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The objective of the research is to understand Indian consumers' definition of retail service quality with respect to small retailers and influence of hedonic and utilitarian shopping values in determining their expectations towards small retail service quality.

Data were collected through a small retail store‐intercept technique in four cities of Northern India (n=386).

The results indicate that small retail service quality for Indian consumers comprises ambience, layout, and service/relationships dimensions. Hedonic and utilitarian shopping values influence consumers' service quality evaluations.

The study did not consider demographic variables like income, education, and occupation as factors that might affect consumers' perceptions towards retail service quality.

The findings can help small retailers in improving their service quality by focusing on Indian consumers' hedonic and utilitarian shopping values. The research helps small retailers to combat the competitive pressures of organized retailing in the Indian retail landscape.

There has been limited research on understanding consumers' perceptions towards retail service quality in the Indian setting. Further, there is no research to examine Indian consumers' perceptions towards small retailers' quality attributes.

The growing wine market in India presents a tremendous opportunity for marketers to formulate a strategy targeted at the Indian consumers. The purpose of this paper is to identify the attributes that are important for young wine drinkers in their selection of wine, the preferred option within the identified attributes and the relative importance consumers place on the identified attributes.

In-depth interviews were carried out to identify the attributes of primary importance in the wine selection process. Subsequently, conjoint analysis was conducted on the data collected through a survey of 252 respondents which ranked purchase intention of profiles derived from an orthogonal design.

In-depth interviews revealed five factors as important in the choice of wine, namely, price, brand, taste, origin and type of the wine. The results of conjoint analysis showed price as the most important factor, followed by the type of the wine. Red was the most preferred type. Brand, taste and origin follow up in that order of importance with millennials preferring to buy familiar brands, sweet wines and of Indian origin.

The study contributes to the wine consumer behaviour research by identifying the attributes that are important for marketing of wine to the large segment of Indian millennial consumers. The findings will help marketers to better position their wines in the Indian market. The study will also aid in the development of product, branding and pricing decisions.

The purpose of this paper is to understand the role of materialism and brand consciousness in determining the luxury consumption among the young Indian consumers.

In order to measure materialism, brand consciousness, attitude toward luxury brands and purchase intention, pre-established scale items were used to design the self-administered questionnaire. A valid sample of 342 respondents was collected through mall intercepts, in-store intercepts, luxury brands exhibitions and festivals and international airports. The relationship was tested using regression analysis.

The findings support that the materialism and brand consciousness are positively related to the luxury consumption in India and play an important role in predicting the behavior of the young luxury buyers. The Indian youth is buying expensive luxury brands as symbols of status success and wealth in order to fulfill their materialistic goals. The desire to own and possess the well-known and expensive brand names demonstrates the importance the consumers attach to the social and symbolic value of the luxury brands.

The study reveals that the young Indian luxury buyers choose to buy brands that are most advertised. Creative advertisements enhancing luxury brands’ symbolic and social value can be effective. The study has implications for the international luxury brands, as they are expensive, well known and famous among the global consumers.

The key contribution of the study is the establishment of materialism and brand consciousness as important antecedents in the development of attitude toward luxury brands among the young Indian consumers.

Through structural equation modeling, Fishbein and Ajzen's modified theory of reasoned action model (TORA) is used to study the impact of innovation on Indian consumers’ purchase behavior of new processed foods. The results indicate that subjective norms are a key factor in understanding Indian consumers’ new food purchase decisions regardless of their level of innovation. Specifically, subjective norms are found to have direct effects on attitudes, intention to buy, and purchase behavior for new processed food products. Surprisingly, attitudes have little effect on less innovative consumers’ intention to buy. Additionally, product familiarity had a significant impact on Indian consumers’ attitudes, subjective norms, intention to buy, and, ultimately, purchase behavior of the low innovator and high innovator groups. Marketing implications are discussed.

India has undergone dramatic changes since the economic liberalization of 1992. This study aims to provide an historical analysis to determine if consumer attitudes towards marketing practices and consumerism in India have changed measurably from 1990 to 2009.

