Journal of Fashion Marketing and ManagementMaking customer engagement fun: Customer-salesperson interaction in luxury fashionretailingJieun Kim Jae-Eun Kim

Article information:To cite this document:Jieun Kim Jae-Eun Kim , (2014),"Making customer engagement fun", Journal of Fashion Marketing andManagement, Vol. 18 Iss 2 pp. 133 - 144Permanent link to this document:http://dx.doi.org/10.1108/JFMM-04-2013-0050

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Making customer engagement funCustomer-salesperson interaction in luxury

fashion retailingJieun Kim

Department of Fashion Business, Sejong Cyber University, Seoul,Republic of Korea, and

Jae-Eun KimBusiness School, Auckland University of Technology, Auckland, New Zealand

Abstract

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to investigate what values luxury customers may seekto fulfill during their interaction with salespersons and how perceived value fulfillment may impactsalesperson loyalty and store loyalty. The paper also examines the moderating effect of the degree offriendship with a salesperson.Design/methodology/approach – The authors conducted a survey using a close-endedquestionnaire. In total, 22 luxury fashion brand stores located in eight of the largest departmentstores in Seoul, Korea, were selected as the luxury fashion retail context for the research. A total of 220questionnaires were used for data analysis.Findings – Fulfillment of self-oriented values had a significant positive influence on store loyaltyand fulfillment of stimulation had a significant positive influence on salesperson loyalty. There wassignificant interaction effect between stimulation and degree of friendship on salesperson loyalty.Research limitations/implications – The results of this study provide practical implications in themanagement of customer relationship. An emphasis on qualities of luxury products that are linkedto the fulfillment of self-oriented and/or personal values such as superior quality or ability to gainemotional benefits should be warranted for success as a luxury brand or a luxury retailer.Originality/value – This research is important as it can inform luxury salesperson on how to bettermeet customer’s psychological needs in the context of a selling situation; ultimately contribute to theirsalesperson loyalty and loyalty to the brand.

Keywords Customer loyalty, Relationship marketing, Sales, Fashion retailing

Paper type Research paper

IntroductionOver the last decades, luxury retail sectors have experienced dynamic growth, whichhas doubled to $220 billion in USA (Demos, 2007; Gumbel, 2007). According to arecent report, the worldwide luxury market increased by 13 per cent in 2010, and 10per cent in 2011, due to new emerging markets, such as the Asia-Pacific market(PricewaterhouseCoopers, 2012). In particular, South Korea has received attention as anemerging luxury powerhouse in Asia. The luxury market in South Korea is worthapproximately $4.5 billion (Lamb, 2012) and it has experienced an annual growth ofat least 12 per cent since 2006. There are no signs of it slowing down, despite the recenteconomic recession.

Retail stores are considered as places for salespeople and consumers to socialize(Hu and Jasper, 2006). Luxury brands managers make efforts to provide a high-qualityservice to satisfy customers, in terms both of selling and of building good, long-termrelationships. Even though the role of the salesperson is a critical component inthe process of enhancing customer shopping experience, there is little researchinvestigating which psychological values of luxury customers can be fulfilled through

The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available atwww.emeraldinsight.com/1361-2026.htm

Received 1 April 2013Revised 19 June 2013

Accepted 13 September 2013

Journal of Fashion Marketing andManagement

Vol. 18 No. 2, 2014pp. 133-144

r Emerald Group Publishing Limited1361-2026

DOI 10.1108/JFMM-04-2013-0050

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interaction with a salesperson in a store, and how the experience impacts customerloyalty. Previous researchers focused on understanding the psychological benefitsof consumption of luxury products itself (Vickers and Renand, 2003), rather thanwhat values and needs are considered important in the personal sales interaction.In addition, research into sales interaction is largely limited to uncovering consumers’complaints and salespersons’ emotional responses in selling non-luxury products(Kim and Kim, 2012). There is no research that considers consumers’ psychologicalvalues in the luxury-selling context. Therefore, the contribution of this study is to helpluxury brands retailers to understand what benefits or needs luxury shoppers mayseek to satisfy or can fulfill in their interaction with salespersons and how to educatesalespersons in luxury fashion selling situations to generate the desired outcome.

