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The purpose of this paper is to explore the influences of store attributes on store personality dimensions across different consumer segments. Subsequently, the study examines impact of store personality dimensions on consumer store choice behaviour.

A mall-intercept survey was undertaken using a systematic sampling of department store shoppers of age 18 years and above in Kolkata, a metropolitan city of India. Questionnaire was used to collect data from busy shopping malls or centres located in different places of Kolkata. Multiple regression analysis is used to examine the objectives of this study.

Results revealed that different sets of store attributes positively affect the various store personality dimensions differently across the segments. The study also found the positive impacts of store personality dimensions on consumer store choice behaviour.

Arguably, this study is the first to explore the link between store attributes and store personality across the consumer segments, and the impacts of store personality dimensions on consumer store choice behaviour.

This paper aims to examine the influence of store environment cues, store personality and attitude toward halal product (AHP) on store evaluation and repatronage intention. The authors extended the conceptual framework of Baker and colleagues (2002) and examined the indirect effects of store personality (i.e. sophistication and sincerity) and AHP on the outcome variables.

The authors adopted survey design to test our hypotheses. Data were collected random to store patrons and post-graduate students of public university business schools in Klang valley. There was almost equal selection of Muslim (49.6%) and non-Muslim respondents.

Results indicate that the model explains 44 per cent of the variance in store repatronage intention. In particular, serial mediation is not significant only for two mediation paths.

The findings imply that brand personality, attitude toward halal product and store evaluation mediate the relationship between store environment cues and purchase intention. However, there are few limitations. First, the respondents were only limited to store patrons in Klang valley. Second, the authors only tested for three store environment cues.

Store repatronage intention could be increased by focusing on store environment cues (i.e. music and design), forming sincere and sophisticated store personalities and attaining favorable evaluation for both store and particularly halal products.

Halal requirements for consumable goods especially food and drinks are warrant concerns for both Muslim and non-Muslim consumers. It deals with safety and health issues of producing such goods. In a nation that comprises multiethnic-multireligious population, it is not surprising that non-Muslims are assured by quality of faith-based products made for Muslims.

Store repatronage intention is a valid concern for all retailers. In this study, stores which carry halal products should focus on enhancing store design and music perception, forming sincere and sophisticated personality, and generating favorable attitudinal evaluation for both halal products and store. After all, halal products are an assurance of quality for all store patrons.

This study aims at examining the role of the e-store brand personality congruence/incongruence of a multichannel apparel retailer in the formation of consumers' perceived e-store brand fit and e-store patronage intention, based on the concept of image congruence.

An online survey was conducted with a US national sample of 458 female consumers (20–50 years old) who had shopped for clothing online.

Results revealed that e-store brand personality incongruence in three personality dimensions had a negative impact on consumers' e-store patronage intention directly as well as indirectly by reducing the consumers' global perception of the e-store brand fit. Further, the retailer's relevance to the consumer moderated the relationship between the perceived e-store brand fit and e-store patronage intention in that this relationship was significantly greater among consumers with a high (vs low) perceived self-relevance of the retail brand.

The findings highlight the importance of symbolically integrated cross-channel brand management for multichannel apparel retailers by clearly identifying their brand personality and carefully crafting it into their e-store interface design and e-store visual merchandising to convey the brand personality.

This study expands the application of image congruence to the cross-channel image congruence phenomenon in multichannel retailing environments by examining the e-store brand image congruence employing both direct and indirect approaches.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the impact of retailer personality on consumer‐based retailer equity.

The authors developed a retailer personality scale and find its impact on consumer‐based retailer equity by adopting the scale developed by Pappu and Quester. A mall‐intercept survey was undertaken using a systematic sampling of department store shoppers of age 18 years and above in a metropolitan city, Kolkata, India. The questionnaire was used to collect data from seven department retail brands. The impact of each retailer personality dimension on each consumer‐based retailer equity dimension was explored, using structural equation modeling.

