Building Store Equity: Role of Store Image, Consumer Satisfaction, and Store Loyalty in the Indian Retail Market

Abstract

The Indian retail sector is poised for tremendous growth and thus provides ample opportunities for local and global retailers. Building store equity will not only be a challenge but also be a prerequisite for surviving in the highly competitive market. The objective of the current study is to understand the role of store image, consumer satisfaction, and store loyalty in building retail store equity in the Indian retail market. The study employed exploratory factor analysis for reducing the number of items and linear regression for hypothesis testing. A total of 210 actual patrons evaluated different retail stores. The empirical findings suggest that store image, consumer satisfaction, and store loyalty play a direct, positive, and significant role in building retail store equity in the Indian retail market. Store image was found to have the strongest impact on store loyalty, followed by customer satisfaction on store loyalty, customer satisfaction on store equity, and store loyalty on store equity. This study will add value to literature on store image, consumer satisfaction, store loyalty, and store equity. The study concludes with strategic implications, limitations, and directions for future research.