A comparative investigation of consumers' attitudes toward marketing practices of hypermarket retailers in Thailand

Purpose - The purpose of this paper is to contribute to the understanding of hypermarket retailers' marketing efforts by exploring consumers' attitudes toward marketing practices (CATMPs) of three retailers (Tesco-Lotus, Big C, and Carrefour) in Thailand. Design/methodology/approach - A non-probability convenience sampling procedure was employed. The data were collected from an intercept survey administered face to face. Three versions were tailored to each specific hypermarket retailer using similar questions related to consumers' attitudes toward different areas of marketing practices. The measures were adapted from the Index of Consumer Sentiment toward marketing and consumers' attitudes toward marketing. Findings - The results showed that although Thai consumers displayed different attitudes toward retail services, positive advertising, and fair price, they expressed similar attitudes toward business provisions and product quality across samples. Main and interaction effects of a limited number of demographic variables were also identified. Research limitations/implications - Multinational hypermarket retailers need to understand the similarities and differences related to areas of their marketing practices to be able to market effectively to Thai consumers. However, since the data were obtained from one city, the major limitation in the study is the generalizability of the findings. Originality/value - This study is among the first to attempt to investigate CATMPs of multinational hypermarket retailers operating in Thailand.