The study proposed a five‐dimensional scale to measure department store personality. Results indicated that the three dimensions of store personality, namely sophistication, dependability and empathy, have significant positive impact on each consumer‐based retailer equity dimension except one (empathy→retailer loyalty). The remaining two dimensions of retailer personality, namely authenticity and vibrancy, have no impact on each consumer‐based retailer dimension.

The paper is the first to propose a scale for measuring department store personality and to explore the link between retailer personality and consumer‐based retailer equity.

The purpose of this paper is to identify the main determinants of fashion store personality, as perceived by the shopper. It aims to discover factors that are responsible for specific store personality trait perceptions in order to understand how these humanlike personality traits are induced in a retailing context.

With this end in mind, a qualitative exploratory study was undertaken. A total of 70 in‐depth semi‐structured interviews were conducted with a convenience sample of Belgian adult respondents to systematically assess the connotations of the 34 different store personality trait descriptors put forward by d'Astous and Lévesque. Respondents were asked which fashion stores they considered to embody these specific personality traits and they were probed for the sources of inference they used.

The findings reveal that the store environment and store design particularly is an important factor in determining the personality of fashion stores. Also, other factors such as corporate social responsibility, reputation, service level, the salespeople, the merchandise sold, price/quality perceptions and the consumer base determine perceptions of “genuineness”, “solidity”, “sophistication”, “enthusiasm” and “unpleasantness”.

A better understanding of the determinants of fashion store personality is essential for retail managers who wish to (re)position their stores. Retailers and store designers should be aware of the important role of “atmospherics” in this regard.

Apart from conceptual work, no empirical research has yet systematically investigated determinants of each of the main store personality dimensions.

To explore how store brand personality might play a role in consumer perceptions towards store brands and how such personalities might vary when consumers are allowed to experience the product.

Two different store brand products from high selling categories were compared with their leading national brands. A total of 139 respondents took the survey. Respondents were divided into four groups, each group representing a different experimental condition. Respondents rated the personality attributes on a seven point Likert scale.

Results show that national brands have stronger brand personality traits when compared to store brands; however, such differences diminished when consumers were allowed to taste and experience the products.

Retailers would be better off to let consumers experience and taste the products to drive consumer perceptions of store brands. Retailers should also focus on those categories where the differential in personality traits between store brands and national brands are small and where the profit margins are higher to drive the store brand image.

This paper presents a slightly different approach in understanding store brands and argues that store brands do have a personality and that such personality could be further influenced by allowing consumers to experience the product.

The personality impressions evoked by service environments play a key role in attracting and retaining customers. This paper explores the interior design of service and retail environments, and links the designer perspective with the consumer perspective to assist managers in creating and managing interiors for achieving desired responses.

The authors propose and test a conceptual model that relates types of interior design to consumer impressions of that environment's personality. Two studies establish holistic types of interiors based on design elements and factors with a sample of professionals, and then link those types to generic impressions evoked with consumers.

Store personality relates systematically to five holistic types of interiors. Minimal‐shell interiors score high on unpleasantness, complex‐shell designs score high on enthusiasm, genuineness, and solidity, moderate‐shell interiors generate below‐average impressions of sophistication, genuineness, and solidity, low‐content interiors score high on enthusiasm and sophistication, and high‐content designs score low on enthusiasm, and high on unpleasantness.

This research is limited to wine tasting rooms as an example category. Implications for interior design in general can be drawn from the holistic types of interiors identified and from basic relations to generic dimensions of consumer responses.

The findings reported in this research assist managers in more confidently using interior design for positioning and differentiating servicescapes.

Integrating the designer perspective with the customer perspective is a unique approach yielding taxonomy for servicescape interiors, and a holistic perspective on their links with personality impressions.

The purpose of this study was to develop a synthesized retail brand personality scale (RBPS) framework across retail formats. This research also addresses cultural differences by applying an emic-etic approach to scale development with United States (US) and Taiwanese samples.

