Retailer Brand Equity of Private Label Brands: Mediating Role of Brand Trust

Abstract

Purpose: In the consumers' decision-making process retailer’s image plays a critical role. Retailers have introduced store brands or popularly known as the private label brands to capitalize on retailer image. Carrying a private label brand has multiple advantages for retailers as well as the consumers. Considering this scenario this study aims to measure the customer loyalty formulation for private label brands. Methodology: This study used a structured questionnaire to collect data from consumers who buy private label products. Three different categories of private label product categories such as (i) clothes and apparel (ii) groceries and (iii) electronic products were considered for this study. A total of 295 samples were collected and used for analysis. Findings: The study found that the underlying dimensions like retailer awareness, retailer association, retailer price image, retailer perceived quality and retailer trust has significant positive impact on retailer loyalty. Implications: The study contributes to the existing private-label branding literature by combining the different brand equity dimensions and examining the associative relationship among them. Originality: The research on private label brands on Indian context is scarce. Even the few available research studies has not covered three different product categories, this provides novelty to the study and improves the generalizability of the research findings.