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To examine whether consumers value the in‐store experience that retailers provide as part of the store as brand concept.

A sample of young adult consumers (N=188) was surveyed using a self‐administered questionnaire. Statistical techniques (MANOVA, post hoc tests) were used to evaluate the data.

Statistical models indicate that consumers expect both hedonic and utilitarian value to be present when shopping in the store as brand context.

The findings are useful because they confirm significant differences in consumer perceptions of hedonic shopping value across several retail brands. Therefore, customers appear to recognize the uniqueness among the in‐store experience that retailers are working hard to achieve. This delivery of value, then, seems to be an effective source of differentiation.

The results of this study indicate that retailers using a “store as the brand” strategy should continue to invest in creating a specific, unique shopping experience for their target customer. However, retailers should always be mindful that regardless of the excitement and fun delivered in the shopping experience, consumers appear to expect utility including the right merchandise, in the right place, at the right time, and at the right price.

This paper undertakes an empirical examination of consumer value for the broader concept of the retail brand (apparel) that encompasses the entire consumer shopping experience associated with the context.

The purpose of this paper is to focus on one of the main antecedents of consumer behaviour concerning its role in building a retail brand. It addresses how consumer involvement influences perception of retailer attributes, which affects customer‐based retail brand equity when considering retailers as brands.

A model is developed that includes the impact of central dimensions of the perception of retailer attributes, their effects on customer‐based retail brand equity and the moderating role of consumer involvement. The empirical study is based on a sample of 3,000 consumers spread over five retail sectors (grocery, clothing, DIY, electronics and furniture).

Using multiple‐group structural equation modelling, the intersectoral relevance of involvement as a moderator in building a strong retail brand is demonstrated. In retailing, consumer involvement has a moderating effect on the influence of retailer attributes on retail brand equity. The direction of this influence differs, however, from one perceived retailer attribute to the next. Whereas the influence of price, communication and store design is greater on highly involved consumers than on those with low involvement, the influence of service and assortment is greater in consumers with low involvement. Since consumers with a different level of involvement have a different perception of retailer attributes, this factor is relevant to retail branding.

Understanding retailers as brands – conceptually – a basic model shows how to build retail brand equity using the dimensions of retailer marketing instruments, and this model is stable enough to test different antecedents, including involvement for the first time in this context. The five sectors surveyed distinguish the study methodologically from those that focus only on one sector. Finally, the results show that the retailer attributes relevant to retail brand equity differ between customers with high involvement and those with low involvement. This aspect must be considered in the preliminary stages of retail brand building.

The purpose of this paper is to develop a conceptual model for smartphone brand switching behavior, based on the consumption value theory (functional value, emotional value, social value and epistemic value) and the cognition affect behavior (CAB) model. Two paths – product consumption values and retail service relational benefits – were considered as the cognitive elements to predict brand commitment (affect) and smartphone brand switching behavior. In addition, switching cost was used to measure the moderating effect on the relationship between brand commitment and smartphone brand switching behavior.

This research examined whether product consumption value and cognitive benefits related to retail services will enhance brand commitment and then further decrease smartphone brand switching behavior. Switching cost was predicted as a moderator in the model. An investigation of consumers who own a particular brand of smartphone (e.g. the top five smartphone brands: Samsung, Apple, HTC, Sony and Asus) was conducted, and 565 valid responses were collected for the structural equation modeling analysis.

The results demonstrated that emotional value, social value, epistemic value and confidence benefits increased consumer brand commitment and predicted less smartphone brand switching behavior. In addition, switching cost played a significant moderator role in the relationship between brand commitment and brand switching behavior.

A multiple cognitive paths design, with a consumption values aspect and a relational benefits aspect, can elaborate consumer perceptions of product values and service benefits simultaneously, which can lead to a better understanding of the whole picture of the brand services and the key reasons why consumers commit to a brand. Administrators of brand vendors are suggested to improve product innovation and the professionalism of sales services in order to facilitate consumer consumption values, increase their degree of confidence in members of sales staff and, in the meantime, help these administrators gain an understanding of the real reasons for brand switching so as to provide solutions leading to the maintenance of consumer brand commitment through products or services. This is, in turn, likely to increase continued usage intention and reduce the possibility of brand switching.

This study extended the consumption value theory and the CAB model to show that product consumption value and cognitive benefits related to retail services can enhance brand commitment and further decrease smartphone brand switching behavior. The results indicated that brand retailer managers should regularly conduct activities to connect with their customers to induce consumption values and relational benefits and, consequently, increase brand commitment and prevent customer switching behavior.

While the charity retail literature emphasizes the richness of human resource practices among charity retailers, it rarely makes the link between these practices and their interest for establishing charity retailers' brands. Simultaneously, while the retail branding literature increasingly emphasizes the central role of human resource practices for retail branding, it rarely explains how retailers should conduct such practices. The purpose of this study is to test the recent model proposed by Burt and Sparks in 2002 (the “fifth generation of retail branding”) which proposes that a retail brand depends on the alignment between a retailer's substance (vision and culture) and its perceived image by customers.

The research is based on an ethnographic study conducted within the Oxfam Trading Division, GB from October to December 2002.

