Influences of Consumers' Patronage Behavior towards Petrol Stations among Gender

Abstract

The purpose of this study is to discover the distinct effect of gender on location, perceived value, service quality, site appearance, reward and loyalty and fuel addictive on petrol station patronage behavior in Malaysia. A sample of 403 was obtained using selfadministered structured questionnaires. Multigroup analysis (MGA) and PLS-SEM method was performed to analyze the data by using the statistical software SmartPLS 3.2.7. Findings shows that location, perceived value, service quality and fuel addictive have a direct and positive relationship with consumers' patronage behavior. However, reward and loyalty and site appearance were found to have no relationship with consumers' patronage behavior. Additionally, the findings of this study revealed significant differences between females and males in regard to the effect of location, perceived value and service quality. On the other hand, the impact of fuel additives, rewards and loyalty and site appearance were found to have no significant differences between females and males. The study concludes that factors do not equally contribute towards the decision-making process for consumers, but some of them are more significant than the others. This study includes recommendations for petrol station owners, where petrol stations need to carve niche for themselves in the petrol industry must focus on building values that creates customer's experience and resonates with consumers. The study intents to assist the petrol stations in making informed decisions by understanding the behavior of the consumers and thus, their preferences in this regard.