After two focus group interviews and a pretest were conducted in both Taiwan and the US, a main test was conducted on consumer samples in Taiwan (N = 412) and in the US (N = 411). Confirmatory factor analysis was used to develop a valid, reliable RBPS.

The results revealed that sincerity and sophistication are comparable dimensions to those in the brand personality scale (BPS), and unpleasantness, traditionalism, enthusiasm, antagonism and innovativeness were found to be unique dimensions for retail brands. The findings also indicated that sincerity, unpleasantness and traditionalism are common dimensions across cultures, whereas innovativeness, sophistication and antagonism are culture-specific dimensions in the US, whereas enthusiasm is a specific dimension in Taiwan.

To the best of authors’ knowledge, this study is the first to develop a synthesized scale of retail brand personality that compares the identified dimensions to Aaker's (1997) BPS and includes an emic-etic approach. This research contributes to the branding literature and international marketing field, and has implications for retail practitioners.

The purpose of this paper is to explore female fashion shoppers’ perception and response to the mall environment. Specific objectives include a conceptual model of female fashion shoppers’ experience in a mall environment incorporating fashion orientation, store personality, shopping mall perception, shopping value, and patronage intentions.

Empirical testing is done with a latent path structural equation model. Data collection was carried out in a firmly controlled mall intercept survey which produced 312 usable questionnaires.

Results show that shoppers’ fashion orientation hypothesized to be a personality trait is not an antecedent to the perception of the mall environment. Instead, fashion orientation moderates the perception of product and service quality, hedonic shoppers’ response, and patronage intentions. The perceived mall personality has a focussed impact on the perception of product and service quality. The mall’s sophistication image influences the perception of product quality. On the other hand, the mall’s enthusiasm image atmosphere affects the perception of service quality. Perceptions of product and service quality are correlated and trigger positive hedonic and utilitarian shopping benefits.

Because findings from this study cannot be generalized to other situations, the research should be replicated to a variety of mall formats and shopper segments. Furthermore, other fashion-orientation factors (fashion leadership, fashion interest, and anti-fashion attitude) should be considered. However, along with model complexities, increased sample sizes are also required. Future studies may also include male shoppers to investigate differences in fashion motivation and mall shopping experience.

It is concluded that the person-place congruency theory is confirmed and that the shoppers’ fashion orientation should be included in the set of segmentation variables. Shopping malls cannot be everything to everyone without risking diluting their image. Downtown urban malls have the opportunity to adopt a well-defined positioning in order to differentiate themselves. Large suburban malls should partition themselves to remove image ambiguities. Mall managers must primarily work on the “meaning” of the mall atmosphere rather “mood.” Fashion shoppers are task oriented. Mall managers should design malls to facilitate the shopping experience with highly functional designs, simple layout, and clear signage in support of wayfinding.

Although fashion consumers have been studied from diverse perspectives, there is limited research on the experience of fashion shoppers in a mall setting. This study partly fills this gap in the literature by investigating how female fashion shoppers respond to the shopping center environment and commit to mall patronage.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the structural relationship between web site personality, utilitarian web browsing, hedonic web browsing and online impulse buying of tourism products.

A total of 405 valid online questionnaires were collected to empirically test the measurement and structural model using partial least square path modelling approach, a variance-based structural equation modelling technique. The study sample includes experienced online shoppers who performed shopping tourism products and services via internet medium.

The results imply that web site personality is a second-order reflective construct comprising solidity, enthusiasm, genuineness, sophistication and unpleasantness. web site personality positively influences utilitarian web browsing, hedonic web browsing and online impulse buying; and both hedonic web browsing and utilitarian web browsing positively influence online impulse buying.

Online impulse buying of tourism products has not been profoundly explored in current literature, despite its important implication for managers, academicians and consumers alike. This study contributes to the field of e-commerce marketing, retailing and e-tourism research.