To measure consumer attitudes towards marketing and consumerism, an established research instrument was administered with 39 Likert scaled items measuring seven dimensions. Two samples were compared: 1990 vs 2009.

The paper finds that 22 items exhibited significant differences. The mindset of Indians has evolved over the last two decades. Many of the changes were positive. However, the study does not provide a completely clean “bill of health” to the business community.

This paper used an urban sample; a rural sample would also be useful. Future research could examine other emerging economies such as Brazil, China, and Vietnam.

The Indian marketplace is operating in a much more open and uncontrolled way since liberalization. Businesses must heed some of the results of this study and continue to pursue practices that consumers see as fair and as transparent. The authors encourage the Indian business community to remain vigilant about the issues addressed in this paper.

These consumer perceptions could be used for decision making by consumer welfare advocates and public policy makers. The lack of improvements in deficient areas may represent possible problems for business in the future. Firms must be concerned about their social responsibility regarding consumerism issues.

The paper offers a longitudinal view of India's consumerism movement. No other research has examined one of the BRICs in this context as this paper has done. Since India is now in the limelight, this research has contemporary value. The paper also provides a very good commentary on the changes in India's consumer markets. The paper has value to marketing managers and public policy advocates.

This paper seeks to explore whether predisposition towards foreign brands and consumer acculturation would differ across demographic segments in an emerging market (India). Further, the paper aims to investigate if predisposition towards foreign brands (acting as a proxy for forces of globalization) would lead to consumer acculturation among consumers in India.

Instruments to measure predisposition towards foreign brands and consumer acculturation were developed on the basis of extensive literature review. The data comprised of urban, educated, middle‐class Indian consumers. The data were collected using structured questionnaire. ANOVA and T‐test results were used to determine if extent of predisposition towards foreign brands and consumer acculturation would differ across demographic segments. Multiple regression analysis was used to test the impact of predisposition towards foreign brands on consumer acculturation.

The findings indicate that significant difference exists among various demographic segments with respect to predisposition towards foreign brands and consumer acculturation. Also, predisposition towards foreign brands does impact consumer acculturation among Indian consumers. Various demographic factors such as age, income and educational qualification level significantly affect this causal relationship.

This paper provides interesting insights about the buying behavior of Indian consumers. These insights would enable corporate managers to develop more focused strategies catering to the Indian consumers.

The paper empirically demonstrates that Indian consumers, when segregated into various demographic segments, do show significant differences in their predisposition towards foreign brands and consumer acculturation. It also ascertains that predisposition towards foreign brands does lead to consumer acculturation.

The purpose of this study is to determine the influence of celebrity credibility (trustworthiness, attractiveness and expertise) on risk perception and buying intention of Indian fast moving consumer goods (FMCG) consumers.

The present study adopted the survey method to know the influence of celebrity credibility dimensions on the perceived risk and purchase intentions of Indian FMCG consumers. This study has performed a survey on 250 respondents using the self-administered questionnaire consisting of 18 measurement scales.

The major findings of this study indicate celebrity trust and celebrity expertise are the most important dimensions of celebrity to influence the risk perceptions of Indian FMCG consumers. The risk perceptions positively influence the purchase intentions of Indian FMCG consumers.

This study was limited to the Indian context, but theoretical contributions in terms of justifying the relationship linking variables, which might affect success, as well as the failure of celebrity endorsements.

The research findings can assist the practitioners in selecting the right celebrity endorser as a spokesperson for promoting Indian FMCG brands based on three dimensions of celebrity credibility (trust, expertise and attractiveness).

The study has proposed and tested the new theoretical model considering the celebrity trust, celebrity expertise and celebrity attractiveness as the affective responses from the buyers of FMCG. Perceived risk is mainly cognitive responses influenced through celebrity credible sources. The study attempted to investigate the impact of both affective and cognitive responses on the purchase intentions of Indian FMCG consumers.

This study aims to explore the antecedents related to luxury brand loyalty in the Indian Gen Z consumer segment. It obtains the connection between luxury brand attachment, luxury brand trust and luxury brand loyalty. The study also envisages how luxury brand trust plays a mediation role in strengthening the relationship between luxury brand attachment and luxury brand loyalty in the Indian Gen Z consumer segment.

