Perceived retailer innovativeness and brand equity: mediation of consumer engagement

ABSTRACT

The relationship between customers and retailers is more complicated nowadays due to the sophisticated trends of the current service retail landscape and consumers’ high expectations. This study investigates how perceived retailer innovativeness (PRI) influences consumer engagement (CE) and brand loyalty. Based on the wheel of retailing theory and signaling theory, we empirically analyzed these relationships based on 723 customers who patronize service retailers. The empirical findings suggest that product innovativeness has the strongest impact on CE, followed by service innovativeness and experience innovativeness. However, only product and experience innovativeness influence brand equity. Further results imply that CE not only contributes directly to the brand building, but also significantly mediates the relationship between product innovativeness–brand equity, service innovativeness-brand equity, and experience innovativeness-brand equity. The research adds new insights to the retail innovativeness literature and provides managers with new ways to customize SME retail services.

摘要

由于当前服务零售格局的复杂趋势和消费者的高期望，顾客和零售商之间的关系变得更加复杂。本研究调查了感知零售商创新性如何影响消费者参与度和品牌忠诚度。基于零售轮转理论和信号传递理论，我们以732位光顾服务零售商的顾客为基础，对这些关系进行了实证分析。实证结果表明，产品创新对消费者参与度的影响最大，其次是服务创新和体验创新。然而，只有产品和经验创新才会影响品牌资产。进一步的结果表明，消费者参与度不仅直接促进了品牌塑造，而且显著地调节了产品创新与品牌资产、服务创新与品牌资产及体验创新与品牌资产之间的关系。本研究对零售创新提出了新的看法，并为管理者定制中小企业零售服务提供了新的途径。

KEYWORDS:

• Perceived retailer innovativeness
• consumer engagement
• brand equity
• SMEs

关键词:

• 感知零售商
• 创新性消费者参与
• 品牌资产
• 中小企业

Acknowledgement

This work was supported by the MARA research and innovation grant scheme (grant number: EP-2016-002). We would like to thank the two reviewers of the original manuscript who provided constructive comments. The usual disclaimer applies.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by Mara research and innovation grant scheme [Grant Number EP-2016-002].