Analysing Service Quality and Its Relation to Customer Satisfaction and Loyalty in Sportswear Retail Market

Canan Saricam

doi:10.2478/aut-2021-0014

Abstract

Abstract The sportswear industry has a growing market globally. In the sportswear retail market, where the primary focus is on providing customers the product, but provision of the necessary ancillary service also takes place, the service quality and its relation to customer satisfaction and customer loyalty are important. With an attempt to find out this relationship, the data for this study was obtained from 251 people living in Turkey. The service quality was described as a second-order construct with the dimensions proposed in SERVQUAL scale. Confirmatory factor analysis and structural equation modeling were used to analyze and validate the model. The findings showed that the service quality, together with the relevant dimensions, tangibles, reliability, and assurance, has an influence on the customer satisfaction but not on the customer loyalty. Nonetheless, it was confirmed the customer satisfaction has an impact on the customer loyalty.

Highlights

The sportswear industry is a large and growing market globally, driven by the increasing amount of products demanded by the customers and introduction of diversified supply to satisfy these high and varied demands
This meant that the service quality had a significant positive impact on the customer satisfaction and if the sportswear retailers increase the quality of the service, this would increase the satisfaction level of the customers
The quality of the service did not have a direct impact on the customer loyalty, but it seems to have an indirect effect by influencing the satisfaction of the customer

Summary

Introduction

The sportswear industry is a large and growing market globally, driven by the increasing amount of products demanded by the customers and introduction of diversified supply to satisfy these high and varied demands. According to the Global Sportswear Industry Research Report by QY Research, the sportswear retail market was 84.1 billion USD in 2018, and is estimated to grow more rapidly in the near future; to be precise, it is estimated to reach 108.7 billion USD by the end of 2025 [1]. This is because the sportswear products are purchased for daily use as a casual fashion outfit due to the tendency of the customers to prefer more casual and informal wear [2,3]. The effort put on the innovativeness of the sportswear products such as suits for swimming and diving or surfing and apparel for skiing caused a constant value growth for the sportswear products [2]

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Results

Discussion

Conclusion