A MODEL FOR CUSTOMER LOYALTY FOR RETAIL

STORES INSIDE SHOPPING MALLS- AN INDIAN

PERSPECTIVE

Aveek Majumdar
India has witnessed a boom in organized retail trade in the last 5 years. More and
more players are coming into the retail business in India to introduce new formats
like malls, supermarkets, discount stores and department stores. The retail format
that has shown the maximum growth among all is the multipurpose shopping
complexes or the shopping malls. Customer loyalty is viewed as the strength of the
relationship between an individual’s relative attitude and repeat patronage. The
relationship is mediated by social norms and situational factors. In our research
we have tried to investigate the effects of the determinants in building loyalty for a
particular retail store located inside a shopping mall. A study was conducted to
identify the determinant factors for store loyalty and their effects on store loyalty
intentions. We have looked into Store Loyalty in a holistic manner incorporating
factors like service quality, location factors, value perceptions, and store image in
our model. Managerial implications for the management of customer loyalty of the
mall store are discussed.

INTRODUCTION

O
rganized retail business in India is developing at a rapid pace
than never before (Business World, 2004). Studies indicate that
organised retail will grow from a mere 2% of the total retail industry
to a significant 20% by the end of the decade (India Retail Review, 2003).
Organized retailing has grown from a mere Rs. 5000 crore in 1999 to an
estimated Rs. 30,000 crore in 2004 (Business Standard, Dec. 2004)- making
it among fastest growing industries in India. India is expecting over 40
million sq. ft of quality retail real estate space by 2006 (India Retail Review
2003). The retail format that has shown the maximum growth among all, is
the multipurpose shopping complexes or the Shopping Malls. The malls
are being positioned as a one-stop entertainment destination for a family,
where they can not only do their shopping, but also watch a movie and dine
at the restaurants and food courts inside.
The future of malls would depend upon the wonderful ambience
associated with them as well as the right tenant-mix. As more and more
malls come into existence competition between malls would increase which
may lead to a decline in mall patronage. The mall developers therefore
need to consider alternative methods to build excitement with customers.
Journal of Services Research, Special Issue, (December, 2005)
© 2005 by Institute for International Management and Technology. All Rights Reserved.
48 A Model for Customer Loyalty

The malls that can build a strong patronage will ultimately survive in this
intense competition.
Although most marketing research on measuring loyalty of the
consumers has focused on frequently purchased goods (brand loyalty), the
loyalty concept is also important for services (service loyalty) and retail
establishment (store loyalty). Customer loyalty constitutes an underlying
objective for strategic marketing planning (Kotler, 1984) and represents an
important basis for developing a sustainable competitive advantage- an
advantage that can be realized through marketing efforts (Dick and Basu,
1994). In the present environment of an evolving market for organised
retail trade in India and with increasing global competition, the task of
managing loyalty is definitely going to emerge as a focal managerial
challenge.
The objective of our research is to study the determinants of loyalty for
a retail store (store loyalty) inside a shopping mall. The loyalty for a
particular store in a mall would be influenced by the loyalty for the mall
itself. The success of a mall as a complete unit is determined by the success
of the retail stores inside it in attracting serious shoppers in their stores.
Store Loyalty has been looked upon in a holistic manner in this study
incorporating factors like service quality, location factors, retail mix, and
store image. In our study we have considered apparel stores to test and
validate our model. The apparel stores includes stores selling men, women
and children garments, saree stores, specialty stores, stores of national
retail chains like Pantaloons, Shoppers Stop, and Westside etc. The study
was conducted in two metropolitan cities: Chennai and Kolkata covering a
wide demographic profile of apparel shoppers.
The remainder of the paper is organized as follows. In section two, a
brief review of literature on shopping malls and customer loyalty literature
in a retail setting is discussed. The next section deals with the conceptual
model. Section four deals with the methodology used and sampling plan.
In section five, the results of multiple regressions have been presented.
The last section and probably the most important among all, provides a
discussion of results, managerial implications of our findings, limitations
of the present study and suggestions for future research directions.
BRIEF REVIEW OF LITERATURE
Although new in India, the shopping mall has been in existence around the

