Consumers' brand decision: a matter of social risk
International Journal of Retail & Distribution Management
ISSN: 0959-0552
Article publication date: 22 April 2020
Issue publication date: 8 June 2020
Abstract
Purpose
This study aims to investigate the impact of social risk and inter-tier brand competition across traditional retailers and discounters on consumers' purchase intentions in the UK.
Design/methodology/approach
The authors conduct a 2 (social risk) × 3 (brand type) × 2 (retailer type) between-subjects design (n = 309; UK) experiment employing a Qualtrics online panel in the UK.
Findings
The study shows that while premium private labels (PPLs) are on par with national brands, discounter's PPLs outperform mainstream retailer's PPLs. Furthermore, consumers appear to purchase standard private labels and PPLs for themselves when shopping at a discounter but turn to national brands when shopping for socially risky situations.
Research limitations/implications
While Tesco's premium (Tesco Finest*) and standard private label (Tesco Everyday Value) explicitly make reference to the retailer's name, for Lidl's premium (Deluxe) and standard private label (e.g. Milbona), the discounter's name is not visible. This is something this study did not control for.
Practical implications
Given that Lidl has opened its first US store in 2017 with ambitious expansion plans, our findings provide in particular practical guidelines for how to promote PPLs in countries where the discounter landscape is less saturated than in Germany.
Originality/value
This study provides insights into the understanding of the influence of social risk on purchasing intentions of premium private labels vs standard private labels vs national brands offered by mainstream retailers or discounters in the UK.
Keywords
Acknowledgements
All procedures performed in studies involving human participants were in accordance with the ethical standards of the institutional and/or national research committee and with the 1964 Helsinki declaration and its later amendments or comparable ethical standards. Informed consent was obtained from all individual participants included in the studies. No animals were involved and/or harmed in these studies. Both authors declare that there are no conflicts of interest.Funding: This research did not receive any specific grant from funding agencies in the public, commercial or not-for-profit sectors.
Citation
Loebnitz, N., Zielke, S. and Grunert, K.G. (2020), "Consumers' brand decision: a matter of social risk", International Journal of Retail & Distribution Management, Vol. 48 No. 6, pp. 575-589. https://doi.org/10.1108/IJRDM-02-2019-0062
Publisher
:Emerald Publishing Limited
Copyright © 2020, Emerald Publishing Limited