analyzing the impact of retail brand personality and self

Analyzing the Impact of Retail Brand Personality and Self-congruity on Store Loyalty: The Moderating Effect of Gender

Study Case: Fast Fashion Industry in Greater Area of Jakarta

Patricia M. A. Adam, Aswin Dewanto Hadisumarto

International Business Management, International Undergraduate Program, Faculty of Economics

E-mail: [email protected]

Abstract

This research analyzes the impact of retail brand personality and self-congruity on store loyalty, with the moderating effect of gender, taking the fast fashion industry in greater area of Jakarta as the study case. This research is a quantitative research with descriptive, cross-sectional design. The results of the research suggested that in order to increase the store loyalty, retailers should focus on catering the types of customers whose image are congruent with the current retail brand image. Meanwhile, utilizing the retail environment to increase in-store and out-store communications is also good for the sake of increasing the value of retail brand personality.

Menganalisis Dampak Retail Brand Personality dan Self-congruity pada Store Loyalty: Efek Moderasi dari Gender

Studi Kasus: Industri Fast Fashion di Jabodetabek

Abstrak

Penelitian ini menganalisis dampak dari retail brand personality dan self-congruity terhadap store loyalty, dengan efek moderasi dari jenis kelamin, dan mengambil industri fast fashion Jabodetabek sebagai studi kasus. Penelitian ini merupakan penelitian kuantitatif dengan desain deskriptif cross-sectional. Hasil penelitian menyarankan bahwa untuk meningkatkan store loyalty, peritel harus berfokus untuk melayani tipe konsumen yang memiliki imej yang kongruen dengan imej merek ritel yang ada sekarang. Sementara itu, memanfaatkan retail environment untuk meningkatkan komunikasi dalam dan luar toko juga baik demi meningkatkan nilai retail brand personality. Kata kunci: fast fashion, retail brand personality, self-congruity, store loyalty 1. Introduction According to Pudjianto who is the head of Indonesia Retailers Association or APINDO, Indonesian retail industry continues to grow at a minimum of 10 percent/year, with velocity of money reaching Rp115 trillion, with 55 categories, excluding the fashion retailers (Darandono, 2012). Moreover, a research done by Nielsen Media Research states that the amount of spending by the middle class segment is also increasing from 42% to 62% from the total spending of all segments in Indonesian market. This definitely attracts more and more retailers to jump in and share the taste of the pie. Traditionally, retail scale has been defined by number of stores. Greater scale allows more efficiency which yields greater profit. Today, however; commerce is available any way the

Analyzing The..., Patricia Michelle Alvernia Adam, FE UI, 2014

consumer wants it, online or off, reducing the levels of business predictability. For retailers, a fluid and uncertain market is the new normal. Responsiveness now trumps efficiency. Hence, in this era where competition is getting tighter, brands are getting more important for consumers, and that good quality products/services might not be enough. As the brands emerging to become the top management’s priority, marketing managers and researchers have shifted their interest towards the symbolic meaning consumers attribute to brands (Ailawadi & Keller, 2004). The symbolic benefits studies have two streams of focus: retail brand personality and self-congruity. These symbolic brand benefits take important role in influencing several important aspects of consumer behavior such as loyalty towards brands (Das, 2013). Moreover, not only brand personality and self-congruity factors, another interesting factor that will be considered in this research is the moderating role of gender. Researchers have found significant variations between men and women behavior and shopping is one framework where these differences often become apparent (Bakewell & Mitchell, 2006). Studies have also found that perceptions of symbolic brand benefits differ from gender to gender. Unfortunately, there are not many researches that studied this issue before. Knowing the facts found in previous researches regarding brand personality and self-congruity, as well as gender effects on store loyalty, it will be most appealing to conduct a research about this issue on the apparel industry in Indonesia. Due to market globalization, the fashion apparel industry has shifted their business model to a more customer-engaging type. This includes faster response to trends and customers’ demand, improving the customer experience within the store as well as online. That is why nowadays people are introduced to a whole new business model in the fashion apparel industry, which is the Fast Fashion. Currently, out of 40 world’s most famous brands, many of them are fast fashion brands with more and more retailers shifting their business model to fast fashion. In Indonesia itself, the fast fashion retailers have already started to dominate the country’s fashion industry. Based on the research by the AIP Corporation in 2011, the following are the names of fast fashion brands that are most popular among Indonesians customers (sequentially): Giordano, Mango, Zara, Bossini, Gap, Forever 21, H&M, U2, Topshop, Uniqlo, and other brands (Watanabe, 2011). In accordance with the phenomenon discussed earlier, the problem addressed in this research is to investigate the impact of the brand personality and self-congruity on store loyalty, with the moderating role of gender using the fast fashion retailers in greater area of Jakarta as the study case. Thus, the questions that will be answered in this research are the following: Does retail brand personality influence the store loyalty? Does self-congruity influence the store loyalty? Does gender moderate the relationship between the retail brand personality and self-congruity benefits with the store loyalty? Accordingly, this research’s objective include: analyzing the brand personality’s influence on store loyalty, analyzing the self-congruity’s influence on store loyalty, and finally, analyzing the moderating role of gender on the relationship between the retail brand personality and self-congruity benefits with the store loyalty. 2. Literature Review 2.1 The Concept of Retailing According to Coughlan, Anderson, Stern, & El-Ansary (2006) and Farfan (2014), retailer can be defined as a business or person that sells goods to the consumer, as opposed to


