Consumer self-concept and retail store loyalty: the effects of consumer self-concept on consumer attitude and shopping behavior among brand-specific and multi-brand retail stores

Abstract

Researchers have long been interested in understanding the effects of self-concept congruity constructs on marketing-related phenomenon. While studies have investigated the effects of such self-congruity constructs in a myriad of marketing settings, including brand loyalty, retail store loyalty, effectiveness of sales performance, and effectiveness of advertising appeal, to date no study has attempted to simultaneously assess the differing effects of more than one type of congruity construct within the context of a single model In this study, the author proposes a model of retail store loyalty using two types of self-concept congruity constructs – self-concept/brand image congruity and self-concept/store image congruity – as antecedents to mediating variables to retail store loyalty, brand commitment and trust, in order simultaneously investigate the relative impacts of each congruity construct in the model. Additionally, the model is fit to data from two separate samples, using two different types of retail stores – a brand-specific retail store and a multi-brand retail store – to investigate the varying contributions of each congruity construct between retail store type settings.The study uses structural equation modeling to fit the model to the data from each sample and to test research hypotheses. The results are very encouraging, and indicate that for both retail store type setting, self-concept/brand image congruity more significantly affects the mediating variables than does self-concept/store image congruity. Further, in a comparison of the impact of the congruity constructs between different store types, it is found that the self-concept congruity constructs play a much greater role in the model in the case of brand-specific retail stores than in the case of multi-brand retail stores.Additional meaningful findings include the empirical verification that self-concept congruity constructs lead to trust in a retail store, and that consumer commitment to brands which a retail store carries is significantly related to customer loyalty towards that retail store.%%%%Ph.D., Marketing – Drexel University, 2007