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 49 Majumdar

world for several decades. There has been some past research work on
shopping malls as a total unit. But the amount of scholarly literature available
on malls is very limited. Fienberg and Meoli. (1991) note that one would
be “hard pressed to find scholarly treatment to malls” in the academic
journals. In the field of retail research, the emphasis has primarily been
upon the store rather than the mall as the unit of analysis. However the
importance of mall in retail research studies cannot be marginalized.
The mall provides the basic environment that attracts customers, keeps
them shopping and brings them back again (Kowinski, 1985). The mall
has been looked upon as consumption sites and parallels have been drawn
from an ecological habitat. (Bloch, 1994). The behavior patterns and the
causes that draw consumers to the mall have been explored in this paper.
Findings from their study suggest that malls have transformed from being
strictly purchase sites to being centers for many activities.
A few research studies have examined the retail patronage at the mall
level. A number of studies have described the demographic and psycho
graphic characteristics of mall patrons (e.g. Bloch, 1994; Jarboe and Mc
Daniel, 1987). Other studies have pointed towards the importance of the
effect that shopping center image (Finn and Louviere, 1996) and the level
of liking for a shopping area (Nevin and Houston, 1980) may have on
patronage.
THEORIES ON STORE LOYALTY
The theories of store loyalty at a micro level (store level) as found in
literature can be broadly divided in three major categories:
l The first approach- specified by Charlton, (1973) but drawing on earlier
work (Enis and Paul, 1970; Tate, 1961) - is that store loyalty is
essentially negative and is the outcome of limited resources: those
who lack money, time and transport, or whose environment lacks choice
(Tate, 1961) are forced to use one store much of the time and therefore
obliged to be loyal.
l The second approach (Carman, 1970) is also negative but emphasizes
a lifestyle with commitments outside the home including work, little
home entertaining and lack of interest in deals, advertising and
shopping. Such people are averse to shopping and do not experiment.
l A third approach is proposed by Dunn and Wrigley (1984) who noted
that the growth in size of supermarkets and shopping centers in many

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50 A Model for Customer Loyalty

countries could have affected patterns of behavior. Dunn and Wrigley

found that some store loyalty arose as one-stop shopping, often in
large comprehensive supermarkets. This is what is called “discretionary
loyalty.” It differs from the first approach it implies that the possession
of appropriate resources raises store loyalty. Increased car and freezer
ownership (allowing more transport and storage) and larger retail units,
can all assist discretionary loyalty. Discretionary loyalty is an adaptation
to circumstances that are most likely to be found among population
segments that need to be efficient because of household and work
commitments, and have the opportunity to be efficient by virtue of car
ownership and income. Those with limited incomes will have more
need to shop around to secure the best value for money, and this would
reduce store loyalty.
It seems likely that new large stores, ownership of cars, rising disposable
income have combined to produce a new pattern of one-stop shopping at
shopping complexes. Several patterns of loyalty could be found. There
might be one shopper segment whose loyalty depends on lack of resources
while another group of shoppers can be loyal because they disliked shopping
and one-stop shopping minimized their discomfort. A third segment could
fit the discretionary loyalty model.
CONCEPTUAL FRAMEWORK AND MODEL DEVELOPMENT
A review of retail literature to identify the determinants influencing customer
loyalty for retail store reveals the following major factors in customer
loyalty studies: accessibility, ambience, amenities, retail mix (which
includes price, assortment, variety, retail store personnel service), store
promotional activities.
In the current study the interest was on studying the determinants of
loyalty for a retail store located inside a shopping complex (mall). The
loyalty for a specific shopping complex or mall would help in building
loyalty for stores inside the mall. Samli and Sirgy (1981) conducted a study
to test to study the effects of tendency of shoppers to shop in specific
geographic regions (area loyalty and shopping complex loyalty). The factors
were found to be significant predictors of store loyalty but accounted for a
negligible portion of the predicted variance.

