The Impact of Store Atmosphere and Retailers' Price Positioning on Economy, Standard, and Premium Private Labels
(R2024-122610)

AUTHORS

Oliver Thomas, ZHAW School of Management and Law; Olivier Reimann, ZHAW School of Management and Law; Liane Nagengast, ZHAW School of Management and Law; Gunther Kucza, ZHAW School of Management and Law

ABSTRACT

We investigate the effect of two major retail marketing mix instruments, namely store atmosphere and retailer's price positioning, on consumer evaluations of modern private label (PL) brand portfolios. Drawing on cue-utilization theory, we propose that both factors increase consumers' attitudes, quality perceptions, and purchase intents for economy, standard, and premium PLs. We test our hypotheses in a 2x2 between-subjects experiment. We find a positive main effect of store atmosphere for all PL tiers and DVs. We do not find any significant main effect of retailer price positioning, but there is a significant interaction effect on the premium PL's quality perception.