In the luxury brands industry, relationship marketing has been used as a vitalmarketing tool to retain customers (Meng and Elliott, 2008), because luxury brandscharacteristically require high product involvement and a high possibility of beingcustomized, and customers are willing to pay a high premium for them (O’Malley andTynan, 1998). The customer-salesperson relationship affects such aspects of businessperformance as customer loyalty, satisfaction and word of mouth (Beatty et al., 1996;Boles et al., 1997; Parasuraman et al., 1991; Reynolds and Beatty, 1999; Sivadas andBaker-Perwitt, 2000). If the relationship is built successfully, it is capable of generatingparticular positive emotions, thus creating positive outcomes for both parties (Beattyet al., 1996; Boles et al., 1997). In this study, we attempt to further understand howthe relationship with the salesperson connects with consumers’ psychological values,thus influencing their salesperson and store loyalty. This kind of research can informluxury salespersons how to better meet customers’ psychological needs.

Literature reviewPsychological values in the selling contextValue as a psychological construct fits well with consumer behaviour, since the corereason for consumers’ choices is often found to be value fulfillment (Kahle and Xie,2008). Researchers interested in identifying psychological value in consumption haveused the list of values (LOV) (Homer and Kahle, 1988; Kahle, 1983; Kahle et al., 1986).The LOV developed by Kahle (1983) has proven to be a useful psychometric means ofexamining the effect of social values on consumer behaviour. The original theoreticalbasis for the LOV is Maslow’s (1954) hierarchy of needs, and it was also inspiredby Rokeach’s (1973) and Feather’s (1975) work on values. The LOV contains ninedimensions of values: sense of belonging, excitement, warm relationships with others,self-fulfillment, being well respected, fun and enjoyment of life, security, self-respectand a sense of accomplishment. LOV was found to be a good tool not only in domestic(Beatty and Kahle, 1985) but also in cross-cultural settings (Beatty et al., 1993; Kahleet al., 1986; Grunert et al., 1989). Researchers have found that the nine dimensions canbe further grouped into three (Corfman et al., 1991), namely social values (security,sense of belonging, being well respected), self-oriented values (self-fulfillment, a senseof accomplishment, self-respect) and stimulation (fun and enjoyment, excitement).

Other research has focused attention on differentiating luxury goods fromnon-luxury ones, as well as identifying characteristics of products that could constituteluxury (Vickers and Renand, 2003; Vigneron and Johnson, 2004). In order to identifywhat constitutes luxury goods, previous researchers have attempted to discover theirconsumption value (Dubois and Duquesne, 1993; Vickers and Renand, 2003; Vigneronand Johnson, 2004). Vigneron and Johnson (1999) proposed a conceptual framework

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consisting of five prestige consumption values: independent values (e.g. quality andhedonic value), which fulfill an individual’s personal needs and wants, andinterdependent values (e.g. conspicuous value, unique value and social value), whichare driven by others and how individuals want to appear to others.

In this study, we used elements of the LOV to understand psychological needs in theselling context. We chose three dimensions of the LOV because LOV is an appropriatetool to use in attempting to understand the effect of individuals’ psychological valuesin their social context, such as in interactions between consumer and salesperson.However, the five prestige consumption values proposed by Vigneron and Johnson(1999) are more relevant to attempting to understand the benefits that luxuryconsumers enjoy when they consume and possess a luxury product. We presumed thatfulfillment of three types of values, namely social values, self-oriented values andstimulation, would positively affect consumers’ loyalty towards salespeople and store.

Loyalty towards stores and salespersons is specifically important in the luxuryretail business, because the impact of loyal customers on revenue is significantand building long-term relationships with customers is regarded as a critical salestechnique (Meng and Elliott, 2008; O’Malley and Tynan, 1998). Researchers have foundthat when customers are satisfied with a retailer they are more likely to be loyal to thestore and salespersons (Reynolds and Arnold, 2000). Similarly, we predict that whencustomers are satisfied and their psychological needs are fulfilled through interactionwith a salesperson, they are more likely to be loyal to the store and salespersoninvolved. Previous researchers have also regarded salespersons as components ofstores, and the positive feelings of trust and commitment generated from salespersonscan be linked to and transferred to store loyalty (Macintosh and Lockshin, 1997). Basedon our review of research, we developed the following hypotheses:

H1. The fulfillment of social value is positively related to (a) salesperson loyalty and(b) store loyalty.

