Date of Award

12-2022

Document Type

Thesis

Department

Management and Marketing

First Advisor

Robert Cook, Ph.D.

Abstract

Understanding customer behavior and preferences is the first step towards developing optimal strategies for businesses and driving the highest revenues possible. Consumer behavior spending habits are everchanging due to the evolving nature of customers’ needs and preferences. This thesis fills the gap of a quantitative analysis between the in-person and online retail medium reflected onto levels of customer spending. This research provides further information about shoppers’ decision-making processes accounting for correlative relationships between demographic (age, gender, education level, income, etc.) and environmental variables (physical store atmospheres, online retail websites, social media advertisement). The research was based on primary data collected via survey, a timely and reflective format for observing current customer spending habits and behaviors in both in-person and online environments. The sample population was primarily constituted of Northeastern Illinois University students, faculty, and staff, along with other non-affiliated participants outside the institution in order to increase diversity of responses and reflectivity of the overall consumer population. The survey collected quantitative data along with indicator, dummy, and dichotomous variables based on Likert-scaled responses. Multiple linear regression analyses were implemented to identify correlative relationships between independent (demographic and environmental variables) and dependent variables (monetary spending) to highlight their contribution over levels of spending.

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