a wholesaler or supplier, who normally sell their goods to another business. Traditionally, the trends in retailing can be explained using the Wheel of Retailing theory by Stephen C. Hollander (Liua, 2012), in which he argued that the new types of retailing (at the time) frequently start off with crude facilities, little prestige, and a reputation for cutting prices and margins. As they mature, they often acquire more expensive buildings, provide more elaborate services, impose higher margins, and become vulnerable to new competition. Thus, their profitability was measured by the scale of the retail store (Frampton, 2012). However, in recent years, it is more useful to look at the change of retailing from the perspective of innovative value. In other words, it is not only location advantages that decide the fate of retailing types, but it also matters how retailing brings service value to customers and add up their utility. Hence, it is about making innovations in the retailing world to change its merchandising and service and attract more customers. Consequently, retailing in the modern world is a business that entails the firm interacting with the customers it serves on an ongoing basis, in which the customers’ attitudes and behaviors both influence and are influenced by the actions of competing retailers in a marketplace. 2.2 The Concept of Fast Fashion

Fast fashion in the fashion industry is a new concept. Some say fast fashion is a business strategy which aims to reduce the processes involved in the buying cycle and lead times for getting new fashion product into stores, in order to satisfy consumer demand at its peak (Barnes & Lea-Greenwood, 2010). Meanwhile, Bhardwaj and Fairhust (2009) defined fast fashion as an “expression that is widely accepted by a group of people over time and has been characterized by several marketing factors such as low predictability, high impulse purchase, shorter life cycle, and high volatility of market demand”. Based on these definitions, we can conclude that the principle underpinning fast fashion is thus, the reduction of lead times to get product from concept to consumer and thus, in order to be profitable in the industry, fashion apparel retailers need to take the ‘speed to market’ approach to capitalize on fashion that is not in the stores of their competitors. Departing from the nature of the fast fashion business model, fast fashion industry thus has four important factors that need to be concerned in order to succeed in the industry, namely: retail store environment, cheap, cater, and dominance. McGoldrick (2002) and Varley and Raffiq (2004) in Barnes and Lea-Greenwood (2010) agree that the retail environment is a combination of physical and emotional: tangible and intangible attributes. The tangible or physical attributes include fascia, overall store design, window display, layout and merchandising, fixtures and fittings, decoration, and signage. Meanwhile the intangible or the emotional attributes include the ambience, image, positioning, branding, sensory perceptions, and emotional connection. The second important factor is cheap, according to Wang (2010), one of the soul of fast fashion is to make fashion democratized with its low price. This means that cheap plays an essential role in fast fashion. Fast fashion retailers can charge its products at relatively lower prices compared to traditional fashion retailers because of the use of the quick response method or QR method. By definition, QR method is a consumer driven business strategy of cooperative planning by supply chain partners, to ensure the right goods, are in the right place, at the right time, using IT and flexible manufacturing to eliminate inefficiencies from the entire supply chain (Sheridan, Moore, & Nobbs, 2006). In essence, QR is about being responsive to demand due to improved efficiencies in the supply chain while fast fashion is predicting and forecasting demand, with each being dependent on the other (Fernie et al., 2004 in Sheridan, Moore, & Nobbs, 2006). By using QR, companies aim to reduce both


