Impact of Retail Store Attributes on Employee-Customer-Retailer Relationship, Customer-Retailer Emotional Attachment and Retail Equity

Abstract

In today's vibrant, competitive and globalized market place, increasing customer devotion arises as the utmost significant challenge faced by marketers.The customers are more educated and have access to several varieties which they take little time to exercise.The connection between business fims and their customers has become more challenging over the previous few years, as advanced technologies continue to redefine the customer understandings. The retail industry, more than any other, recognizes how these changes have made business connection more challenging in the new age. In every country, from the least to the most economically developed, consumers rely on retailers to buy the products they need for daily survival and to satisfy their most specific needs and wants.The retail industry is a division of the economy that include individuals and businesses, busy in the selling finished goods to consumers. It adds more than 12% to the worldwide economy and occupies more than 14% of the World labour. Asian markets including Pakistan are providing chances for retailers to penetrate into the market along with the challenging atmosphere in terms of more demanding consumers. Pakistan is presently at the point where customers need diversity in merchandise and retail layouts. Formation of association of retailers with customers will boost the equity of retailers and there is a need to evaluate the impact of customer-retailer relationship in the form of their emotional attachment on retail equity in the retail store setting. The purpose of this study was to examine the impact of different retail store attributes on employee-customer-retailer relationship,customers-retailer emotional attachment and xii retail equity on the basis of relationship theory, social identity theory and attachment theory collectively. A non-experimental quantitative research design was used in this study. The study employed a cross-sectional research design in which the participants completed a questionnaire in field survey. Primary data was collected through structured self administered questionnaires from retail store customers and retail store employees in Pakistan. The population of this research consisted of retail store customers who had experience with retail store services and the employees working at the retail store.The sampling frame comprised customers and employees of specialty retail stores operating in Pakistan. For analysis of the data, structural equation modeling was used. The research findings indicate that retail store attributes have a significant positive relationship with employee-retailer relationship, customer-employee relationship and customer-retailer relationship.The results further show that the employee-retailer relationship, customer-employee relationship and customer-retailer relationship have a significant positive impact on components of customer-retailer emotional attachment. The components of customer retailer emotional attachment in this study included customer involvement with store, place involvement of customer with store, customer likability of store and customer commitment with the store. Place involvement factor was the only proposed determinant of customer retailer emotional attachment which was found to have insignificant relationship with retail equity.Finally, the results of the study demonstrate that there is a significant positive relationship among the components of customer-retailer emotional attachment and retail equity. The retail store attributes, employee-customer-retailer relations, customer-retailer emotional attachment and their collective impact on retail equity has not yet been investigated in retail store settings. Therefore, studying relationships on the basis of xiii different theories in such a context would extend the applicability of the concept of customer-retailer emotional attachment and retail equity in an emerging retail industry. This study makes contributions to both industrial and academic fields.It provides a theoretical contribution by filling the gap in the literature by proposing the model on the basis of signaling theory, relationship theory, social identity theory and attachment theory collectively, in which retail store attributes serve as the base for creating and maintaining customer-retailer emotional relationship, leading to the retail equity. This study could further help the retail practitioners to improve their relations with employees and customers thus resulting in their emotional attachment and enhancing their equity and profitability.