An Exploratory Study On The Concept And Measurement Of Store Identity

In retail management, store image is an important tool to enhance and improve the store, however, store image may change with consumers'different purposes (Davies, 1992), store image is volatile and difficult to control, so retailers rarely depend on store image to make a Decision(Arnold, Capella, & Smith, 1983). The facts is that , on one hand ,retailers operate by store image; on the other hand, retailers create an expectation through their own perception of the store to make decisions. In other words,retailers not only understand the consumers but also understand their own stores, only to know themselves to be successful in business. By reading the relevant literatures, we found the research of store image is too much, the research of retailers how to perceive their own store has just started. Fortunately, during reading the literature, we found that "identity" is the concept of self-exploration process ,individual's view of "Who am I?", it is this paper'pay attention, here, we roughly call retail store's identity store identity. Retailers will always produce a series of perception on their own stores in the process of operating their own stores. Retail's perception of their own stores is the important factor of retail strategic behavior(Oppewal &Timmermans, 1997).At present, many scholars study the problem of store identity from the retailer's point of view, but many research results are compare the difference of retailers'store identity and consumers'store image, the measurement of store identity is by consumers'dimensions of store image, but retailers'store identity and consumers'store image are not congruent in nature. Therefore, it is necessary to study store identity ,but the essential problem is what is the concept of store identity? Second, how to measure store identity. This study is intended to study how retailers perceive their own shops, and the corporate identity, brand identity of the relevant theory is introduced to the retail study and put forward to the concept of identity stores and resolve the measurement problem of store identity, namely, to develop store identity's measurement tool, a questionnaire survey to test measurement tool reliability and validity,providing accurate measurement tools for future study .The translations of "Identity" are different in China, this study used "认同" as its Chinese word. Strathclyde statement described what is corporate identity in detail: it expressed clearly the corporate culture, goals and values, corporate identity will be a powerful tool to integrate with the essential principles and the event to business success, it can also provide a visual cohesion, to ensure coordination of all business communication, producting consistent image by the definition of organizational culture and characteristics, because it was concerned that all stakeholders and the way of organizations'communication. Corporate identity is business'show to their own business to stakeholders to distinguish themselves from other corporation, corporate identity include: business strategy, business philosophy, corporate culture and corporate design.Brand identity is the brand marketers trying to create or maintaining a series of unique brand association, it means to be true self, to be different from the others, never change the goal to drive you forward. The potential relationship between identity image has attracted scholars of organization, marketing academics and industry attention, brand identity and brand image are a set of corresponding concepts. Brand image is the consumer's perception of the brand, consumers hold a view for a particular brand. This view is from the perspective of the overall perception in the minds of consumers and form an overall image. The main body of brand image is consumer, but for the marketers, it is a passive, subjective, and based on past of association of experience; however, the main body of brand identity is brand strategier. Kapferer (1997) said that the brand identity includes six aspects: physical, personality, culture, relationships, reflection, self-image. Harris and De Chernatony (2001) and De Chernatony (1999) proposed the following elements constitute the brand identity: the brand vision, brand culture, positioning, personality, relationships, presentation. David A. Aaker (2004) pointed out four aspects of brand identity. First, as a brand of product; 2, as an organization's brand; 3, as an individual'brand; 4, as the symbol of the brand.Harmen Oppewal and Harry Timmermans (1997) recognized the inadequacies of the study of the perspective of of the store image from the retailers, through the summary of previous studies, developing a measurement tool of retailer self-perceptived store image for the competitive advantage. Empirical results further show that the price, location, store interior, selection, service, product quality to underlie retailer self-perceived store image. By reading of literature about brand identity and retailer store image, we find the concept of identity is far greater than the retailer store image, retailers image is the perception only from the physical aspects of retail store, while store identity is a systematic and whole perception for store.For qualitative data collection, in-depth interviews was done for eight retailers at Guilin Road, Changjiang Road, Chongqing Road in Changchun City, we analysised the qualitative data, extracted 29 items from it. To compensate the lack of the collected data from the in-depth interviews and the needs of the conceptual model of store identity, we combined the related theoretical concepts and got 17 items, thus ,we got the initial items of store identity. Then a panel of experts supplemented and ament the item, the expert group was composed by the well-known professor of retail management, 5 doctors, 5 masters, 5 undergraduate students , finally, the initial questionnaire was formed by eight dimensions of 45 items. We pre-tested the questionnaire, and had fine-tuning. Then we tested questionnaire in Changchun City, at Guilin Road, Changjiang Road, Chongqing Road. 210 questionnaires were offered to retailer, we get 209 valid questionnaire ,the valid rate was 99.5%.The exploratory factor analysis was used to explorate the internal structure of the store identity conceptual model ,13 factors were obtained ,using scientific criteria to delete the corresponding items, got nine factors, further use of reliability analysis, and removed the items which the value of Cronbachαis lower than 0.4, and eight factors and 30 items were remained. To further verify structural stability of the eight dimensions of store identity, then, using confirmatory factor analysis by AMOS16.0. With 30 items as observed variables, eight factors as a potential variable to construct structure model, the results show a clear relationship between the observed and potential variable, the relationship between eight factors from potential variable and 30 items were very stable. Through exploratory factor analysis and confirmatory factor analysis'results, conducted analysis of the reliability and validity, the results showed that there was good reliability and validity. The conclusion is that, we get the dimensions of store identity, including sales staff, interior design, location, services policies, merchandise, store- customer relationship, target customers, the goal.The theoretical significance of this paper is: constructively introduce the concept of "identity" to the retail study , put forward the concept of store identity. The proposition of the concept provided a new perspective on study about the future of retail performance, in particular, to enrich the study on strategic decision-making of retail. Second, the paper developed a measurement tool of store identity, laid the foundation for in-depth quantitative analysis, the analysis of difference store identity and store image. Third, proposed identity / image model, further explained the reasons for the formation of store image, provided a theoretical support for further research .External conditions faced by retailers are changing, so keeping on diagnosis the store to adjust business strategy is inevitable, and sometimes we can not meet the various needs of consumers, then the retailers how to make a choice at this time? Store identity's measurement tool that allows retailers to know what to upgrade from the store, so there does nos appear the phenomenon that shortage of their own types of goods while the retailers are busy with the decoration. Second, the identity / image model was put forward, retailers can use store identity to impact the vagaries store image, improved consumer's perception of store image. Third , store identity may guide the retailers to make the right strategic decision, greatly reduce the decision-making errors.