Lost in a mall, the effects of gender, familiarity with the shopping mall and the shopping values on shoppers' wayfinding processes

Shoppers' wayfinding is an increasingly important problem in the management of shopping malls. Yet, it remains underresearched. The present study, undertaken in a shopping mall with real shoppers (N=156), aims at understanding the extent to which three characteristics of shoppers, i.e., gender, familiarity with the mall, and shopping values, affect the processes and the information sources shoppers use to find a store within a mall. The shoppers recorded their thoughts and their actions during the wayfinding. The recordings were content-analyzed. Shoppers' wayfinding processes and information sources vary significantly with the three shoppers' characteristics studied here. Some significant mediating effects of hedonist shopping values are also shown. Managerial implications are proposed.