H2. The fulfillment of self-oriented value is positively related to (a) salespersonloyalty and (b) store loyalty.

H3. The fulfillment of stimulation is positively related to customer (a) salespersonloyalty and (b) store loyalty.

Customer-salesperson relationship: friendshipThe relationship between customer and company has been given increasing attentionby business practitioners and researchers (Colgate and Stewart, 1998). For example,Tumbull and Wilson (1989) argued that managing customer-salesperson relationshipswas critical to achieving strategic advantage in the marketplace. Webster (1994)also emphasized the customer-salesperson relationship as an important means toacquire customer loyalty. Building relationships with customers is found to generatefavourable word of mouth (Berry and Parasuraman, 1991; Griffin, 1995), increasecustomer satisfaction and loyalty (Berry and Parasuraman, 1991; Czepiel, 1990) andincrease purchases (Berry and Parasuraman, 1991).

Czepiel (1990) also emphasized the social nature of salespersons and their active andface-to-face interaction with the customer as the way to develop a still more complexand personal customer-salesperson relationship. Such a personal relationship betweencustomers and salespersons is often called a “commercial friendship” (Gwinner et al., 1998;

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Price and Arnould, 1999), which may come to be similar to a personal friendship.This is because the relationship affects customers’ quality of life (Bitner et al., 1994)and because interaction and the diversity of conversation topics are similar to those typicalof a personal friendship (Dubinsky, 1994; Goodwin, 1996). When a commercial friendshipexists, customers feel a “closeness” to the salesperson, have a strong emotional and socialattachment to him or her and feel comfortable about providing personal informationand sharing their true feelings. Further, customers who have commercial friendships tendto experience satisfaction and strong loyalty to the company, and pass on their positivefeelings by word of mouth (Price and Arnould, 1999). Coulter and Ligas (2004) revealedthat customers who have a friendship with a salesperson have the highest level ofemotional attachment to the salesperson because friendship enhances levels of trust andcommitment (Beatty et al., 1996), to the extent that the parties become dependent on eachother (Czepiel, 1990; Price and Arnould, 1999).

Given that the customer-salesperson relationship is a key element affecting thesales interaction (Weitz, 1981), we predicted the degree of perceived friendship insuch a relationship would moderate the relationship between value fulfillment andsalesperson loyalty and store loyalty. In other words, friendship between salespersonand customer would serve to leverage salesperson loyalty and store loyalty.When customers have strong commercial friendship with a salesperson, they aremore likely to view the salesperson as an in-group member, and in-group biases makecustomers exaggerate their fulfillment and satisfaction of psychological values.Consequently, customers become loyal to the salesperson and the store, because theloyalty to the salesperson spills over to store loyalty. Researchers have found thatbonds and loyalty to salespersons transfer to abstract entities such as stores or firms(Macintosh and Lockshin, 1997; Reynolds and Arnold, 2000). Therefore, the strongerthe friendship between customers and salespersons is, the greater the influence ofpsychological values on customers’ salesperson and store loyalty will be:

H4. Friendship moderates the effect of social value fulfillment on (a) salespersonloyalty and (b) store loyalty.

H5. Friendship moderates the effect of self-oriented value fulfillment on (a)salesperson loyalty and (b) store loyalty.

H6. Friendship moderates the effect of fulfillment of stimulation on (a) salespersonloyalty and (b) store loyalty.

