A Comparative study of marketing communications of local and foreign national small grocery tuck-shop owners in selected municipalities in the Free State Province

Abstract

Despite evidence of use and research in marketing communications by large retail businesses in South Africa, the continued proliferation of small grocery tuck-shops in South African townships has presented the small retail business environment with stiff competition from local and foreign national-owned businesses. Observations show that foreign national tuck-shop owners employ best customer services and effective packaging of their goods as part of their marketing communications, yet no empirical evidence is available to suggest that local tuck-shop owners do the same. The objective of this study was to investigate the differences in marketing communications between foreign national tuck-shop owners and local tuck-shop owners in the Free State Province, South Africa. Using descriptive, cross-sectional comparative research design, a population of 464 tuck-shop owners, foreign nationals and South Africans provided data for the research. Stratified proportional random sampling technique was used to select a sample size of 236, 136 foreign nationals and 100 South Africans. Data was collected using a self-administered structured questionnaire, with items measured on a Likert scale of (1) Strongly Disagree to (5) Strongly Agree, as well some from (1) Not at all to (5) To a greater extent. Data was analysed using descriptive statistics, Exploratory Factor analysis, Student T-test for independent samples, Chi-square and 4-way ANOVA. The findings of the study revealed that the choice of marketing communications is not the same across nationalities, except for the broadcast media and market research. The results further revealed that foreign national tuck-shop owners are using marketing communications more than their South African counterparts. Implications for the improvement of marketing communications among local tuck-shop owners are discussed. Key words: marketing communications, small grocery tuck-shops, foreign national tuck-shop owners, local tuck-shop owners