Trust and shopper patronage intentions: impact of congruity in store-shopper relationships

Abstract

This study develops a Value-Congruity model of Trust for understanding how shopper trust builds in a store and how shopper patronage intentions are impacted at different levels of store-shopper relationship quality. The proposed model (1) uses a two dimensional conceptualization of the shopper trust construct; (2) introduces a new construct of store-image-as-related-to-trust called as 'trust-image'; (3) specifies the significance of the dimensions of trust-image as varying in explanatory power depending on the level of store-shopper relationship quality; and (4) represents trust-image, along with trustworthiness, as two most critical antecedents to shopper trust. This model is tested using survey data from 680 randomly selected adult female apparel shoppers from the cities of Bangalore and Ahmedabad. The results support the inclusion of image perceptions in trust evaluations along the tripartite view of dependability, caring and character dimensions. Moreover, the results indicate that the Indian experience of trust in store-shopper relationships is unique. Retailer's pursuit of satisfaction as a goal is questioned as empirical evidence indicates that in certain conditions trust has a overwhelming impact on patronage intentions.