The study supports the Burt and Spark's model and makes explicit the practice of human resource for branding. The study demonstrates that it was the alignment between the vision of Oxfam's top management and its new customer‐oriented culture, two elements of its core substance mediated to customers by store employees, which has enabled an improved customers' perception of the brand. The study also seeks to elaborate upon the Burt and Spark's model by specifying an ascending feedback loop starting from customers' perception of Oxfam brand and enabling the creation of a suitable culture and vision again mediated by store employees.

New research should explore whether and how retailers create synergies between human resource and marketing functions to sustain their brand image.

If the adoption of business practices by charity retailers is often discussed, this study highlights that commercial retailers could usefully transfer human resource best practices from leading charity retailers to develop their retail brand.

The paper is of value to commercial retailers.

The first purpose of this communication is to highlight retailers' current challenges related to branding as a value creation process. The second purpose is to identify existing organizational brakes that may slow down retailer brand building. The final aim is to indicate managerial and research priorities in retail branding.

The article confronts the conclusions of previous research and the findings of a longitudinal case study conducted with a major French retailer and brand experts between 2004 and 2011.

The authors identify managerial implications and four research priorities: cultural and organizational change, development and sharing of new capacities, customer behavior knowledge, and development of a strategic retailer brand building model.

The question of creating and sustaining retailer brands in the long term is addressed both from a managerial and academic perspective. The longitudinal case study illustrates how a major European retailer copes with branding issues and creates customer value thanks to its brands.

Assesses the evolution of retail brands within British grocery retailing over the past 25 years. Highlights key issues in defining retail brands which contribute to our understanding of their role and impact upon company strategy, and then explores how British retailers have managed the evolution of these product ranges. Identifies key factors as the changing basis and use of retail power in the distribution channel, the centralisation of management activities, and the appreciation of what constitutes retail image. Argues that British grocery retailers have successfully managed these factors to create a retail brand which is now regarded by customers as being at least equal to, if not better than, the established manufacturer brands.

Starting from the experience of department stores, this paper examines five challenges for retailing in the future. These are retail branding, people, growth, customer‐centredness, and performance and measurement. Each challenge is briefly developed from an unusual perspective, mixing management theories and cases. These challenges constitute strategic choices for the future for retailers and each have specific operational consequences.

Owing to the increasing market presence and financial success of retail brands, this study seeks to examine the comparative influence of manufacturer brands and retail brands on customers' purchase behaviors.

The survey was administered to 1,120 samples (of which 200 were returned), with data analyzed using structural equation modeling to test the study's hypotheses.

The study revealed that customers' loyalty to retail brand(s) has greater influence on their purchase behavior than manufacturer brand(s). It also revealed that attitude toward store brands directly influences one's propensity to switch to retail brands, and mediates relationships between loyalty to manufacturer/retail brands and one's propensity to switch to retail brand(s).

Only one type of retailer was employed in the study. The samples are individuals that have either purchased an item(s) from the retailer, or have at least visited one of their retail sites. The samples had relatively high disposable incomes.

The study found that retailers may need dissimilar marketing strategies for customers loyal to manufacturer brands and customers loyal to retail brands.

The study provides new and empirical insight into the ongoing debate of the comparative importance of manufacturer and retail brands.

to examine consumers' perceptions of retail brand representations of gender-oriented and/or sexuality-oriented identities. The authors explore the value of developing more progressive, inclusive brand values to support more effective retail brand communications and imagery.

Photo elicitation, utilising LGBTQIA+/sexuo-gendered imagery from retail brand marketing communications, facilitated discussion within focus groups representing various genders, age generations and sexualities.

Younger generations indicate a preference for fluid gender and sexuality and endorse retail brands that represent this progressive understanding. Gender and age moderate preferences for representative imagery, with older males more resistant to sexuo-gendered messages and females of all ages more accepting.

The research is limited in generalisability, geography and demographics. The focussed approach did, however, enable collection of rich, insightful data to underpin evaluations of communicative brand values.

The inclusion of diverse and fluid sexuo-gendered identities within the brand values of retailers would enable effective targeting of consumers across a range of more traditional cohorts.

The evolving ideology towards inclusiveness, identified within the generational cohorts, demonstrates social change through progressive acceptance of more fluid gendered and sexual identities.

The research adopts a novel approach to examining diverse, sexuo-gendered imagery within gendered and generational cohorts, offering qualitative examples of a progressive social ideology.

This paper aims to investigate the impact of in‐store events on customers' attitudes toward the retail brand.

The authors develop and empirically test a model of event image, event satisfaction, and retail brand attitudes using structural equation modelling. The paper draws its empirical information from a survey of customers of a cosmetics retailer.

The results provide strong empirical evidence for the role of in‐store events in retailing, as they reveal significant support for three of the four hypothesised relationships. More precisely, the results show significant effects between an event's image and customers' satisfaction with the event. Further, the results show a positive relationship between customers' satisfaction with the event and their attitudes toward the retail brand.

Retailers increasingly use in‐store events to provide customers with a unique shopping experience and differentiate themselves from competitors. The present paper highlights the important role of events as communication measures in retailing by empirically investigating the impact of in‐store events on customers' retail brand evaluation.