SMALL BUSINESS RESEARCH (Canteen)

INTRODUCTION

With the flourishing recognition that store design is one of the restaurants most important concerns, store designing has emerged as top management priority in
most restaurant business nowadays. Various gizmos are employed to attract clientele, thus increasing profitability.

With its highly competitive nature, store design can be equally and especially important to influence customers perception and drive store choice and loyalty
aside from other standards such as the location of a store, the distance the customer must travel and of course the price plus the healthful conditions of the
place, primary reason why every canteen is clean and every food served is safe and fresh. These are the basic criteria in consumer’s canteen choice decisions.

Every store manager should take time in strategically building and positioning a food stalls image for the customers to have a good perception about the
business. Store design is one of the attributes that influence the overall image of a store. Store image may not only includes the location, affordability of food
prices, cleanliness of the place and food preparation but store design and layout as well.

Location is unimportant, canteen choice seem to be discrepant with a framework where customers optimize their food costs, where effort to access the canteen
location being one component of their budget. Like any other consumer, students too have their food allowance on a budget. That’s the reason why canteen’s
food is uniformly priced and is within financial means of students.

RESEARCH OBJECTIVES

This study aims to achieve the following goals:

General:

To determine if the canteens food stall design has an impact on the purchasing decision of students.

Specific:

To know the factors that contributes to a good design inside a food stall.
To measure the percentage of students who are influenced by food stall design in their purchasing decision.
To know other factors aside from store design that may influence students purchasing decision.

RESEARCH METHODOLOGY

This study was made to describe the impact of school canteen’s food stall design on students purchasing decision.Descriptive design will be utilized to describe
student’s social status by the rate of their weekly allowances. In relation with their perception of store image, a linear regression design will also be used to
determine significance of the relationship of canteen’s stall design and purchasing decision.

Survey will be the tool used for data collection. The social survey questionnaire will comprise close-ended questions that will be answered through multiple
choices and dichotomous choices. Data collection strategy will be cross sectional wherein respondents will be individually given questionnaire surveys at a
different time. Om the other hand, data type will be both qualitative and quantitative. Social status and those that students see as a factor which can influence
their purchasing decision will be in qualitative form. Percentage of students influenced by store design and relationship of store design on the purchasing
decision of students will be in quantitative form.

Related literatures from internet articles will be used to establish the movement of variables such as social status, store design and store preference. These
articles from the internet will support the objectives, conceptual framework, and research design of the study. Data and answers the specific problems of the
study will be measured in an ordinal level to be able to rank the most common allowances, number of times students eat a week and factors that affects
students purchasing decision.

SCOPE AND LIMITATION

The scope of the study is about the impact of different designs of canteen’s food stalls towards the purchasing design of students. The research study will be
focusing mainly on the students and their eating or purchasing behaviour observed in the canteen area situated at the west part of the campus.

CONCEPTUAL FRAMEWORK
The theoretical framework of this study explains food stall design’s relationship with the purchasing decision of a student which is also influenced by student’s
perception of the overall store image. Store image is built through many factors that a canteen is composed of, and one of those is design.

Store layout and design includes the wall color, table and chair setup, ambience, lighting and spacing. That’s why; store owners must also take into consideration
their store’s layout and design to build a good store image because store image allows businesses to gain more customers and receive positive purchasing
response or decision.

The framework states that how a student perceives store design’s importance in building store image has a relationship with their purchasing response. Good
perceptions then affects purchasing behaviour of a student leading to a decision to eat or dine while a bad perception otherwise. This theoretical framework will
be further proven by a thorough analysis of the research survey. The independent variable is student’s perception on the importance of store design and the
dependent variable is their purchasing decision, store design itself being the intervening variable.

Perception on Stall
Design’s importance Stall Design and
in building Store Layout Purchasing Decision
Image

RESEARCH FINDINGS

Weekly allowances of students

For the demographical characteristics of the respondents, their weekly allowance rate was determined through a survey. There are 27 different weekly
allowance rates according to the survey. Out of the 100 repondents, 5 didn’t indicate their weekly allowance rate that’s why there are only 95 valid answers in
the survey data.

Statistics

Weekly Allowances

Valid 95
Missing 5
Missing

No. of times students eat in Canteen

Valid 100
Missing 0

Factors that contributes to a good design inside the store

The factors that are included in the composition of a good design are wall color, table and chair setup. Lighting and spacing. In the survey data, wall color as the
factor that contributes most to a good design inside the store. Table and chair setup is the second factor that students think contributes to a good design.

Other factors that influence the students’ purchasing decision

According to the survey data, there are 13 factors aside from store design that can affect students purchasing decision, food taste being the top in the rank. The
second factor that affects students purchasing decision the most is the price or the affordability of the food. The third factor that mostly affects the purchasing
decision of students is the number of tables and chairs or the number of people the store can accommodate. It is 9.1 percent of all survey answers.

Conclusions

In the survey data, wall color as a factor that contributes most to a good design inside the store. Table and chair setup is the second factor that student think
contributes to a good design. Third is the lighting of the store. Lastly is the store spacing. It shows that 80 percent of the students are influenced by store design
in their purchasing decision and only 20 percent are not influenced by store design in their purchasing decision. Therefore, most of the students are influenced
by store design in their purchasing decision. According to the survey data, there are 13 factors aside from store design that can affect students purchasing
decision, food taste being the top in the rank. Food Taste of all survey answers on other factors that affect students purchasing decision. The second factor that
affects students purchasing decision is price or the affordability of the food. The third factor that affects the purchasing decision of students is the number of
tables and chairs or the number of people the store can accommodate.. Other factors that can influence students purchasing decision are ventilation, sanitation
and cleanliness, friendly staffs, choices and menu, good service, amount of servings, utensils, food presentation, place and location, and ambience .

RECOMMENDATIONS

The researchers therefore recommend that Canteen concessionaires should also focus in enhancing food taste, price and adding space for additional tables and
chairs to attract customers and attain a positive purchasing response since stall design does not really affect the purchasing decision of students. These top three
factors are those which students find to be satisfying their needs and budgets. Canteen Manager, therefore, should optimize food taste and offer quality even in
a lower price.

Also, the success of a food stall is not dependent on one factor alone that’s why food stall manager and food canteen entrepreneurs should focus on different
factors that may improve business image or store image. Factors such as store ventilation, sanitation and cleanliness, friendly staffs, choices and menu, good
service, amount of servings, utensils, food preparation, place and location, and ambience are other factors store managers should take into consideration in
strategizing for a good marketing position for a food or canteen business.

RESEARCH ON SMALL BUSINESS (Canteen)