MethodologySample and procedureAfter receiving approval to engage people in our research, we conducted a surveyusing a questionnaire of closed questions. In total, 22 luxury fashion brand stores (e.g.Issey Miyake, Burberry, Missoni, Etro, Malo, St John, Geiger, Wolford, Oilily), locatedin eight of the largest and most prestigious department stores in Seoul, Korea, wereselected as the luxury fashion retail context for the research. These department storesare located in Gangnam district and Myeong-dong, which are known as the wealthiestand most influential areas in Korea. In addition, these department stores havedesignated a certain floor or separate building for selling luxury brands, with signsindicating that they are luxury fashion zones. These luxury fashion zones househigh-end fashion designers’ brands, which are identified as global luxury brands and

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hold fashion shows in fashion-oriented cities, such as Milan, Paris, New Yorkand London. The 22 stores located in the luxury fashion zones were selected becausethe store managers agreed to participate.

We used a purposive sampling method in order to fulfill the criteria of the sample,which was that participants had an ongoing relationship with a salesperson. In orderto collect data that met the sampling criteria, sales managers of the stores wereasked to be data collectors, having been told the purpose of the research and giveninstructions on how to recruit participants. Each manager was asked to identify tenrespondents with whom they had an ongoing relationship. In order to obtain answersfrom various respondents on their degrees of friendship with associates, they were alsotold to include customers who seemed to be very close to them, as well as those whowere not[1]. Once the customers agreed to participate, they were given a questionnaireand cover letter explaining the nature of the research. Participants and managerseach received a $5 gift card as a reward for contributing to the research.

A total of 220 questionnaires were distributed, of which 187 were returned tothe researchers. Questionnaires with excessive numbers of incomplete questionswere eliminated. This process resulted in a final purposive sample of 167. The majorityof the participants were female (95.2 per cent). A large percentage of the participants(38.9 per cent) were aged from 50 to 59 years and the next largest percentage was ofpeople older than 60 years (24 per cent). The majority of participants (89.8 per cent)had more formal education than college and the number of individuals living in theirhouseholds was typically more than three (83.8 per cent). Most were housewives(57.5 per cent), the next largest group being professionals (15.0 per cent). The averagetime for participants to have known their salesperson was 3.4 years. Specificinformation on the characteristics of the sample is provided in Table I.

MeasuresWe selected two important outcomes in personal selling: loyalty to sales associate andloyalty to the store. Salesperson loyalty was measured using four Likert-type items ona seven-point scale (1¼ strongly disagree, 7¼ strongly agree) and store loyalty wasassessed by a four-item, seven-point scale (1¼ strongly disagree, 7¼ strongly agree),as developed by Reynolds and Beatty (1999) to measure customers’ commitment to aspecified marketer such as a company or a sales associate. The reported reliabilityranged from 0.83 to 0.86 (Reynolds and Beatty, 1999). Friendship was measured by an11-item, seven-point scale developed by Price and Arnould (1999). This scale was used

Characteristic n %

Age Under 19 1 0.620-29 5 3.030-39 15 9.0Over 61 40 24.0

Job Own business 17 10.2Salary 19 11.4Professional 101 60.5Housewife 13 7.8None 9 5.4

Note: Non-respondents are not represented

Table I.Demographic

information of sample

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to measure the extent to which one person in a professional relationship, in this casethe customer, considered the other party, namely the salesperson, to be a friend.Reliability was reported as a’s of 0.94, 0.96 and 0.98 (Price and Arnould, 1999). In orderto measure the degree of customers’ psychological value, we used a seven-point scalewith eight items (1¼ strongly disagree, 7¼ strongly agree), modified from the scaledeveloped by Kahle (1983). An example item was “I feel self-respect when shopping atthe store because of the relationship I have with my salesperson”.

ResultsPreliminary data analysesThe reliabilities of all measures were calculated using Cronbach’s a. The overallCronbach’s a coefficient was 0.70 for salesperson loyalty, 0.78 for store loyalty, 0.98for commercial friendship, 0.93 for self-oriented values and 0.79 for stimulation.For social-oriented values, two values, being well respected and security, were usedbecause sense of belonging lowered the a coefficient significantly. Cronbach’s acoefficient was 0.82 after deleting sense of belonging. This made sense because luxuryconsumers may not want to belong to the same social class as the salesperson. We thentested normality of residuals, independence of residuals (Durbin-Watson statistic),linearity and constant variance of the residuals (homoscedasticity) to check theassumptions of the regression model. All assumptions were satisfied. Possible problemsof multicollinearity were indicated by the correlation matrix. The independent variableswere mean-centered prior to the computation of the interaction terms in order to minimizecorrelations between the interaction terms and independent variables (Aiken and West,1991). Variance inflation factors for each regression coefficient were less than thethreshold of 10. Descriptive statistics, correlations and the coefficient a’s are shownin Table II.