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 51 Majumdar

In the current context we identify the following determinant factors for

building store loyalty and discuss the hypotheses developed:
l Mall Accessibility: The accessibility of a site is the ease with which a
customer may get into and out of it. The mall accessibility construct
refers to both macro and micro accessibility factors (Levy and Weitz,
2001). The macro factors consider the primary trade area, nearness of
the mall from the consumer’s house/place of work, condition of roads
(road pattern, road condition, traffic congestion etc). This factor is
extremely important for the Indian context as a sizeable number (nearly
50%) of the mall visitors do not have/do not use their own vehicle to
visit the mall. They depend on the public transport facilities for commute.
In retail literature micro accessibility factors refer to issues in the
immediate vicinity of the site such as visibility, traffic flow, car parking,
ingress/egress. The micro accessibility factor considered here is
availability of good and adequate car parking facility.
l Mall Ambience: The ambience factor refers to the character and
atmosphere of a place. The construct on Mall Ambience refers to the
internal atmospherics of the mall like décor, colour schemes, lighting,
layout, and background music played inside the mall (Levy and Weitz,
2001).
l Mall Amenities: Amenities refers to the presence of features that
makes a place pleasant, comfortable and easy to use/live in. Mall
amenities are features provided to make the shopping trip more
comfortable and enjoyable (Wakefield and Baker, 1998). The mall
amenities would include presence of escalators, lifts, clean and adequate
restrooms, presence of information kiosks, entertainment facilities for
children, good fire safety equipments, presence of bank ATMs,
electronic communication facilities like internet café, telephone booths.
l Shopping Complex/Mall Loyalty: The factor on shopping complex/
mall loyalty refers to the tendency to shop in a specific shopping mall
or surrounding areas (Sirgy and Samli, 1985).

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52 A Model for Customer Loyalty

Hypothesis 1: The three determinants namely mall accessibility, mall

ambience and mall amenities have a positive effect of the
loyalty for a shopping mall.
STORE SPECIFIC FACTORS
l Store Amenities: This factor refers to the store amenities available for
the convenience of shoppers. The items for this factor are taken from
scales being developed and used by past researchers.
l Assortment: Assortment is the number of different items in a
merchandise category i.e. the depth of merchandise category. In soft
good merchandise like apparels/garments an SKU usually means the
size, colour, designs, and styles. This factor refers to the variety of
items available for a given product category in terms of price ranges,
size, design, colors etc.
l Merchandise Quality: Merchandise quality is one of the most important
attributes for shopping store image. This factor refers to the overall
quality perceptions of merchandise at the store.
l Personnel Service: Store personnel service is an important
dimension of overall service quality. The original SERVQUAL scale
developed by Parasuraman, Zeithaml, and Berry (1988) for service
quality had 22 items and were distributed among the five
dimensions: Tangibility, Reliability, Responsiveness, Assurance,
and Empathy. There are 9 items related to the personnel service
under dimensions of responsiveness and assurance. An extension
of the SERVQUAL scale suited for retail stores was developed by
Dabholkar, Thorpe and Rentz (1996). This scale is designed for use
in studying retail business that offer a mix of goods and services,
for assessing levels of service quality, and for detecting needed
changes in services provided. This scale had 9 items under the
dimension of Personal Interaction, which essentially captures the
service offered by store service personnel.
l Supporting Services: This factor as such has not been used in any
previous studies on store image. The construct refers to other supporting
services, which are provided by the store to benefit its customers.
However, effects of such allied services on overall service quality or
satisfactions have been explored by Dabholkar et al (1996) under the
dimension Store Policy. In our study, we give a much broader scope

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 53 Majumdar

and meaning for the allied services. We call it supporting services and
it includes all the extra services, which the store extends to satisfy its
customers. The supporting services include: acceptance of all credit/
debit cards, facilities of return/exchange of merchandise, alteration
facilities, child care and children entertainment services.
l Value Perception: Value is very important to marketers. Value can
be defined as: “what you get for what you pay.” This is similar to the
utility per unit price measure of value used by Hauser and Urban,
1986. In this definition of value for money, there is an implicit tradeoff
between money and the benefit components of exchange. Superior
service quality has been described as the third ring of perceived value
(Clemmer, 1990), the first two being the basic product/ service and
extended support service. The construct on value perceptions here,
thus refers to the perceived value of product and service quality relative
to price paid. The service quality and merchandise quality are combined
in one indicator and are compared with the perception of the price
being paid vis-à-vis the quality offered.
l Overall Impressions about the Store: This factor refers to the general
perception of the customer regarding the retail store. The perceptions
may be due to past reputation of the store as well as the impression that
a shopper has after visiting the store. The impression is based on general
attribute dimension of the store. In many cases the reputation that the
store builds up over the years also helps in creating a good impression
of the store in the shoppers mind.
Hypothesis 2: The components of the retail mix like store amenities,
assortment, merchandise quality, store personnel service,
supporting service along with the price-quality value
perceptions have a positive effect on the overall impression
of the store.

