SDA Bocconi awarded Best Paper at the EAERCD 2015

How Store Attributes Impact Shopper Loyalty: Do Different National Cultures Follow The Same Loyalty Building Process?

This is the title of the paper presented by Monica Grosso and Sandro Castaldo, Coordinator and Director of our School’s Channel and Retail Academy, and awarded as best paper at the 18th Conference of the European Association for Education and Research in Commercial Distribution.

The paper summarizes the results of a recent research project conducted by the Retailing Observatory of SDA Bocconi School of Management and aimed at testing a store loyalty model in multiple contexts. Among the activities conducted for the project were:Web survey in seven languages.Data collection in twelve countries selected to have variance in Hosftede cultural dimensions.Two macro product categories examined:  FMCG, Non-food.13,808 valid cases examined.

The data analysis allowed us to draw some first relevant conclusions: the main drivers of loyalty are customer satisfaction and offer perceived value, which in turn derives by store levers like assortment, salespeople, store environment and promotions. The relevance of loyalty drivers are however not the same everywhere – culture matters. That is why a winning international strategy in retail requires a strong common positioning and a careful adaptation of the stores at the local country level.

However, more questions need answers, such as: what are the main differences in the generations of shoppers? Which ones in the product categories or within retail formats? We will analyze these and other related issues in our future analysis.