The Impact of Consumer Confidence on the Relationships Between Store Attribute Perceptions and Store Satisfaction and Store Loyalty

For retailer managers it is crucial to understand the relationship between consumers’ store attribute evaluations and customer satisfaction and how this relationship changes over time depending on the business cycle. This study investigates this complex relationship using a large dataset with attribute perceptions and store satisfaction measures for all grocery chains in the Netherlands in the period 2009–2012. Our findings indicate that retailers should not overemphasize the importance of a favorable price image in times of low consumer confidence (CC): our study shows that the relationship between service attributes and customer satisfaction is stronger in periods with low CC.