and high price were identified as the majorfactors which influence the switching decision in retailapparel store.
