Journals Proceedings

Abstract

South African retail industry has considerably grown in the past years and this growth, paired with both the supply of retail space and the number of shopping centres in the country has prompted the development of shopping centres, job creation as well as the movement of people in search for employment. Despite this average growth of 3 per cent over the past 10 years, a number of graduates do not find retail industry good enough to positively respond to their professions’ aspirations. This paper assesses the students’ perceptions about retail industry as well as the factors that influence their preferences during their job-hunting process. Literature review outlines the retail sector in South Africa. The study is being conducted at the Cape Peninsula University of Technology on a population of 172 third year Retail Business Management students. Data were collected using a self-developed, closed-ended questionnaire and its reliability was ensured by using Cronbach’s coefficient alpha. Descriptive and inferential statistics are used to analyse the data and the researcher anticipates that the results will indicate the most important factors students consider while choosing to work for a retail company. Similarly, it is also hoped that the study will unveil the students’ criticism about retail companies, and recommendations will made in terms of what retail companies should do to change the students perceptions in order to attract newly graduates and improve their customer satisfactions and practices.