This review of the article “shoppers’ satisfaction levels are not the only key to store loyalty” by Miranda, Konya, and Havrila analyzes the research findings and how articulate the satisfaction levels impact the loyalty of the shoppers (220-232).
The article shows evidently how shoppers perceive loyalty to a store due to various factors and attributes. The title of the article expresses the purpose of the study clearly. In the introduction, the reader is captivated by how the consumers’ satisfaction and preferences lead to their habits of shopping. The shoppers’ comfort and value for money influences the frequent visit to a primary or main store (Orel and Kara 118-129).
The reader sees how various factors influence a consumer’s choice of the preferred primary store with regard to satisfaction. Information is seen to overtake retailers, and consumers are seen to move from their main store to different stores due to the competition and information. There are specific attributes that affiliate a consumer to a main or primary store. The factors that influence the consumer’s level of satisfaction while shopping include the location of the store, pricing strategy, in-store promotions, sales personnel, physical attributes, atmospherics, and nature and quality of assortments stocked.
The long introduction, together with the background, expound more on the habits and patterns of consumers, and this replaces the literature review that is evidently missing. There are conflicting researches that overtly link consumer satisfaction, store image, and store loyalty together (Miranda, Konya, and Havrila 220-232).
The authors’ research shows that a consumer’s satisfaction in a store is led by the consumer’s preference and the store image while continued shopping suggests that store satisfaction is mediated by the relationship and perceptions between the store and store loyalty. Therefore, with the absence of a connector to determine the relationship between store satisfaction and store loyalty, the authors’ introduction is explicitly true and correct without any bias.
The research inquiry that was put across respondents was valid as it was to test and see if consumers of a primary one-stop-shop would actually consider going to another store that is offering a special purchasing opportunity. However, the questionnaire, which was put across various frequent consumer patrons of a store, undertook the survey with inconclusive results.
In the methodology section, consumers’ satisfaction and loyalty in the study were gauged by the use of a structured questionnaire on both chain stores and independent stores. The method used sampled 376 males and 558 females from the ages of 18-75. The authors indicate clearly that the method applied to scale a consumer’s level of satisfaction and store loyalty is inappropriately not set to measurements (Miranda, Konya, and Havrila 220-232).
The tactic used for store satisfaction estimates that for a consumer’s store satisfaction, the eight variables, are the significant influence for store attractiveness. The eight variables include product range, in-store promotions, prices, store layout, proximity from home/work, aisle width, and time spent in-store and sales assistance. These factors are relevant to a consumer’s satisfaction in a store as they augment and facilitate the consumer’s needs and information (Chen 202-210).
In their article, the authors inappropriately exclude product range as a variable that is significant to a consumer’s store satisfaction. The research showed that a wide variety and range of assortments and products significantly influenced a consumer’s shopping experience.
Store loyalty is scaled with various methods that articulate the significance of varying variables (Lombart 644-652). The variables that were used could have been extensive and broader in terms of product review and product purchases. The use of products like meat purchase was biased, especially to consumers who are herbivores. Thus, there was bias in the methodology used to ascertain a consumer’s loyalty to a store based on the variables used. The size of the grocery bill as a variable also seems to have been used in a biased way. Loyalty to a primary store varies from other factors. A consumer’s grocery bill totally depends on the number of products purchased (Miranda, Konya, and Havrila 220-232).
The authors failed to speculate that the size of the grocery bill could have determinants like in-house store promotions and unavailability of pocket-friendly products. The authors’ research shows that a consumer’s willingness to travel for a purchasing opportunity is negative for store loyalty, yet they have failed to show exactly why a consumer finds it difficult or daunting to travel to a store for shopping. The authors should have used general variables such as proximity from home/work, product range, plus the variables that are significant to a consumer’s satisfaction.
Store loyalty to a customer is subject to various variables, as indicated by the authors. Store satisfaction and customers’ loyalty differ from one another thanks to the different variables used in the questionnaire to various consumers (Miranda, Konya, and Havrila 220-232). The competition and implications of consumer shifting from the primary store to the competitors’ store are adversely massive, and retailers should work on strategies that will reduce or stop shoppers from moving from one store to another (Baumann, Elliott, and Burton 148-157).
The implications could be severe, as research suggests that the health of a retail store solely depends on consumers’ loyalty to the store. The authors acknowledge that retail stores should be able to understand other factors that influence a consumer’s loyalty. This can be achieved through organized and regular feedback from consumers and sustained systematic consumer shopping patterns.
The means of undertaking the study, however, clearly shows the implications of the research and its shortcomings. The unawareness of a consumer’s income and amount used in shopping shows that the study is all about estimation hence inconclusive in regards to the title of the article. The characteristics from the review of the literature are not enough to draw conclusive consumer shopping patterns because the major factors were not properly segmented. A consumer’s income does not necessarily aggravate the customers’ shopping patterns and patronage to a store, but it helps in understanding the consumers’ pattern of shopping and store satisfaction (Picón, Castro, and Roldán 746-751).
Overall, the undertaking of the study was meant to show the various factors that affect the way a consumer relates to his/her shopping, store satisfaction, and store loyalty. The factors that influence a consumer’s store loyalty are different from the reasons that affect the consumer’s store satisfaction. As shown in the study, such factors do not correlate in any way, and there is no absolute inclination to a consumer’s store satisfaction enhancing a shopper’s store loyalty. This, in turn, shows that there is minimal to no significance whatsoever in terms of implying that a consumer’s store satisfaction is essential to a customer’s store loyalty. The authors were not far from indicating and showing that indeed shoppers’ rates of satisfaction are not the only means to their loyalty.
Works Cited
Baumann, Chris, Greg Elliott, and Suzan Burton. “Modeling customer satisfaction and loyalty: Survey data versus data mining.” Journal of Services Marketing 26.3 (2012): 148-157. Web.
Chen, Shu-Ching. “The customer satisfaction–loyalty relation in an interactive e-service setting: The mediators.” Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services 19.2 (2012): 202-210. Web.
Lombart, Cindy, and Didier Louis. “Consumer satisfaction and loyalty: Two main consequences of retailer personality.” Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services 19.6 (2012): 644-652. Web.
Miranda, Mario J., Laszlo Konya, and Inka Havrila. “Shoppers’ satisfaction levels are not the only key to store loyalty.” Marketing Intelligence & Planning 23.2 (2005): 220-232. Web.
Orel, Demirci, and Ali Kara. “Supermarket self-checkout service quality, customer satisfaction, and loyalty: Empirical evidence from an emerging market.” Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services 21.2 (2014): 118-129. Web.
Picón, Araceli, Ignacio Castro, and José L. Roldán. “The relationship between satisfaction and loyalty: A mediator analysis.” Journal of Business Research 67.5 (2014): 746-751. Web.