Main data analysesMultiple linear regressions were used to assess the main effects of value fulfillment(i.e. social-oriented values, self-oriented values and stimulation) and interactionbetween each of the three value dimensions and degree of friendship on salespersonloyalty and store loyalty. Control variables included were gender, age and involvementin fashion (see Table III).

H1, H2 and H3 postulated the positive influence of fulfillment of social value,self-oriented value and stimulation on salesperson loyalty and store loyalty. Multipleregression revealed that salesperson loyalty was positively affected by stimulation(b¼ 0.23, po0.05), thus supporting H3(a). However, salesperson loyalty was notsignificantly affected by the fulfillment of social values and self-oriented value;

Constructs M SD 1 2 3 4 5 6

1. Social values 5.57 1.27 –2. Self-oriented values 5.28 1.34 0.85** –3. Stimulation 5.07 1.28 0.70** 0.72** –4. Friendship 5.00 1.44 0.81** 0.83** 0.71** –5. Salesperson loyalty 5.00 1.14 0.62** 0.65** 0.58** 0.67** –6. Store loyalty 5.00 1.22 0.52** 0.57** 0.49** 0.60** 0.62** –

Note: ** po 0.01

Table II.Descriptive statisticsand correlation matrix

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therefore, H1(a) and H1(b) were not supported. The more a participant experiencedfun, enjoyment and excitement in the interaction with the salesperson, the more likelyshe or he was to be loyal to the salesperson. In addition, the results revealed that onlyfulfillment of self-oriented values had a significant effect on store loyalty (b¼ 0.34,po0.05), thus supporting only H2(b). The more a participant perceived fulfillmentof self-oriented values, the more likely she or he was to be loyal to the store. However,store loyalty was not significantly affected by the fulfillment of social values andstimulation; therefore, H1(b) and H3(b) were not supported.

H4, H5 and H6 predicted the moderating role of friendship on salesperson loyaltyand store loyalty. There was a significant interaction effect between stimulation anddegree of friendship (b¼ 0.26, po0.05) when salesperson loyalty was a dependentvariable; thus H6(a) was supported, whereas H4(a) and H5(a) were not supported.In other words, the relationship between stimulation and salesperson loyalty waspositive and became stronger when participants reported a strong perceived friendshipwith the salesperson. In addition, there was no significant interaction effect withrespect to store loyalty. Thus H4(b), H5(b) and H6b were not supported.

In addition, we conducted a mediation analysis to explore whether salespersonloyalty mediates store loyalty. The mediation analysis was conducted by following theprocedures suggested by Baron and Kenny (1986). First, two independent variables( p¼ 0.03 for self-oriented values; p¼ 0.01 for friendship) were found to have significanteffects on store loyalty. Second, two independent variables ( p¼ 0.03 for stimulation;p¼ 0.02 for friendship) were found to have significant effects on salesperson loyalty.Third, when salesperson loyalty was entered in the full regression model as a covariate,none of the independent variables were significantly affected ( p’s 40.05), but the effect ofsalesperson loyalty on store loyalty was still significant ( p¼ 0.00), as shown in Table III.This insignificance level of the independent variables supports the mediation effect ofsalesperson loyalty on store loyalty. Therefore, the results indicate that salespersonloyalty mediates store loyalty.

