Buyers-to-shoppers ratio of shopping malls: A probit study in Hong Kong

Buyers-to-shoppers ratio (i.e. conversion rate) has long been one of the commonly adopted metrics in assessing retail performance of shopping malls, but it is almost always relied on interviews, consumer surveys, and questionnaires. These methods are intrinsically problematic in ascertaining the trustworthiness of the responses. This paper is probably the first objective study on the buyers-to-shoppers ratio based on actual observations in shopping malls in Hong Kong. A probit model is used to study factors affecting the ratio. The results show that consumer-surveys seriously over-estimate the ratio.