Retailers understand that the growing number of consumers are spending more on leisure dining activities. These consumers are motivated to dine out as a form of leisure activity. This study focuses on one of the key determinants of those consumers’ store selection, experiential value from the store services.
Experiential value from a store service is defined as the customers’ internal and subjective response to any direct or indirect contact with the store. Specifically, drawing on Mathwick, Malhotra and Rigdon's experiential value scale(2001), this study identifies experiential value as having two sub-constructs of extrinsic experiential value (customer ROI and service excellence) and intrinsic experiential value (escapism and aesthetic appeal). Moreover, based on the self-image congruity propositions in retailing research, this study proposes that store-consumer image congruity intensifies consumers’ experiential value perception from the store.
In this study, store-consumer image congruity was measured by four sub-dimensions of actual self congruity, ideal self congruity, social self congruity, and ideal-social self congruity to capture multidimensional nature of the variable as possible (Aaker 1999; Sirgy, Grewal and Mangleburg 2000).
Under these conceptualizations, this study hypothesized that store-consumer image congruity has positive impacts on the two different kinds of experiential value perceptions from the store services, which in turn have positive influences on store loyalty. Also, extrinsic experiential value perception from the store services is posited to have a positive impact on intrinsic experiential value perception from the store services. Lastly, store loyalty is postulated to have a positive influence on leisure dining activity loyalty(see Figure 1).
Store -consumer image congruity Extrinsic experiential value Intrinsic experiential value Store loyalty Leisure dining activity loyalty <Figure 1> Conceptual model
Survey data from leisure dining customers were used for the SEM testing. As presented in Table 1, the results show that store-consumer image congruity indeed has a significant influence only on intrinsic experiential value which in turn has a positive impact on store loyalty (intentions to revisit and recommend to others), partially supporting H1 and H3. Also, extrinsic experiential value significantly increases intrinsic experiential value as predicted (H2). In turn, store loyalty has a positive impact on leisure dining activity loyalty, supporting H4(for a summary, see Table 2).
Hypotheses Path Standardized path coefficients p-value H1a Store-consumer image congruity → extrinsic experiential value Gamma -.012 n.s H1b Store-consumer image congruity → intrinsic experiential value Gamma .453** p < .05 H2 extrinsic experiential value → intrinsic experiential value Beta .673** p < .05 H3a extrinsic experiential value → store loyalty Beta -.120 n.s H3b intrinsic experiential value → store loyalty Beta .363** p < .05 H4 store loyalty → leisure dining activity loyalty Beta .304** p < .05 Goodness-of-fit indices : χ2(48)=145.187, p=.00; CFI=.939; GFI=.900; NFI=.912; NNFI=.916; RMSEA=.098 <Table 1> Results of hypothesis tests
Hypotheses Results H1a: Store-consumer image congruity increases consumer’s extrinsic experiential value perception.
Rejected H1b: Store-consumer image congruity increases consumer’s intrinsic experiential value perception.
Supported H2: Extrinsic experiential value perception increases consumer’s perceived intrinsic experiential value.
Supported H3a: Extrinsic experiential value perception increases consumer's store loyalty.
Rejected H3b: Intrinsic experiential value perception increases consumer's store loyalty.
Supported H4: Consumer's store loyalty increases their leisure dining activity loyalty.
Supported <Table 2> Summary of hypotheses testing results
This study’s contributions to retailing research are as follow. First, reflecting an increased interest toward leisure-related consumption, this study suggests the importance of investigating factors that affect store choices for leisure purposes. Specifically, this study shows that store-consumer image congruity and experiential value perception from a service are two important antecedents for leisure consumers’ store choice.
Second, this study shows that experiential value from a store mediates the relationship between store-consumer image congruity and store loyalty. The study reveals that an intrinsic experiential value perception rather than an extrinsic experiential value mediates the relationship.
Third, this study used four different dimensions of store-consumer image congruity (actual, ideal, social, ideal-social) to fully capture the construct. Even though they are not analysed independently, this approach would better reflect the meaning of store-consumer image congruity.
These results suggest following managerial implications. First, store managers have to strategically manage store-consumer image congruity to improve leisure consumers’ intrinsic experiential value perception from a store. Managers need to consider matching their target customers’ self image(actual or ideal) with store’s overall image to magnify a positive effect spillover. In order to do so, they have to carefully integrate a store’s various service elements to make a consistent overall image.
Second, results suggest that store managers have to give a special attention on creating intrinsic experiential value to improve consumers’ store loyalty. They need to design service delivery processes to help leisure consumers have such feelings as escapism and aesthetic experience through the service experiences. High-end stores might focus on offering high quality aesthetic experiences that match with the consumers’ ideal self images to generate affective involvement and long-term relationships. Low-end stores could focus more on giving fun and excitement through the service processes.
Third, store managers can also design experiential value based communication strategies. Communication contents that successfully portray experiential values from the store would help leisure consumers actually choose the restaurant and further boost positive word-of-mouth among customer groups.
Despite several limitations, this study suggests an importance of store-consumer image congruity on consumers’ experiential value perception and store loyalty for their leisure related consumptions. It is hoped that this study facilitates more studies on this fast growing area.
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