A Canonical Correlation Analysis of Religion as a Predictor of Consumer Shopping Behaviour.

Abstract

The overriding purpose of the study was the use of religious affiliation as a predictor of shopping behaviour of consumers in Ghana. Determining the meaning and types of religion as well as its relatedness to consumer shopping behaviour assumed a high degree of importance during the literature review conducted for this work. A Canonical Correlation analysis was employed to analyse the responses from a 68 item questionnaire designed to assess five factors of consumer shopping behaviour based on Religious Affiliation. The results detailed a significant relationship between two religious affiliates, Christians and Muslims (predictor variables) and the five consumer shopping behaviour variables (criterion). Traditionalist to a lesser extent revealed minor significance, displaying non-collinear vectors between the predictor and criterion variables. Firms in Ghana should consider the important dynamics of religion as a subculture in determining their target consumers in lieu of their marketing strategies. Subsequently they could vary their products and services in terms of the religious affiliation denoted as highly significant among respondents in this study.