Customized Marketing's Role in Customer Retention: Taj Hypermarket

This project investigates the role of customized marketing in retaining customers, focusing on Taj Hypermarket in Suwaiq, Oman. The research addresses the lack of understanding in previous literature regarding customized marketing's impact on customer retention and its relationship with attracting new customers. The study employs both primary and secondary data, including questionnaires, customer feedback, and a review of existing literature. Descriptive statistics are used to analyze quantitative data. The project aims to identify effective customized marketing strategies for Taj Hypermarket to improve customer retention in a competitive market. The introduction provides background, research justification, rationale, significance, objectives, and questions. The literature review covers marketing concepts, customized marketing, customer retention strategies, and a conceptual framework. The methodology outlines the research approach, methods, data collection, sampling, and ethical considerations. The analysis and findings chapter presents the data analysis. Finally, the conclusion and recommendations summarize the findings, link them to the objectives, and suggest areas for future research. The project highlights the importance of customized marketing in a competitive retail environment and its potential for enhancing customer loyalty and market share.

Running head: ROLE OF CUSTOMIZED MARKETING IN RETAINING CUSTOMERS
A Study on Role of Customized marketing in Retaining Customers – A Case
Study of Taj Hypermarket Suwaiq, Oman
JABI R ABDURAHIM
MIDDLE EAST COLLEGE OF INFORMATION AND TECHNOLOGY

1
ROLE OF CUSTOMIZED MARKETING IN RETAINING CUSTOMERS
Abstract
The primary aim of this research is to identify how customized marketing can be used to
retain the current and potential consumers of Taj Hypermarket. Secondarily, this research will
also identify proper customized marketing strategies that Taj Hypermarket can implement to
acquire the best possible results. This research would be significant for two reasons. First of
all this research work would be highly important for academic purpose and secondly, this
research would be significant for professionals, including the management of Taj
Hypermarket. After reviewing the literature, it was found that the previous literature lacks the
understanding of the role of customised marketing in customer retention as well as attracting
new customers. Those researches has also failed to identify the relationship between the
customised marketing techniques for customer retention. The previous research has also
failed to analyse the factors influencing the customer retention through customised
marketing. These are the gaps of literature that will be bridged in the current research. The
data sources used for this research include both primary and secondary data. The primary
data is calculated based on the results of questionnaire and the customer feedbacks. The
secondary data incorporates the review of literature already done from peer-reviewed sources
from various trusted database, journals and academic websites. Descriptive statistics will be
used for analysing the primary quantitative data collected from 100 respondents. The analysis
will be presented using charts and graphs.

2
ROLE OF CUSTOMIZED MARKETING IN RETAINING CUSTOMERS
Acknowledgement
I would like to expresses my deepest gratitude and appreciation to the committee chair
Professor __________, whose substance of genius and attitude has convincingly and
continually conveyed the adventure spirit in regards to scholarship and research in my fellow
classmates and me. Without his orderly guidance as well as help persistently I would never
have been completed the dissertation possibly. I am grateful to all the associated faculty
members and staffs that helped me in my research process. I would like to thank my friends
and peers without whom this research would be in vain. Finally, I would like to thank my
parents without whom I could never have completed this research.

3
ROLE OF CUSTOMIZED MARKETING IN RETAINING CUSTOMERS
Table of Contents
Chapter 1: Introduction.....................................................................................................6
1.1 Introduction.................................................................................................................6
1.2 Background of the Research...............................................................................6
1.3 Research justification..................................................................................................8
1.4 Research Rationale.................................................................................................8
1.5 Significance of the research................................................................................9
1.6Research Aim............................................................................................................10
1.7 Research Objectives.............................................................................................10
1.8 Research Questions..............................................................................................10
1.9 Structure of the Dissertation.............................................................................11
1.10 Summary......................................................................................................................13
Chapter 2: Literature Review........................................................................................15
2.1 Introduction..............................................................................................................15
2.2 Previous Research.................................................................................................15
2.3 Concept of Marketing...........................................................................................17
2.4 Concept of Customized marketing..................................................................20
2.5 Advantages and Drawbacks of Customized marketing...........................21
2.6 Customer Retention..............................................................................................24
2.7 Strategies of Customer Retention with an example.................................28