Dependent variablesSalesperson loyalty Store loyalty Store loyaltya

b p-value b p-value b p-value

Independent variablesSocial values 0.11 0.44 �0.01 0.94 �0.05 0.71Self-oriented values 0.18 0.19 0.34 0.03* 0.27 0.06Stimulation 0.23 0.03* 0.06 0.61 �0.03 0.82Friendship 0.31 0.02* 0.36 0.01** 0.24 0.06Social value � friendship 0.18 0.27 0.19 0.25 0.13 0.41Self-oriented value � friendship �0.26 0.11 �0.07 0.70 0.03 0.86Stimulation � friendship 0.26 0.02* 0.07 0.52 �0.02 0.85Salesperson loyalty – – – – 0.37 0.00**

Control variablesGender �0.00 0.99 �0.09 0.21 �0.09 0.19Age �0.09 0.12 0.11 0.13 0.01 0.84Fashion involvement �0.00 0.97 �0.02 0.80 0.37 0.11

Notes: R2¼ 0.53, F(10, 128)¼ 14.6, po0.01 for salesperson loyalty; R2¼ 0.47, F(10, 128)¼ 11.36,po 0.01 for store loyalty. aThis regression model was additionally conducted to test the mediationeffect of salesperson loyalty. * po0.05; ** po0.01

Table III.Multiple regression

analysis on salespersonloyalty and store loyalty

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DiscussionThis research demonstrates that store loyalty is linked to the fulfillment of self-orientedvalues and that fulfillment of the desire for stimulation is linked to salesperson loyalty.In other words, customers who value self-respect, a sense of accomplishment andself-fulfillment are more likely to be loyal to the stores selling luxury fashionmerchandise. Customers who feel a sense of high achievement when they purchasehighly expensive luxury goods, and self-respect when they purchase luxury goods atluxury fashion stores, are likely to be loyal to the luxury store. This finding is alsoconsistent with previous findings that people purchase luxury goods to signal theirstatus and to gain social prestige value (Eastman et al., 1999; Han et al., 2010).

Additionally, customers who endorse the value of stimulation in life tend to be loyalto a fun and convivial salesperson at a luxury fashion store. This is consistent withother research findings that consumers are motivated to buy luxury products for theemotional responses they derive from them, including sensory pleasure, excitementand aesthetic beauty (Vigneron and Johnson, 2004; Wiedmann et al., 2007). Similarly,Kahle (1983) showed that consumers who value fun and enjoyment tend to buy a lotof hedonic goods.

We did not find any significant influence of social values on customer loyaltytowards store and salesperson. This is a contradictory finding to the previous one.Corfman et al. (1991) found that the consumer who appreciates social values such assecurity, sense of belonging and being well respected tends to purchase luxury goods,but stimulation and self-oriented values do not influence the purchase of luxury goods.The focus of these studies was investigating consumers’ enduring values and theirinfluence on the purchase of durable goods, whereas our study focused specifically onthe consumer values in the consumer-salesperson interaction and their influenceon loyalty to the store and salesperson. Alternatively, we did not find a significantinfluence of social values, since we used an aggregated mean score of security,sense of belonging and being well respected. In addition, it is also possible thatcustomers in luxury fashion stores find that being respected has only minimalvalue in the purchasing context, as luxury brands themselves signal elitism and status(Heine, 2009).

ImplicationsAssuming that consumers’ social values motivate their behaviours and decisionsregarding consumption (Kahle, 1983), the findings from this research should be carefullyutilized in the luxury-selling contexts in the fashion industry. From the theoreticalperspective, this study contributes to the understanding of what benefits or needs luxuryshoppers seek to satisfy or can fulfill in their interactions with salespersons. Specifically,our findings suggest the importance of a salesperson building good friendships withcustomers, in order to increase loyalty to the salesperson and the store. Furthermore, wefound an interaction effect between the strength of such a friendship and the fulfillmentof stimulation. The results suggest that when consumers build very strong friendshipswith salespersons, and see them as individuals who are fun and who offer enjoyment,they are more likely to be loyal to the salespersons. Thus, a strong friendship itselfhas a positive role in influencing loyalty to salespersons, and also interacts with thepsychological values of customers in influencing salesperson loyalty.