DETERMINANTS OF STORE LOYALTY INTENTIONS

In this study, the three measures for the construct of store loyalty intentions
of current customers’ are: likelihood to continue shopping in future,
likelihood of purchasing in other categories of merchandise in future, and
willingness to recommend the store to friends and peer groups. Most
previous research in this area focuses either on the impact of service quality

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54 A Model for Customer Loyalty

and/or customer satisfaction on store loyalty intentions or impact of perceived

value on store loyalty intentions. Cronin and Taylor (1992) using a single
item purchase intention scale, find service quality affects customer
satisfaction but do not find a significant effect of service quality on purchase
intention. Some research papers focus on the effect of perceived value on
behavioral intention (Dodds et al., 1991; Sweeny et al., 1995; Ziethaml,
1988; Dodds, 1991). Perceived value has been proposed as a mediating
construct in the effects of price and other information on purchase intention
(Dodds and Monroe, 1985; Zeithmal, 1988). Sirohi et al (1998) have studied
the effect of service quality, perceived value on store loyalty in a single
setting. In this research we examine the impact of overall impression of the
store, value perceptions (price vs. quality and vise versa) and in-store
promotions on store loyalty intentions. The determinants are explained in
brief and the hypotheses are framed next:
l Sales Promotion: This dimension tries to capture the effect of different
promotional initiatives taken by the store (like discounts and special
offers, sale items, rewarding loyal customers from time to time) on
building loyalty with its consumers. The sales promotion here refers to
only in-store promotional activities offered by retailers from time to
time. It does not include the advertising campaigns undertaken by the
retail store.
l Store Loyalty Intention: This is defined as a biased, behavioral
response, expressed over time, by some decision making unit
(consumers) with respect to one or more alternative stores out of a set
of stores, and is a function of psychological process. To ascertain the
loyalty of consumers with a particular retail store is difficult. Previous
researches have shown that consistent repurchase, by itself, may not
be a sufficient indicator of loyalty. The frequency of patronage and
recency of store visits have been used by some researchers to measure
loyalty. Dick and Basu (1994) explain loyalty in terms of relative attitude
and repeat patronage. They explain that a low relative attitude for a
retail store with low repeat purchase from the store signifies an absence
of loyalty. A low relative attitude for the store accompanied by a high
repeat patronage is spurious loyalty characterized by non-attitudinal
influences on behavior. On the other hand, a high relative attitude with
low repeat patronage reflects latent loyalty- a serious concern for
marketers. Whereas the loyal customers will have high relative attitude

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 55 Majumdar

and repeat patronage. In our study we measure the loyalty intention of

shoppers by their intentions in future from their current perceptions.
Hypothesis 3: The value perception has a positive effect on the store loyalty
intentions of current customers.
Hypothesis 4: The factor on overall impression of the store has a positive
influence on the store loyalty intentions.
In-store promotional activities like festival discounts, sale of discounted
items give rise to a low relative attitude among customers. They may make
repeat purchase at the store. A low relative attitude accompanied by high
repeat patronage is spurious loyalty (Dick and Basu, 1994). It is conceptually
similar to the notion of inertia (Assael, 1992) in that a consumer perceives
little differentiation among brands in a low involvement category and
undertakes repeat purchase on the basis of situational cues such as lucrative
deals.
Hypothesis 5: In-store promotions would have a negative effect on store
loyalty intentions.
Shopping complex loyalty is expected to have a positive influence on
the store loyalty for a store inside the mall (Sirgy and Samli, 1985). Those
who express high loyalty for a shopping mall or complex may also express
loyalty to a specific store within the shopping mall facility. Similar
phenomenon was observed between store loyalty and brand loyalty. So a
positive relationship is expected between shopping complex loyalty and
store loyalty.
Hypothesis 6: Shopping mall loyalty has a positive effect on store loyalty
intentions.
Based on literature review and followed up by a pretest survey, a pool
of 50 items were generated to operationalise the mall store loyalty model.
The face validity of these items were evaluated through conducting a
screening exercise (Litwin, 1995; Sekaran, 1992). The aim of the exercise
was to determine the extent to which each item reflected one of the 13
dimensions of the loyalty model. The screening exercise involved 10 judges,
including marketing professors, research scholars, and managers in the
retailing industry.

