Elderly Consumers and Retail Sales Personnel: Examining Knowledge, Attitudes, and Retail Service Satisfaction Book

This collection will present works that offer illuminating perspectives on the remarkably diverse Asian American populations of the United States. As a population that is neither black nor white, the range of experiences of these groups, many of whom arrived as refugees, presents other perspectives on the cultural mosaic that constitutes the United States. Studies of Asian Americans sheds light on issues related to immigration, refugee policy, transnationalism, return migration, cultural citizenship, ethnic communities, community building, identity and group formation, panethnicity, race relations, gender and class, entrepreneurship, employment, representation, politics, adaptation, and acculturation. The writings in this collection are drawn from a wide variety of disciplines to provide a broad and informative array of insights on these fascinating and diverse populations.

This book examines elderly consumers' marketplace preferences and satisfaction, and compares them to the perception of these variables by retail sales personnel. Focus group interviews were conducted with elderly consumers and retail sales personnel to aid in the development of a mail survey administered to both groups. This study provides a new perspective on elderly consumers by revealing the importance of studying them together with retail sales personnel, rather than simply focusing on these two groups separately. To examine the role that attitudes play in the retail sales encounter between sales people and elderly consumers, the theory of person perception was used as the theoretical framework. Categories analyzed included service hospitality, personnel characteristics, price, layout accessibility, andclothing availability/merchandise pricing.

This study found significant variation in sales personnel's perceptions of elderly consumers' preferences. Furthermore, in accordance with person perception theory, the results indicate that elderly consumers view older sales personnel more positively than younger ones.