The results of this study have practical implications for the management ofthe customer relationship. Luxury brand retailers need to emphasize to their traineesalespeople the importance of building and maintaining strong personal relationships

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with customers. It was traditionally thought that luxury consumers purchased luxuryitems because they were concerned with how others perceived them. Their motivationsto purchase were external and involved fulfillment of a social-oriented value.However, our results point to the importance of internal motivators such as fulfillmentof self-oriented values or enjoyment of the relationship in the interaction betweencustomers and salesperson. Tynan et al. (2010) suggested the importance of co-creatingthe luxury brand experience in the interaction between the customer and thesalesperson. Thus, the wise luxury retailer emphasizes the superior qualities of luxuryproducts and their association with the fulfillment of self-oriented and/or personalvalues and the ability to gain emotional benefits.

Limitations and future researchThere were limitations in our research. First, we did not find social values to have anysignificant influence on salesperson or store loyalty. In the literature about luxuryand conspicuous consumption, researchers have found that consumers have a strongmotivation to feel superior (Vigneron and Johnson, 1999) or conform to majorityopinion (Wong and Ahuvia, 1998). Future researchers may want to include differentsocial values in the model and investigate what social values consumers seek frominteraction with a salesperson. Second, in this study, we examined only the influence ofconsumer values on consumer loyalty. Future research might compare the influenceof consumer values on other important outcomes such as actual purchases or thespreading of positive word of mouth messages. Finally, in this study, we investigatedconsumer values in luxury fashion retailing; additional research could be conductedwith different types of goods or their associated retailers. More specifically, researchersshould examine how the fulfillment of the psychological values associated with luxurybrand retailers is distinct from that associated with non-luxury brand retailers.

Note

1. The score of the degree of friendship ranges from 1.2 to 7.0, and the histogram of thedistribution shows a normal distribution.

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Further reading

Beatty, S.E. and Kahle, L.R. (1988), “Alternative hierarchies of the attitude-behavior relationship:the impact of brand commitment and habit”, Journal of the Academic Marketing Science,Vol. 16 No. 2, pp. 1-10.

Berry, S.T. (1994), “Estimating discrete-choice models of product differentiation”, The RandJournal of Economics, Vol. 25 No. 2, pp. 242-262.

Chevalier, M. and Mazzalovo, G. (2008), Luxury Brand Management, A World of Privilege JohnWiley & Sons, Singapore.

Evans, F.B. (1963), “Selling as a dyadic relationship: a new approach”, The American BehavioralScientist, Vol. 6 No. 9, pp. 76-79.

Leibenstein, H. (1950), “Bandwagon, snob and veblen effects in the theory of consumers’demand”, Quarterly Journal of Economics, Vol. 64 No. 2, pp. 183-207.

Mittal, B. and Lassar, W.M. (1996), “The role of personalization in service encounters”, Journal ofRetailing, Vol. 72 No. 1, pp. 95-109.

Westbrook, R.A. and Oliver, R.L. (1981), “Developing better measures of consumer satisfaction:some preliminary results”, Advances in Consumer Research, Vol. 8 No. 1, pp. 94-99.

Williams, R.M. (1979), “Change and stability in values and value systems: a sociologicalperspective”, in Rokeach, M. (Ed.), Understanding Human Values Individual and Societal,Free Press, New York, NY, pp. 15-46.

Zeithaml, V.A., Berry, L.L. and Parasuraman, A. (1991), “Understanding customer expectationsof service”, Sloan Management Review, Vol. 32 No. 3, pp. 39-48.

About the authors

Jieun Kim, PhD, is an Assistant Professor at the Department of Fashion Business in the Schoolof Business Administration at the Sejong Cyber University. Her research interests are luxuryclothing fashion market, brand equity and relationship marketing.

Assistant Professor Jae-Eun Kim, PhD, is a Senior Lecturer in the Business School at theAuckland University of Technology. Her research interests include consumer behaviour, retailenvironment and cross-cultural studies. Assistant Professor Jae-Eun Kim is the correspondingauthor and can be contacted at: jakim@aut.ac.nz

To purchase reprints of this article please e-mail: reprints@emeraldinsight.comOr visit our web site for further details: www.emeraldinsight.com/reprints

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