About this Research Topic
Understanding the factors and antecedents that generate and maintain customer loyalty to retail stores is a primary concern in consumer research as it spawned an extensive publication stream during the last 50 years. Empirical research has purposefully focused on the role of individual and institutional drivers in long-established consumer outcomes such as customer loyalty and customer satisfaction.
However, growing evidence suggests there is a missing coherent explanation as to how and why customer loyalty to retail stores takes place and what level of lawlike generalization has been achieved beyond the individual and institutional drivers and their effects on consumer attitudes and actions. It is not that the topic of customer loyalty to retail stores was not addressed or that attempts to seek explanations were not made. It is the failure to accomplish higher levels of generalization in empirical research and the lack of parsimony in the attempted explanations that are preventing a better theoretical status of customer loyalty to retail stores.
Thus, the main objective of this special issue is not to add variables to an explanatory model or replicate/extend existing explanatory models. We are interested in research that seeks a higher level of generalization in the explanation of customer loyalty to retail stores.
This attempt should reflect a parsimonious set of variables, mainly because the condition to achieve a higher level of generalization is to attain lawlike generalizations that, by definition and besides reflecting empirical content, exhibit cause-effect relationships and are systematically integrated into a body of scientific knowledge. We should note that a preferable path to achieve lawlike generalizations for this topic is inductive, not deductive. Because more than one set of explanations can emerge from the submissions to this special issue, our evaluation will focus on the submission’s potential contribution to a lawlike generalization, regardless of the conceptual framework used. Papers can be conceptual or empirical, even though we encourage empirical contributions. Conceptual papers should address the theories and methods that can produce logical and scientific explanations when put to the test in empirical research. Empirical papers can be qualitative, striving for hypotheses development and practical implications, or quantitative, advancing analyses and discussion of a plausible explanation of customer loyalty to retail stores.
Examples of possible themes include, but are not limited to:
Identification of store loyalty theoretical frameworks that can engender promising explanatory hypotheses and can lead to powerful effect sizes in the explanation of why and how customer loyalty to retail stores takes place, boosting up the level of lawlike generalization achieved.
Evaluation of the prevalence of individual characteristics, over institutional or company-related attributes, or vice versa, in their comparative contribution to explain customer loyalty to retail stores.
Re-examination of the relationship of customer satisfaction and customer loyalty. Does the direct or the indirect relationship between satisfaction and loyalty provide a better account of how these two outcomes are linked?
Comparison of explanatory models focusing on physical stores versus those focusing on digital commerce, e-commerce or virtual shopping. Do any of these two contexts, physical and digital, require a different theoretical framework to pursue an explanation of the phenomena involved? If so, which theoretical framework is more suitable?
Re-evaluation of the joint or balanced role of the customer shopping experience, customer engagement, consumer’s cognitive versus emotional drivers and motivations, consumer value co-creation, and/or other consumer-related characteristics or attitudes in the explanation of customer loyalty to retail stores.
Comparison of supply-side drivers (e.g., store location, store format or design, store atmosphere, store image or prestige, private label usage, brand equity, or store brand strategy) with demand-side drivers (e.g., consumer attitudes, demographics, preference for product quality, service quality or website quality, store choice, or shopping behavior) to assess their comparative impacts on customer loyalty to retail stores.
Re-assessment of the role of culture, religion, context, economic or social development level, in the explanation of customer loyalty to retail stores, thinking through explanatory frameworks and methodologies.
Comprehensive evaluation of loyalty programs used in retail stores by linking them to suitable store loyalty theoretical frameworks. Alternatively, a proposal of a comprehensive set of norms loyalty programs should be included in light of critical requirements ascertained via hypotheses testing.
Types of Manuscript: Original Research; Hypothesis and Theory; Methods; Research Review; Conceptual Analysis; Perspectives; General Commentary
However, growing evidence suggests there is a missing coherent explanation as to how and why customer loyalty to retail stores takes place and what level of lawlike generalization has been achieved beyond the individual and institutional drivers and their effects on consumer attitudes and actions. It is not that the topic of customer loyalty to retail stores was not addressed or that attempts to seek explanations were not made. It is the failure to accomplish higher levels of generalization in empirical research and the lack of parsimony in the attempted explanations that are preventing a better theoretical status of customer loyalty to retail stores.
Thus, the main objective of this special issue is not to add variables to an explanatory model or replicate/extend existing explanatory models. We are interested in research that seeks a higher level of generalization in the explanation of customer loyalty to retail stores.
This attempt should reflect a parsimonious set of variables, mainly because the condition to achieve a higher level of generalization is to attain lawlike generalizations that, by definition and besides reflecting empirical content, exhibit cause-effect relationships and are systematically integrated into a body of scientific knowledge. We should note that a preferable path to achieve lawlike generalizations for this topic is inductive, not deductive. Because more than one set of explanations can emerge from the submissions to this special issue, our evaluation will focus on the submission’s potential contribution to a lawlike generalization, regardless of the conceptual framework used. Papers can be conceptual or empirical, even though we encourage empirical contributions. Conceptual papers should address the theories and methods that can produce logical and scientific explanations when put to the test in empirical research. Empirical papers can be qualitative, striving for hypotheses development and practical implications, or quantitative, advancing analyses and discussion of a plausible explanation of customer loyalty to retail stores.
Examples of possible themes include, but are not limited to:
Identification of store loyalty theoretical frameworks that can engender promising explanatory hypotheses and can lead to powerful effect sizes in the explanation of why and how customer loyalty to retail stores takes place, boosting up the level of lawlike generalization achieved.
Evaluation of the prevalence of individual characteristics, over institutional or company-related attributes, or vice versa, in their comparative contribution to explain customer loyalty to retail stores.
Re-examination of the relationship of customer satisfaction and customer loyalty. Does the direct or the indirect relationship between satisfaction and loyalty provide a better account of how these two outcomes are linked?
Comparison of explanatory models focusing on physical stores versus those focusing on digital commerce, e-commerce or virtual shopping. Do any of these two contexts, physical and digital, require a different theoretical framework to pursue an explanation of the phenomena involved? If so, which theoretical framework is more suitable?
Re-evaluation of the joint or balanced role of the customer shopping experience, customer engagement, consumer’s cognitive versus emotional drivers and motivations, consumer value co-creation, and/or other consumer-related characteristics or attitudes in the explanation of customer loyalty to retail stores.
Comparison of supply-side drivers (e.g., store location, store format or design, store atmosphere, store image or prestige, private label usage, brand equity, or store brand strategy) with demand-side drivers (e.g., consumer attitudes, demographics, preference for product quality, service quality or website quality, store choice, or shopping behavior) to assess their comparative impacts on customer loyalty to retail stores.
Re-assessment of the role of culture, religion, context, economic or social development level, in the explanation of customer loyalty to retail stores, thinking through explanatory frameworks and methodologies.
Comprehensive evaluation of loyalty programs used in retail stores by linking them to suitable store loyalty theoretical frameworks. Alternatively, a proposal of a comprehensive set of norms loyalty programs should be included in light of critical requirements ascertained via hypotheses testing.
Types of Manuscript: Original Research; Hypothesis and Theory; Methods; Research Review; Conceptual Analysis; Perspectives; General Commentary
Keywords: Explanation of store loyalty, Drivers of store loyalty, Store loyalty theoretical frameworks, Retail stores, Customer loyalty, Customer satisfaction
Important Note: All contributions to this Research Topic must be within the scope of the section and journal to which they are submitted, as defined in their mission statements. Frontiers reserves the right to guide an out-of-scope manuscript to a more suitable section or journal at any stage of peer review.
