Chapter 4 Conclusions on Most Beneficial Ways to Build Customer Loyalty in Retail Industry in Oman

        In a nutshell, there are some customers that are known as truly loyal customers since they always prefer buying from one store rather than the competitor. If we look at the economic figures we can see that the in the years 2015-2017 the retail sector made a contribution of 8% to the GDP of Oman that means that yearly the sector contributed to the GDP more than 2 billion The most prominent example of the increase in retail sector in Oman is that how rapidly huge shopping malls are being constructed. Research conducted in 2017, showed that the number of people employed in the retail sector of Oman has increased to 36000. The increased profit of the retail sector has increased the competition in the industry. Since the retail industry produces homogenous products, gaining a customer is loyalty is crucial among retail stores. The aim of the research was to find the most beneficial ways to achieve customer loyalty in the retail sector of Oman. Customer loyalty is considered as a dependent variable while service quality, price strategy, and store attribute as independent variables in the research. The commitment of customers is really important for retail stores to gain a competitive edge.

        Moreover, this research has enlightened the factors of most beneficial ways to achieve customer loyalty in the retail sector of Oman. The customers of five different malls in Oman were targeted through the Facebook pages of these stores i.e. Muscat City Centre, Salalah Gardens Mall, Panorama Mall, Muscat Grand Mall, and Nizwa Grand Mall. A survey questionnaire was distributed among 100 people only 77 filled the questionnaire, the respondents were given the options starting from strongly disagree to strongly agree. The analysis of the research has shown that the percentage of the male is 50% who have participated in this research study while 35.04 % are female who has attended this research study. The Cronbach alpha test is applied to check the reliability and all values of all four variables are greater than 0.6 which are representing the data is quite accurate, reliable and valid for further analysis. The regression analysis has shown that values of the coefficient for all independent variables have a positive relationship with the dependent variable. It means that service quality, price strategy, and store attributes of retail stores in Oman increase customer loyalty.