4
ROLE OF CUSTOMIZED MARKETING IN RETAINING CUSTOMERS
2.8 Relationship between customized marketing and customer retention
..............................................................................................................................................31
2.9 Conceptual Framework........................................................................................33
2.10. Hypotheses..................................................................................................................34
2.11 Conclusion..............................................................................................................34
Chapter 3: Research methodology.............................................................................36
3.1 Introduction..............................................................................................................36
3.2 Research onion.......................................................................................................36
3.3 Research philosophy.............................................................................................36
3.4 Research approach...............................................................................................37
3.5 Research methods.................................................................................................38
3.6 Research strategy..................................................................................................39
3.8 Data collection types and methods................................................................39
3.9 Sampling techniques......................................................................................................41
3.10 Research timeline.........................................................................................................41
3.11 Ethical considerations..................................................................................................41
3.12 Summary......................................................................................................................42
Chapter 4: Research analysis and findings...............................................................................44
4.1 Introduction....................................................................................................................44
4.2 Primary quantitative data analysis and findings.............................................................44
4.3 Primary qualitative data analysis and findings...............................................................42

5
ROLE OF CUSTOMIZED MARKETING IN RETAINING CUSTOMERS
4.4 Summary........................................................................................................................42
Chapter 5: Conclusion and recommendations..........................................................................44
5.1 Conclusion......................................................................................................................44
5.2 Linking with objectives..................................................................................................45
5.3 Recommendations..........................................................................................................46
5.4 Future scope of the study...............................................................................................51
5.5 Limitation of research....................................................................................................52
References...........................................................................................................................53
Appendix...............................................................................................................................57
Survey Questionnaire..................................................................................................57

6
ROLE OF CUSTOMIZED MARKETING IN RETAINING CUSTOMERS
Chapter 1: Introduction
1.1 Introduction
The chapter of introduction has provided a brief background that is necessary for the details.It
is very important for contextualizing the study for the overall research as well as creation for
interest that usually aims for showing why the topic of the research has been selected.It has
also provided a reason why the topic for the current dissertation is very
essential.Additionally, the chapter of introduction have narrowed the focus after defining the
research scope in the general interest area.The current chapter has provided pivotal study
around the research along with the research rationale. The research scope and been if focused
on providing essential information for practical application.The current chapter has also
helped in understanding of the overall scholarly topic.The significance of the research has
also been provided along with the research objectives, questions and aims which has been
formulated for the current dissertation. An overall structure of the dissertationhas also been
provided and it is followed by a summary of the entire chapter one for introduction.
1.2 Background of the Research
Customized marketing that is also known as personalized marketing is a
popular marketing strategy that entirely focuses on targeting marketing
initiatives and sending a message to individual existing or potential
consumers (Csikósováet al. 2014). Individual or personalized marketing
entirely depends on data analysis techniques along with digital technology
(Shen 2014). On the other hand, this marketing technique is also known
as one-to-one marketing technique and as the name suggests, in this
marketing technique needs of every single customer is customized
(Shankar et al. 2016). For implementing, a successful customized

7
ROLE OF CUSTOMIZED MARKETING IN RETAINING CUSTOMERS
marketing an organization needs to collect personal information about its
existing or potential consumers (Guelmanet al. 2015). After collecting
personal data, this data is then analysed and leveraged to deliver
customized, targeted offers, recommendations and messaging designs to
appeal to every customer based on the previous attitudes, buying
behaviours, interests and other data (Tucker 2014). The best medium for
customized marketing is digital media through which it is highly possible
to track information with the help of cookies, beacons or interactive
feedback tools on a website (Boyle et al. 2014).
This dissertation will not only focus on customized marketing as it will also
focus on the retention of customers through customized marketing (Sun
et al. 2014). According to Jahromiet al. (2014) customer retention,
strategies include activities and actions that organizations implement to
minimize the number of customer defections (Ennewet al. 2015). The
primary goal of customer retention programs is to retain as many
customers as possible (Tauniet al. 2014). Now, for retaining customers
and to increase customer loyalty, several marketing techniques are used
that include but are not limited to digital marketing, social media
marketing, e-mail marketing, direct marketing, search engine optimization
and customized marketing (Tripathiet al. 2014). This particular research
work will focus on how through customized marketing it is possible to
retain customers.
In order to find out the role of customized marketing in customer
retention, which is the aim of this study, a hypermarket chain is selected

