A Study of Store Choice Behaviour of Consumer in Fashion Apparel in Nagpur City Mubina Saifee* AbstrAct Retail sector in India has shown a soaring growth, with international players entering in the sector. Store choice has become a crucial subject for research. In light of this, the purpose of the present paper is to study the store choice criteria in the context of apparel retailing in Nagpur city. A sample of 100 retail consumers was drawn through convenient sampling technique. The researcher has used factor analysis and factor loading to identify four broad factors named as Store Accessibility and Convenience, Brand and Quality Conscious, Store Appeal, and In-store Customer Service. Mean score ranking technique was further used to compare the importance of these factors for the store choice behaviour and identifed that brand and quality meant the most for store choice. Shopping behaviour differs according to the gender; for this reason, Mann Whitney U test was applied to test the differences in effect of these factors for store choice behaviour. Findings of the study may help the retailers of fashion apparels to make the right strategy related to store and merchandise to attract more customers to their stores. Keywords: Store Choice, Consumer Behavior, Fashion Apparel Introduction The Indian retail industry has emerged as one of the most dynamic and fast-paced industries due to the entry of several new players. It accounts for over 10 percent of the country’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP) and around 8 percent of the employment. India is the world’s ffth- largest global destination in the retail space. India’s retail market is expected to nearly double to US$ 1 trillion by 2020 from US$ 600 billion in 2015, driven by income growth, urbanisation and attitudinal shifts. While the overall retail market is expected to grow at 12 percent per annum, modern trade would expand twice as fast at 20 percent per annum and traditional trade at 10 percent. Store choice is a decision that a shopper is very much involved with, therefore it is extremely signifcant for any player in retail industry to understand this behaviour of retail consumer to attract more number of shoppers to their store. With the kind of growth retail sector is witnessing and increase in number of players in the organised retail sector, choices for these retail consumers have grown. The shoppers are choosing a particular store to shop based on various aspects. These aspects can be classifed as primary and image-based. These are the reasons which make the study of store choice behaviour imperative, although this topic has been studied by many scholars (Sinha, Banerjee, & Uniyal, 2002; Mittal & Mittal, 2008; and many more) in Indian contexts. Apparel is one of the basic necessities of human civilisation along with food, water and, shelter. The apparel industry refects people’s lifestyles and shows their social and economic status. The apparel and textile industry is India’s second largest industry after IT Industry. At present, it is amongst the fastest growing industry segment and is also the second largest foreign exchange earner for the country. The apparel industry accounts for 26% of all Indian exports. The Indian government has targeted the apparel and textiles industry segments to reach $50 billion by the year 2015. One of the most interesting features of the apparel industry is that it migrates from high cost nations to the low cost nations. The growth of the domestic demand for clothing in India is linked with the success of the retailing sector. India presently has entered the second phase of growth and is witnessing a massive rise in the domestic demand. This is primarily due to the rise in the standard of living caused by the rise in the middle-income groups. In our present economic world of demand and supply, price and quality are the key factors which determine the success of any business. The key element here though, is the cost of labour. India and China have a comparative advantage in this industry though their vast labour forces and the relatively low cost of labour. * Assistant Professor, Green Heaven Institute of Management and Research, Nagpur, Maharashtra, India. Email: mubinasaifee@ghimr.edu.in Article can be accessed online at http://www.publishingindia.com