فرهنگ و استراتژی بازاریابی در خرده فروشی تخفیفی

Retail development and activity in transition economies is the context for this paper. The paper examines if differences exist in how retailer brand attitudes and store loyalty are realized across cultures. The objective is to contrast the Estonian situation with that of a typical Western country, Canada. Retail service quality (personal service and store organization), pricing and location express retail marketing strategy. This article focuses on retail marketing strategy. The article examines if the same structural model of the brand formation process applies to both cultures. To make the comparison meaningful, the article describes a study covering discount or low-price department stores. Confirmatory factor analysis tests the equivalence of constructs across cultures, and structural equation modeling with AMOS software was used to estimate the overall model of retailer brand formation. Retail service quality is a pivotal variable in the brand formation model.

Retailing and services often epitomize the transition from a planned economy to a market economy, yet these sectors receive limited attention in the literature. The Baltic countries, including Estonia and Lithuania, have received even less attention than other Central and Eastern European countries (Loker et al., 1994). Estonia was under very strong control during the Soviet era, and more isolated than some other Central and Eastern European countries until the early 1990s. Focusing research in Estonia helps to address the knowledge gap about the retailing domain in one of the Baltic States. This paper measures various strategic marketing constructs in Estonia and Canada to compare the equivalence of the constructs across the two cultures. A new model of retailer brand formation is presented that is relevant to retailers in the discount department store category. Retail service quality is a pivotal variable in the model, which is estimated in both countries to ascertain whether similar processes apply to the way consumers form attitudes about the retailer as a brand. One retail category, discount department stores, is used to standardize the comparison between countries. In Estonia, Tallinna Kaubamaja and Maksimarket are two discount department stores. Canada is the Western country chosen as a benchmark for an East–West comparison (Merrilees et al., 2001). The Canadian retailing industry is very mature, with a long history of department store activity, specialist stores and more recently superstores. The two major chains in the discount department store category are Zellers (part of The Hudson Bay Company) and Wal-Mart (USA).

In summary, the study measures retail marketing strategy constructs across two cultures (Canada and Estonia), finding that the underlying factor structures were broadly similar, that is, factor configuration equivalence. More restrictive tests of the factor structure were not met, opening up the way for future research on these issues. However, factor configuration equivalence was sufficient for us to proceed to structural model testing. The study establishes some interesting differences between Estonia and Canada in the way that patrons of discount department stores form perceptions of brand attitudes. Canadians patrons rely on personal service and low prices as the key brand associations for discount department stores, but low prices did not feature this way in the Estonian sample. Brand attitudes and location are the key influences of store loyalty in Canada, while price plays a direct role in Estonia. Cultural factors seem to be important in explaining the differences across the two countries. The previous Russian influence results in a more cautious consumer who is comfortable with shopping for themselves with minimal help from sales assistants and expending lots of time in searching for merchandise. In contrast, the Canadian shopper has a higher value of time as the importance of location and speed of service attributes reflect. Further, Canadians have had more time to learn the brand essence of discount department stores, as big box retailers that have good service and low prices. Clearer brand identity itself facilitates the shopping process. Retail marketing strategy needs to tailor itself to these different market needs, though the likeliness is that the Estonian situation will gradually evolve toward the Canadian one and Estonian retail strategy will have to be flexible to eventually move in that direction.