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56 A Model for Customer Loyalty

Mall Accessibility ++

Shopping ++
++ Mall Loyalty
Mall Ambience Store
Loyalty
Intention
++
Mall Amenities
++ ---

Value Perceptions ++ Sales Promotion

++
Overall Impression of the
Store
++
++

++ ++
++
Store Amenities Supporting
Service

Assortment Personnel
Service

Merchandise
Quality

Figure 1: Mall Store Loyalty Model

METHODOLOGY
The survey process was conducted in two large metropolitan cities of India,
Chennai and Kolkata. Chennai is in southern part of India and is the capital
of Tamilnadu with a population of 42.16 lakhs (2001 Census). Kolkata is
in eastern India and is the capital of West Bengal with a population of
48.52 lakhs (2001 Census). Both Chennai and Kolkata have a good mix of
traditional and modern shoppers. The emergence of shopping malls is also
a very recent phenomenon in both cities.
The data was collected by intercepting mall shoppers inside the mall
when they came out from a particular garment store making purchases.

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 57 Majumdar

The rationale for our data collection method is based on the theory that
respondents will be more attentive to the task of completing the
questionnaire and will provide more meaningful responses when they are
contextualized in the environment that they are evaluating. Being in the
natural environment (i.e., the shopping mall setting) is preferable to sitting
at the kitchen table at home amid distractions that take precedence over the
task of completing the survey (Dabholkar et al., 1996).
Whereas some previous studies were administered to individuals who
may or may not have ever shopped at the particular store, we collected
evaluations of store attributes for the specific store visited so that consumers
could give more meaningful responses. Since we are measuring customer
loyalty by the propensity of the shopper to revisit the store for making
future purchases based on his current shopping experience, we have
considered only the shoppers who have actually bought from the retail
store in their current shopping trip. Customers who had not made any
purchases at the store were excluded from the sample.
SAMPLE
The study was conducted in a popular mall each in the two cities. A
systematic sample of 75 adult shoppers was intercepted as they came out
of the garment store making a purchase. Every eligible shopper was explained
about the purpose of the survey and was requested to participate in the
study. Customers were sampled from morning, afternoon and evening hours
on weekdays and weekends for seven days during the month of December.
RESULTS
Multiple regressions are carried out to test the stated hypotheses. The
results of the multiple regressions are summarized below:

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58 A Model for Customer Loyalty

Table 1: The Result of the Multiple Regression

Sl Dependent Variable Independent Variables ß t p-level

***
1 Mall Loyalty Mall Accessibility (X1) 0.440 3.975 .000
Mall Ambience (X2) -0.066 -.495 .623
Mall Amenities (X3) 0.242 *** 1.910 .006
2
F Value= 8.217 (p-level: 0.000) Adjusted R = 0.308
2 Overall impression Store Amenities (X4) 0.23 1.638 .106
of the store
Store Assortment (X5) -.115 ** -0.828 .04
***
Store Personnel Service (X6) .409 3.020 .004
**
Merchandise Quality (X7) .125 0.895 .037
Value Perception (X8) .237** 2.001 .04
Store Supporting Services (X9) -.167 -1.108 .272
2
F Value= 9.869 (p-level: 0.000) Adjusted R = 0.341
3 Store Loyalty Mall Loyalty (X10) .279 *** 3.142 .002
Intentions Value Perception (X11) .447 *** 4.576 .000
**
Overall impression of the .180 1.993 .040
store (X12)
Sales Promotion (X13) .107 1.117 .268
2
F Value= 20.694 (p-level: 0.000) Adjusted R = 0.516

