Political Ideology and Store Patronage

Abstract

In this study, we investigate the roles of political ideology, demographic characteristics and market environment in determining households’ store patronage behavior. We measure two key dimensions of store patronage—store format preference and store loyalty trait—of 23,092 U.S. households using purchase data from Nielsen Homescan panel. We use county-level vote share of the Republican and Democratic parties across three U.S. Presidential elections to measure political ideology. We obtain measures of demographic characteristics and market environment from the Nielsen panel and the U.S. Census Bureau. Using fixed-effect regression models, we find systematic association between political ideology and households’ store patronage. Our findings contribute to the growing literature in marketing on the effects of political ideology on consumer behavior and have important implications for store loyalty programs, cross-selling strategies and store location decisions.