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The aim is to examine whether supermarkets may be losing the opportunity to increase customer purchase outlays by means of loyalty points, convertible to acquire specialty goods and services provided by “bonus partners”.

Two econometric models were constructed from data collected from 470 supermarket shoppers in one major Australian city, to predict mechanisms for making shoppers aware of loyalty points accrued on their credit card purchases and for inducing them to pay for purchases with specific credit cards linked to loyalty programmes of which they were members.

Shoppers who are aware consider specialty merchandise in exchange for loyalty points to be a significant reason for joining a loyalty programme. However, when they actively seek to pay with specific credit cards because of loyalty points do not rank the conversion into specialty merchandise as a significant reason for membership.

No insight was sought on the relative importance of attitudes and implications of social influences on attitude formation and behavioural intention with respect to the accumulation of loyalty points.

Specialist retailing planners can configure product offerings attractive to customers' lifestyles and broader interests on the basis of shared insights into buying patterns and personal details captured during their enrolment in affiliated loyalty programmes with “bonus partners”.

The paper offers an actionable strategy for customer retention and enhancement.

Retailers who stay open for longer times may be overestimating demand during these times and might struggle to turn round a profit by operating extended trading hours. This paper aims to analyse the frequency and time at which consumers make unscheduled store visits in order to suggest ways that retailers might use to attract more patronage in this mode of grocery shopping.

The research methodology includes administration of a structured questionnaire among randomly selected shoppers, exiting two supermarkets across a major Australian city. The survey seeks information about various aspects of shopping behaviour, in a range of contexts and within selected demographics. Two econometric models aimed at predicting frequencies and times of the day that shoppers do unscheduled shopping are constructed.

The study identifies shopping profiles of consumers who are inclined to make unscheduled visits to the grocers.

The investigation does not discriminate between idiosyncratic unscheduled purchase behaviour during extended trading times on weekdays and weekends. Greater understanding of the extenuating factors that encourage unscheduled shopping on Sundays will give an added dimension to the policy issues debate on Sunday trading.

Retailers can attempt to condition their patrons to expand purchases during the time the store keeps its doors open longer.

The findings could impel retailers during the extended trading times, to take affirmative actions to make customers' unscheduled visits more experiential, and help the stores achieve higher customer outlays.

Significant number of consumers in Australia patronizes non‐scanning stores in spite of not being issued itemized receipts for the goods they purchase. In order to understand the attitude of consumers to receipts that give only limited information, shoppers exiting non‐scanning stores were surveyed for their use of purchase receipts. This study compares consumers' use of purchase receipts issued by non‐price scanning stores and those issued by price scanning stores. It appears that shoppers are largely indifferent to the details on the purchase receipt except when they are concerned with returning or exchanging the item(s) purchased.

To identify the factors that influence shoppers' satisfaction with their “primary” grocery store, and those that encourage them to continue patronising it despite being presented with a significant inducement to shop elsewhere.

A structured questionnaire containing 31 variables relating to shopping behaviour and satisfaction was administered to 934 shoppers leaving a number of grocery stores in an Australian city during a two‐week period. Results were used to construct two mathematical models predicting customer satisfaction and store loyalty, from which two research hypotheses were derived.

The results of model estimation show that factors with a significant influence on store satisfaction have little in common with others that impel shoppers to remain loyal to one store. Indeed, there was no evidence in this study that shoppers' overall satisfaction was by itself a significant influence on continued patronage.

The questionnaire did not ask questions, judged to be intrusive, relating to respondents' income level, education background, employment status or household size – characteristics known to have a bearing on perception of risk associated with switching to an unfamiliar store and hence potentially to inhibit action. It would be instructive in future research to assess the extent to which demographic characteristics mediate perceptions of financial, psychological and social risk, and their influence on satisfaction and loyalty.

Retailers often do not recognise that what influences customer satisfaction is not the same as what engenders store loyalty, and consequently do not allocate scarce resources systematically among tactics influencing one or the other. Unless they are vigilant to changing consumer behaviour patterns, they will not be able to isolate in their strategy the elements of the retail mix that could insulate their loyal customers from responding to competitors' special offers.

This study introduces intelligence gatherers and strategic planners in the retail context to an important distinction between general satisfaction and specific loyalty.

The purpose of this research is to examine consumers' perception of the difference between customised/modified products and brand stereotypes, and the extent of brand's impact on consumers' decisions to customise their purchases. Current literature is rife about the shift from the dominance of brands in directing consumer choice to the contemporary ascendancy of individualism reflected in customising products.

A structured questionnaire containing 23 variables relating to brand perception and customisation was administered to more than 500 random shoppers leaving two shopping centres in an Australian city during a two‐week period. Results were used to construct two econometric models aimed at predicting consumers' perception of the difference between customised/modified and brand stereotypes and the extent that consumers' decisions to customise their purchases were affected by brand names.

The results show that factors, other than the motive of and the satisfaction from customising the product, with a significant influence on the perceived difference between customised items and brand stereotypes, have little in common with factors that impel consumers to customise/modify their purchases based on the imagery of brands. A significant reason why consumers self‐engage with composing their product purchases is to satisfy their desire for quality and genuinely believe that their compositions are appreciably different from brand stereotypes thus vindicating the theory of self‐congruency. Indeed, there is evidence that the extent brands influence customers to tailor their purchases, depend on the stores from which consumers make their purchases.

The research did not ask questions on the extent of influence of brands on purchase behaviour of made‐to‐order products in relation to every specific durable product tested. These items conceivably have different buying protocols and therefore future research may want to consider a larger sample size with dedicated respondents for each type of item that was modified or customised. Meaningful comparisons can then be made across each of these items to identify the intrinsic and extrinsic product appeals of customised items that consumers may find more compelling than the pull of established stereotypes of brands.

Brand owners might consider setting up “virtual” stores that offer templates to adjust their stereotypes in order to accommodate specific styles and perspectives of customers.

In an era when individualism is getting increasing currency, this study aims to introduce service providers in the retail industry to how much of a role brands play in influencing the specifications of adjusted and customised products.

This study aims to examine the interrelationship between financial stability and economic growth with a comprehensive analysis.

The panel Granger causality testing approach is carried out to the panels of the Fragile Five (F5) and the Group of Seven (G7) countries for the period 1998–2020. To capture the different aspects of financial stability the authors use eight different indicators.

The findings reveal some important implications: the relationship between financial stability and economic growth is sensitive to the financial stability indicators for both the F5 and G7 countries. The stability indicators related to the credit market contain much more causality relationship with economic growth than the indicators related to the stock market. Z-score and provisions to nonperforming loans (NPLs) are among the two variables with the highest causality relationship with economic growth. The least number of causality link is found for the Regulatory Capital Ratio and Stock Price Volatility in F5 countries and Credit Ratio, NPLs and Stock Price Volatility in G7 countries. Economic growth affects financial stability through credit market stability indicators and mostly for the F5 countries. No causal relationship is found for any of the financial stability indicators of Canada, the UK and the USA from economic growth to financial stability.

Since the linkages between financial stability and economic growth may vary due to country/group specific differences, apart from the previous studies, the authors select two different groups of countries in terms of financial stability and economic size.