8
ROLE OF CUSTOMIZED MARKETING IN RETAINING CUSTOMERS
named as Taj Hypermarket Suwaiq, Oman. PV Abdul Raheem Ponani
(Belwal and Belwal 2014) founded taj Hypermarket is a famous
hypermarket chain of Oman and it. The primary goal of this hypermarket
is to gain remarkable position in hypermarket field of Oman by providing
consumers with valuable products at the best price (Dani 2014). The
primary products that the hypermarket offers are food products,
cosmetics, readymade items, electronics products and household items
(Siddique 2014). The entire research work will be done to find out how Taj
Hypermarket can use customized marketing to retain its customers in the
highly competitive hypermarket industry of Oman.
1.3 Research justification
There is a need for identifying the customised marketing that might be used for determining
the potential and kind of consumers for the Taj Hypermarket.Hence, a research needs to be
conducted for identifying the proper customised marketing strategies, which might be
implemented by Taj Hypermarket for acquiring the best possible results.The current research
has helped in understanding the customer’s requirement from the customer service for
attracting the new customers for Taj Hypermarket.It will also identify the relationship
between customised marketing for retention of the customers (Ali, 2017).It will also critically
analyse the factors that varies from customer to customer. Finally, the research will also be
using customised marketing strategies for that time when it might be adopted for retaining on
its customers effectively.
1.4 Research Rationale
In terms of retail industry, Oman has been ranked 17th most attractive
destination for the retail investment within 30 developing countries across

9
ROLE OF CUSTOMIZED MARKETING IN RETAINING CUSTOMERS
the world. A growing economy, population and increasing confidence of
the consumers of Oman are driving the growth of the retail industry of the
country. On the other hand, the demand of young consumers in Oman
and change in the lifestyle of the consumers of Oman along with the
increasing numbers of tourists entering into Oman are all set to push the
retail industry of Oman to its prime position. According to Ali et al. (2017),
it is expected that eventually more than 6.2 million sq/m of the area will
be captured by retail facilities of all Gulf Co-operational Council nations
and Oman will be leading nation in this. The retail sector of GCC countries
is expected to reach $313 billion by the end of 2019 and it is expected
that Oman will play a major role in it (Belwal and Belwal 2017). On the
other hand, it is also expected that in the year of 2019 Oman retail sector
will generate over 50,000 jobs in the retail sector. In this condition, it is
obvious that the retail sector of Oman is a highly competitive sector.
The retail industry of Oman is not only competitive due to its high growth
but also due to the presence of several other well-reputed retail and
hypermarket companies such as Lulu Hypermarket, Mars Hypermarket,
Carrefour Qurum City Center, Al Karma Hypermarket, Al Meera
Hypermarket, Makkah Hypermarket and Nesto Hypermarket. All these
hypermarket brands are providing high-quality products at a very
reasonable price along with superior services. Due to this reason, it has
become highly difficult for these companies to retrain their customers
(Ananda and Devesh 2018). On the other hand, in the retail sector of
Oman, the bargaining power of the consumers is extremely high because
there is no switching cost. In this highly competitive scenario, Taj

10
ROLE OF CUSTOMIZED MARKETING IN RETAINING CUSTOMERS
Hypermarket is constantly losing its market share and revenue in the
retail industry of Oman. Besides, along with these local retail companies
(mentioned above), there are other several multinational retail companies
in Oman such as Wal-Mart and Tesco (Belwal and Belwal 2017). In this
condition, it would be highly important for Taj Hypermarket to implement
steps that can help it to retain its current and potential consumer. For the
same purpose, customized marketing strategy can be the best possible
method as through this method the management of Taj Hypermarket will
be able to reach to its customers one by one and will be able to fulfill their
individual needs to ensure retention of these consumers.
1.5 Significance of the research
This research would be significant for two reasons. First, of all this
research, work would be highly important for academic purpose and
secondly, this research would be significant for professionals, including
the management of Taj Hypermarket. Retention of consumers is not only
important in the retail industry but also in every business industry as
consumers are the factors that ensure the success of an organization.
According to Ananda (2018), if an organization has a huge base of loyal
consumers then it will not be tough for it to acquire rapid market growth.
Today’s students would step into their professional lives very soon.
Therefore, they must know the process of retaining customers and this
research work will do the same. On the other hand, it is already found that
Taj Hypermarket is also having trouble to retain its customers and to gain
market share in the Oman retail industry. Through this research study, Taj
Hypermarket would be able to find out how it can retain its customers

11
ROLE OF CUSTOMIZED MARKETING IN RETAINING CUSTOMERS
through customized marketing and therefore, this research would be
significant for the management of Taj Hypermarket.
1.6Research Aim
The primary aim of this research is to identify how customized marketing
can be used to retain the current and potential consumers of Taj
Hypermarket. Secondarily, this research will also identify proper
customized marketing strategies that Taj Hypermarket can implement to
acquire the best possible results.
1.7 Research Objectives
The research objectives are as follows:
 Understanding the role of customized marketing in retaining customers
and attracting new customers
 Identifying the relationship between customized marketing for
customer retention
 Analyzing the factors influencing customer retention through
customized marketing
 To recommend customized marketing strategies that Taj Hypermarket
can adapt to ensure retention of its customers
1.8 Research Questions
The research questions are as follows:
 Whether customized marketing can attract new customers?
 How does customized marketing strategy be used to retain their
existing customer?