excess stock holding in the supply chain and risk associated with forecasting as product specifications are not finalized until closer to delivery (Bruce & Daly, 2006). Other than that, fast fashion retail companies are also taking advantage of lower priced products from overseas (outsourcing). The third important factor of fast fashion, which portrays the other soul of fast fashion is cater. To focus on the fast strategy, fast fashion brands do anything to shorten their products’ shelf time. Not as strict as some luxury brands, fast fashion brands tend to make more response to consumers’ preference instead of insisting some belief. They make this possible with the enhanced design technique. According to Cachon & Swinney (2010), enhanced design technique is the technique that enables companies to produce highly fashionable or trendy product design which was made possible by carefully monitoring consumer and industry tastes for unexpected fads and reducing design leadtimes. All else being equal, enhanced design capabilities result in products that are of greater value to consumers (since they are the trendiest designs at the moment), and hence elicit a greater willingness-to-pay. Consequently, firms may exploit this greater willingness-to-pay by charging higher prices on “trendy” products than on more conservative products. However, enhanced design capabilities are costly. There are typically fixed costs (a large design staff, trend-spotters, rapid prototyping capabilities, etc.) and there may be greater variables costs (e.g., because of more labor-intensive production processes or costly local labor). The fourth and last important factor of the fast fashion industry is dominance. A dominating fast fashion system combines quick response production capabilities with enhanced product design capabilities, to both design hot products that capture the latest consumer trends and exploit minimal production lead times to match supply with uncertain demand (Cachon & Swinney, 2010). According to Rozhon in 2004, in fashion apparel industry, it is not easy to combine the cheap aspect with the catering aspect, especially because the propensity of consumers to anticipate future markdowns and intentionally delay purchasing until a sale occurs is a well-documented and widespread problem (Cachon & Swinney, 2010). This behavior erodes retailer margins and can drastically reduce profitability. However, by combining quick response capabilities with enhanced product design capabilities, retailers now have the effective tool to combat such “strategic” customer behavior. Quick response reduces the chance that inventory will remain to be sold at the clearance price (because quick response more closely matches supply and demand), while enhanced product design, on the other hand, gives customers a trendier product that they value more, making them less willing to risk waiting for a sale if there is any chance that the item will stock out. 2.3 The Concept of Retail Brand Personality According to Gopal Das (2013) and supported by other scholars, brand personality is the best aspect to represent the symbolic benefit of a particular brand. Referring to Keller (1993), symbolic benefit of a brand is the more extrinsic advantages of product or service consumption. It relates to the underlying needs for social approval or personal expression and outer-directed self-esteem. By definition, brand personality is “the set of human characteristics associated with a brand (Aaker J. L., 1997). In the case of retailing, based on the explanation from Wanninayake & Chovancová (2012), retail brand personality can be considered as equivalent with “store personality”. However, Martineau in 1985 identified store personality as “the way in which the store is defined in the shopper’s mind, partly by its functional qualities and partly by an aura of psychological attributes.” (Wanninayake & Chovancová, 2012, p. 478). Departing from these interpretations, hence retail store


personality is defined as “a consumer’s perception of the human personality traits attributed to the retail store” (Das, Datta, & Guin, 2012, p. 622). In order to measure Retail Brand Personality, the most prominent dimensions used are the ones proposed by Jennifer Aaker in 1997, which consists of 42 items (traits) in total that are combined into 15 facets and 5 factors, the so-called brand personality dimensions. The dimensions (and facets) are as follows:

• Sincerity (down-to-earth, honest, wholesome, cheerful) • Excitement (daring, spirited, imaginative, up-to-date) • Competence (reliable, intelligent, successful) • Sophistication (upper class, charming) • Ruggedness (outdoorsy, tough)

However, depending upon the nature of the merchandise sold by the retailers, retail brand personality differs from format to format (Das, 2013). Because of that, Das, Datta and Guin (2012) developed the store personality scale for context of their research, which is associated with retail branding. The scale consists of five dimensions, namely Sophistication, Empathy, Dependability, Vibrancy, and Authenticity. These five dimensions result in total of 26 personality traits for the department retail stores. The following are the classification of each dimension:

• Sophistication (glamorous, trendy, elegant, fashionable, classy, stylish, trend-setter, attractive, charming)

• Empathy (caring, considerate, friendly) • Dependability (hard-working, realistic, motivated, dutiful, punctual) • Vibrancy (bright, colorful, energetic, lively, cheerful) • Authenticity (honest, trustworthy, reliable, genuine)

Since retail brand personality is argued to best explain the symbolic brand benefits; therefore, it is proposed that increasing the retail brand personality will lead to increase in the symbolic benefits for the brand itself. This includes making the brand unique; easy to be differentiated from the other competing brands, and of course, eventually increasing the brand equity. Departing from this theoretical background, thus the proposed hypothesis is:

H1. Retail brand personality has positive impact on store loyalty.