(** p < .05: Significant at .05 significance level

*** p<.01: Significant at .01 significance level)
Explanations:
1. Mall Loyalty (z) = 0.44 X1+0.242X3
The overall regression was significant (F Value = 8.217 p-level .0000.
The variable X2 (Mall ambience) is not significant at .05 significance
level. Hence it is dropped. On dropping X2, the overall model is
significant at all levels (p-level=.000, F= 10.129). Hypothesis 1 is
supported with variables X1 and X3 have positive effect of dependent
variable: mall store loyalty. Hence mall loyalty in influenced by mall
accessibility and mall ambience.
2. Overall Impression of the store (z) = -.115 X5+ .409 X6 + .125 X7
+ .237 X8

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 59 Majumdar

The overall regression model was significant (F Value= 9.869

p-level: 0.000). The variables store amenities X4 and supportingservices
X5 are not significant. So store assortment, store personnel service,
merchandise quality and value perceptions are taken as the predictor
variables. The negative sign on the coefficient of store assortment
(X5) means that higher the assortment of products at the store lower
will be the impression for the store. This can be explained by the fact
that loyal customers do not look for a large variety of merchandise at
the store of their choice. They go the store they patronize with a very
specific requirement that they intend to get it at the store. So a large
product assortment does not necessarily increase the impression for a
particular store. The effect of store personnel service on overall store
impression is the highest. This result confirms with earlier research on
the effect of retail sales personnel on store image. The results illustrate
that the interpersonal relationships between store sales personnel and
customers is an important determinant in building an impression for
the store. Merchandise quality and price-quality value perceptions have
a positive effect on building overall store impression.
3. Store Loyalty Intention (z) = .279 X10 + .447 X11 + .18 X12
The overall model was significant (F Value= 20.694 p-level: 0.000).
The variable Sales Promotion (X13) is not significant at .05 significance
level. Hence it is dropped from the regression model and X10, X11
and X12 are considered as the predictor variables. Value perception
has the highest coefficient value with a positive sign. It indicates that
the price-quality value perceptions have the greatest effect in building
store loyalty. These results confirm with earlier studies that perceived
value is an important determinant in building store loyalty. Mall loyalty
and overall store impression are found to be significant predictors of
store loyalty but account for a small portion of the predicted variance.
Both the variables have a positive effect on store loyalty intention.
CONCLUSION
The purpose of the study was twofold. First, this study has identified the
determinant factors for store loyalty in a mall environment. Store Loyalty
is studied in a holistic manner incorporating factors like service quality,
accessibility, value perceptions, overall store impression and promotional
factors.

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60 A Model for Customer Loyalty

Secondly, the effects of all these determinants on the store loyalty

intention dimension were independently studied. Multiple regressions were
done on the endogenous variables: shopping mall loyalty, overall store
impression and finally store loyalty intention. The multiple regressions
with store loyalty intention as the dependent variable and mall loyalty,
value perceptions, overall store impression and store promotion as
independent variables brought out interesting results. Shopping Mall loyalty
was found to be positively affecting store loyalty intentions along with
price-quality value perceptions. Overall sto re impression was also significant
statistically but had a small β weight. In-store promotion factor was not
significant, thus indicating that store promotional features like seasonal
discounts and sale does not have any effect on building store loyalty.
Shopping Mall loyalty as a dependent variable was considered and regression
was carried out with independent variables: mall accessibility, ambience
and amenities. But due to high correlation between the independent variables
the total variation of the dependent variable explained by the independent
variables was low. The independent variables: mall accessibility and
ambience were significant. Similarly for the regression of overall store
impression as the dependent variable, all the elements of the retail mix
were significant apart from store amenities and supporting services. Thus
as expected the elements of store retail mix like assortments, store personnel
service, merchandise quality are significant along with the dimension of
price-quality value perceptions. Another interesting feature observed was
that store assortment variable has a negative regression coefficient. This
means that higher the product assortment in the store lower would be the
overall impression of the store. This can be explained by the fact that loyal
customers do not look for a large variety of merchandise at the store of
their choice. They go to the store they patronize with a very specific
requirement which they intend to get it at the store.
MANAGERIAL IMPLICATIONS
The managerial implications of this study are:
1. It is important for the retail manager to know how the consumers
perceive the functional and symbolic character of his or her store. This
knowledge can be obtained through store image research. This would
help them in positioning their store to the target audience. In case of a
store inside a shopping mall, the store image should be in congruence

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 61 Majumdar

with the image conveyed by the shopping complex or mall.

