유통업체 저가정책에 대한 소비자 인식이 점포의 가격이미지와 점포 신뢰 및 충성도에 미치는 영향에 관한 연구 - 저가정책과 점포유형 적합성의 조절효과를 중심으로 - (An Impact of Low Pricing Policy on Store Price Image, Store Trust and Loyalty : Focusing on the Low Pricing Policy - Retail Format Fit)

서지정보

· 발행기관 : 한국유통학회
· 수록지 정보 : 유통연구 / 21권 / 2호 / 1 ~ 23페이지
· 저자명 : 유병희, 이현민

초록

점포의 가격이미지는 소비자의 점포 선택과 최종 구매 결정에 중요한 역할을 한다. 본 연구는 저가정책을 시행하는 유통업체 이용 고객의 의사결정과정을 점포의 가격이미지 중심으로 검증한 연구이며, 연구에서 점포의 가격이미지는 ‘점포의 전반적인 가격의 합리성(reasonableness) 수준에 대한 소비자의 믿음’으로 정의되었다. 이러한 점포의 가격이미지는 저가정책에 대한 소비자 인식(perception)에 근거하여 형성될 것으로 예상하였다. 또한 점포의 가격이미지에 미치는 소비자 저가정책 인식의 영향력은 저가정책 유형(최저가보상제 vs. 상시저가제)과 점포 전문성에 따른 유형(카테고리킬러 vs. 대형마트) 간 조합의 적합성에 따라 조절될 것으로 가설화하였다. 즉, 적합성이 낮은 경우(카테고리킬러 점포에서 상시저가제 & 대형마트에서 최저가보상제) 대비 적합성이 높은 경우(카테고리킬러 점포에서 최저가보상제 & 대형마트에서 상시저가제)에서, 저가정책 인식이 점포의 가격이미지를 보다 호의적으로 형성할 것으로 보았다. 마지막으로 점포의 가격이미지는 소비자의 점포에 대한 신뢰와 충성도에 유의한 영향을 미치는 것으로 가설을 설정하였다. 웹 기반 설문 조사 결과, 연구 가설이 모두 채택되었으며, 실증 결과를 토대로 연구적 의의와 전략적 시사점을 도출하였다.

영어초록

Retailers’ low pricing policy has a powerful impact on customer’s store price image formulation, which in turn impacts on a consumer’s store selection and purchase decision. Store price image is an overall price image of a given store reflected by customers’ price expectation. This concept is different from the price perception of a product as it reflects the impression of the overall price level of an entire store. In this study, following Biswas et al. (2002), we define store price image as consumers’ perceptions of the attractiveness and reasonableness of the store’s price.
Despite recent studies on investigating factors that affect customer’s store price image formation and their interactions, limited attention has given on the interaction between the low pricing policy(lowest price guarantee vs. everyday low price) and retail store format based on the product assortment and employee’s expertise(category killer vs. discount store). And most of the previous studies defined store price image as how low/high overall price is. However, it could be more effective to define store price image as how attractive and appropriate it is because price has a signaling function about the product/service’s quality as well. Lastly, previous studies focused heavily on the store selection or shopping intention as key dependent variables, not long-term relational outcomes such as trust and loyalty toward the store except for just a few.
Therefore, the purpose of this study is to see the interaction effect of low pricing policy(lowest price guarantee vs. everyday low price) and retail store format based on the product assortment and employee’s expertise(category killer vs. discount store) on customer’s store price image, store trust, and store loyalty. Accordingly, this study posits that the customer’s low pricing policy perception of a store is likely to increase the store’s price image. In other words, when customers perceive ongoing low pricing policy better, they would evaluate the retailer’s price image more favorably (H1). Store price image in turn would be likely to increase customer’s store trust and loyalty(H2 and H3). Regarding the interaction effect between low pricing policy and retail format, this study also posits that the impact of customer’s low pricing policy perception on store price image gets magnified when there is fit between the two (category killers using lowest price guarantee program & discount store using everyday low price program) (H4) (See Figure 1). Web based survey data from online shopping customers were used for the SEM testing. As presented in Table 1, the results show that low pricing policy perception indeed has a significant impact on customer’s favorable store price image, supporting H1(coefficient: 0.542, p<.05). In turn, store price image had positive impact both on store trust and store loyalty supporting both H2 and H3 results(coefficient: 0.964, p<.05; coefficient: 0.817, p<.05) (see Table 1). n order to test the interaction effect between low pricing policy(lowest price guarantee vs. everyday low price) and retail format, we conducted two group path analysis. As presented in Table2, the impact of low pricing policy perception on store price image was magnified when there is a fit between the two(Low fit: coefficient: 0.443,ｐ<.05; High fit: coefficient: 0.710,ｐ<.05), and the Chi-square difference test result show that the difference is significant( Δχ²= 4.179, ｐ<.05) supporting H4 (see Table 2 & 3).
This study’s contributions to retailing research are as follow. First, reflecting an increased interest toward low pricing policy and store price image, this study showed that customer’s low pricing policy perception has a positive impact on store price image. Second, this study contributed to fill the gap in the existing literature by showing the interaction effect of retail format and low pricing policy types on customer’s store image formation. Specifically, this study shows that lowest price guarantee program is more effective for category killers while everyday low price policy is more effective for discount stores in building favorable store price image. Third, this study shows that customer’s store price image has positive relationship with store trust and store loyalty.
These results suggest following managerial implications. First, store managers have to strategically communicate their low pricing policy to the target customers. Some discount stores use even logo songs to effectively deliver their pricing policy. Considering its impact on customer’s favorable store price image formulation, marketers need to consider other effective ways to deliver their pricing tactics to the customers. Second, results suggest that low pricing policies are more effective under certain conditions. Lowest price guarantee program is effective in acquiring customers, but it could sacrifice companies profit potential at the same time. Marketers of retailing firms could use this tactic selectively to minimize their profit decrease especially when their product assortment is very deep, the product line is relatively narrow, and sales personnels’ product knowledge level is relatively high.
Despite several limitations, this study suggested the importance of store price image management in building consumer trust and loyalty. It is hoped that this study facilitates more studies on this growing area.

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