The empirical investigation is based on the Indian Gen Z consumer segment. Data was acquired with the help of a structured questionnaire, following convenience and snowball sampling techniques. A total of 230 primary responses was used for the statistical analysis of the present research. The analysis was carried out with the help of SmartPLS software to validate a proposed model and corresponding hypotheses.

The research findings demonstrate that two major branding outcomes support luxury brand loyalty behavior in the Indian Gen Z consumer segment: luxury brand attachment and luxury brand trust. Corporate social responsibility (CSR) attributes and sustainability attributes, luxury product attributes, luxury brand attributes and social media attributes positively influence luxury brand attachment in the Indian Gen Z consumer segment. CSR attributes and sustainability attributes have negligible contribution toward positively influencing luxury brand trust towards the same. However, when luxury brand trust is combined with luxury brand attachment, then luxury brand trust plays a significant role in enhancing luxury brand loyalty among the Indian Gen Z consumer segment. Then, luxury brand attributes, product attributes and social media attribute positively impact luxury brand trust in the Indian Gen Z consumer segment. The study also identifies that luxury brand trust plays a significant mediation role in consolidating the relationship between attachment and loyalty.

The proposed model in the research is an integrated framework comprising maximum potential variables that can positively influence luxury brand loyalty in the Indian Gen Z consumer segment. The analysis in the research shows the mediation role of luxury brand trust between luxury brand attachment and luxury brand loyalty in the Indian Gen Z consumer segment. This study has also identified the vital role of luxury brands’ CSR attributes and sustainability attributes to support luxury brand loyalty.

The purpose of this paper is to understand the ethnocentric tendencies of Indian consumers towards foreign multi-brand retailers (FMBRs), and the influence that such ethnocentrism has on their attitudes towards, and future purchasing behaviour from, these international retailers.

The paper used a mall intercept method with a randomised data collection process to secure data from 119 organised retail shoppers in a major metropolitan Indian city. The analysis was carried out using analysis of covariance, bootstrapping mediation, multiple regression analysis, and Johnson’s relative weight analysis.

Two main results are as follows: concern for livelihoods of small retailers and a perception that earnings of foreign retailers are unjust are revealed as the most significant drivers of negative attitude towards FMBRs, and although high ethnocentric customers have a strong negative attitude towards FMBRs, they are open to the idea of making future purchases of goods that are not available with small retailers, from the foreign retail outlets.

The study sample is from a single metropolitan city, albeit one which serves as a miniature version of the Indian society. As a limitation, the results might not be generalisable to small, non-metropolitan Indian towns.

These results provide valuable input regarding the marketing strategy and sustainability of foreign retailers planning to launch operations in India. For example, FMBRs should position themselves as not being in competition with existing small retail shops by offering a different array of products. Further, younger and more educated Indians are the least ethnocentric towards FMBRs, thus making them an attractive target segment.

Extant research has studied consumer ethnocentrism of Indian consumers towards foreign brands and products, but not towards FMBRs. This paper attempts to fill that research gap.

The purpose of the study was to understand influence of assortment, store facility, service and relationship on Indian consumers’ small retailer patronage behaviour. The determinant of small retailer–consumer relationships was studied.

Indian consumers were contacted through retail stores intercept method and requested to participate in the survey (n = 321). The questionnaire was adapted from the research conducted by Lee et al. (2008) and modified (some items on relationship were added). ANOVA and multiple regression tests were used to analyze the data.

The Indian consumers’ prefer small retailers due to assortment, service, store facility and relationship. The older and younger populations differ in their reasons for preferring small retail stores. The results show that service and assortment influence consumer-small retailer relationships.

The small retailers’ can harness the relationship and social interaction attribute of their service package for defending their turf against organized retail. The fast-moving consumer goods companies can use the competitive strength of small retailers for increasing their distribution in the interiors of the country and understanding market demand.

There is limited research in India to understand competitive advantage of small retailers over organized retailing.