The Antecedents and Consequences of Store Personality: A Study of Specialty Store Chainsin Vietnam

Nguyen Le Thai Hoa and Hoang Thi Phuong Thao

The purposes of this study are (i) to develop store personality measurement scale tailor-made for technical consumer goods store chains in Vietnam, An Asian transitional economy, (ii) to explore the impact of store personality antecedents (store attributes) on store personality dimensions, and (iii) to examine the degree of influence of each store personality dimensions on store loyalty. The scale development was conducted in two stages: Item generation and item purification. The new scale was applied for a data survey of 310 shoppers in Ho Chi Minh City (Metropolitan city in the Southern Vietnam) by quotasampling. Multivariate data analysis techniques like exploratory factor analysis, structural equation modeling were used to analyze the data. The results revealed that store personality was constructed by four dimensions: Sophistication, enthusiasm, economy, and reliability, Subsequently, commercial store image, social store image, and strategic store image had positive significant impact on sophistication dimension whereas commercial store image and strategic store image affected on enthusiasm dimension. Reliability and economy dimension was not significantly found to be correlated with any store image dimensions. Finally,there is positive link between store personality dimensions and store loyalty. The findings contribute to the existing literature in brand personality as well as help retail management to understand the symbolic value in branding and brand management. This paper is the first to explore the antecedents and consequence (i.e. loyalty) of store personality in Vietnam and in specialty store chain context.

DOI : https://doi.org/10.21102/irbrp.2017.03.131.07