2. The study identifies the determinants of store loyalty for a retail store
in a mall environment. In an evolving retail market where shopping
malls are in growing stage, this study would help the mall developers
to understand the psychology of shoppers in this nascent market. This
would help them in designing clear positioning strategies for the mall.
The malls thus can build a strong patronage with their target segment
of customers.
3. In a mall environment it would not be enough for the retail manager
to watch out for his/her store without paying any regard to what is
happening with the surrounding stores in the mall. According to this
study shopping mall loyalty is a significant determinant of store loyalty.
If the customers are not satisfied with the shopping mall as such,
their loyalty to the particular store will decline. It is essential for the
retail manager to see that the shopping mall management is using
sound strategies to maintain a satisfactory level of patronage and
loyalty. This entails cooperating and establishing harmonious relation
with the mall management as well as other stores in vicinity. In doing
so, the retail managers of the stores in malls should develop
promotional strategies not for the store but for enhancing the shopping
mall loyalty. As observed in the study, individual store promotional
efforts do not have a significant influence on store loyalty intentions.
To increase shopping mall loyalty, the retail managers can target
those customers who are basically loyal to the area where the mall is
located and to those shoppers whose socio economic status matches
the pricing policies and image portrayed by the unified entity of stores.
4. The perceived value of the merchandise available at the store is an
important determinant inducing store loyalty. Perceived value is
thus very important to the retail managers. Unless the customers
feel that they get the quality of their choice for what they pay and
vice versa, they are unlikely to patronize the particular retail store.
LIMITATIONS AND FUTURE RESEARCH
The results of this study provide an encouraging start in understanding the
determinants of store loyalty in a mall environment, in an emerging retail
market. The study was conducted in two cities of India where malls are in
a growing stage. In both the cities the data was collected from a single mall

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62 A Model for Customer Loyalty

in the city. Undoubtedly, future research must look at multiple markets like
western and northern India. This study does, however, offer several
directions to future research.
Customer loyalty is a complex, multidimensional concept that often
requires sophisticated measurement and analytical tools to understand it
completely. It is difficult to accurately measure loyalty by asking a single
question. This is also true of those factors that impact loyalty, such as
perceived value and quality. In our present study we have used multiple
regressions to analyze the effects of the determinants individually and then
on the store loyalty intention construct. The overall impact of the
determinants of store loyalty on the store loyalty intention construct cannot
be studied in totality. In these situations, structural equation modeling
(SEM) is employed because of its ability to explain the relationships between
complex constructs and the multiple variables that underlie these constructs.
Conceptually, the Structural model is similar to regression analysis in that
the relative importance of predictor variables can be understood vis-a-vis
dependent variable. Thus a SEM analysis of the proposed causal model of
store loyalty is going to provide greater insights than the current study.
The role of mall loyalty in our model suggests that future research on
store loyalty in mall environment should include shopping complex or
mall loyalty. Future research could explore other potential factors
contributing to mall loyalty apart from accessibility, ambience and amenities
discussed here. Other mall characteristics such as size, type (e.g. the new
“niche malls” or “theme malls”) may be important contributors to mall
loyalty.
Individual consumer characteristics such as environmental sensitivity
or variety seeking tendencies (Wakefield and Baker, 1998) could be
investigated for their influence on retail response. Further, difference in
responses due gender differences may be studied. Similarly, age may be a
moderating factor in consumer response to retail environment. This could
have a significant influence in building the overall impression for a retail
store. Loyalty for stores across product categories can be compared based
on gender, age and socioeconomic variables.
Overall the study provides a conceptual framework for modeling store
loyalty intentions in a mall environment. Since the mall market is still
nascent the loyalty for a store in a mall is not as much as a stand store in
traditional shopping districts or streets in the city. The determinants of

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 63 Majumdar

store loyalty for such stand-alone store may be different than a mall store.
Currently the author is working on such a problem of identifying
determinants of loyalty and its effect on store loyalty intentions for a stand-
alone store and comparing it with that of a mall store. The research study
could bring out insights, which could help the mall developers as well as
stand alone storeowners to position themselves in a way to attract their
target customer segments.
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Aveek Majumdar, is MS (By Research) Student, Department of

Management Studies, Indian Institute of Technology, Madras, Chennai,
India.

Journal of Services Research, Special Issue, (December, 2005)