2.4 The Concept of Self-congruity Based on the research by Joseph M. Sirgy in 1986 and 1997, the proposed theory of self-congruity argues that “part of customer behavior is determined by an individual’s comparison of the image of themselves and the image of a brand, reflected in a stereotype of a typical user of the brand (Helgeson & Supphellen, 2004, p. 208).” This indicates the consumers’ tendency to prefer to choose products and retail brands that have higher levels of congruity. Moreover, self-congruity has also been used to explain and predict brand attitude, product use and ownership, store loyalty, purchase intention, and so forth (Sirgy, et al., 1997). In 1982, Sirgy identified the four types of self-congruity as follows:


• Actual self-congruity à the present self-concept of the person • Ideal self-congruity à the ideal self-concept of the person • Social self-congruity à the self-concept as perceived by significant others • Ideal social self-congruity à the self-concept ideally perceived by significant others

To measure the self-congruity, Helgeson and Supphelen (2004) proposed to use the global measurement approach, which includes directly rating the congruence between a brand image and the respondent’s own self-concept. This approach focuses explicitly on the self of consumers and the similarity between self and typical brand users, with consumers having self-awareness when being measured. The following are the suggested measurements of a customer’s self-congruity based on Joseph Sirgy, et.al.’s research in 1997 (Das, 2013):

• The retail store is consistent with how I (would like to) see myself. • The retail store reflects who I am. • The image of the typical customer of this retail store is congruent (consistent/identical)

with how I see myself. (The image of the typical user is congruent with how I would like to see myself).

• The retail store is mirror image of me. • I am quite similar (I would like to be perceived as similar) to the typical customer of

this retail store.

Based on the given framework, thus the second hypothesis proposes is as follows:

H2. Self-congruity has positive impact on store loyalty. 2.5 Retail Brand Personality versus Self-congruity Recalling what was defined as a symbolic benefit, it is “the signal effect of using a brand, which is what the brand says about the consumer to the consumer and to others (Helgeson & Supphellen, 2004, p. 206).” Moreover, this signal effect of a brand can actually be based on the image of a generalized or typical user of the brand and/or the personality of the brand itself. When customers use a certain brand of a product, they become associated with these signals. Just like what Helgeson and Supphellen stated, “In a sense they ‘take on’, if only in their own mind, the image of the typical user of the brand or the personality of the brand (2004, p. 206).” As a result, those customers can hence be personally associated with the brand’s particular image through such usage. Eventually, due to the two distinct factors, the two streams of research were then developed: (1) self-congruity research and (2) brand personality research. Interestingly; however, most of those studies did not put the two factors together on one particular study. They always used either one of the factor, only Helgeson and Supphellen (2004) that used the two factors simultaneously in their research. This fact indicates that researchers might have assumed that the two constructs are interchangeable (Das, 2013, p. 3), when they are actually not. Helgeson and Supphellen (2004) argued that brand personality and self-congruity measures are likely to induce different thoughts and feelings and thus have independent effects on brand attitudes.


“Brand personality measures are more descriptive and focus on brands itself rather than typical user of the brands, whereas self-congruity measures involve more self-awareness in the response process and focus on typical user of the brands (Das, 2013, p. 3).”

In other words, based on the summary by Helgeson and Supphelen (2004), brand personality measure is more outward and brand-focus whereas self-congruity measure is inward and self-focuses (Das, 2013, p. 3). 2.6 The Concept of Store Loyalty Derived from previous theories, the term ‘retailer loyalty’, thus has the same concept with both ‘brand loyalty’ and ‘store loyalty’. Accordingly, the store loyalty is defined as the consumer’s intention to be loyal to a particular store of a particular retailer. Store loyalty has been defined both attitudinally and behaviorally. Referring to Wallace et al. (2004), “the effort to maintain store loyalty is considered as a critical retailer strategy to retain existing customers and thus profitability and sustainability are ensured (Das, 2013, p. 2).” Moreover, in measuring store loyalty, the methods used vary depending on the type of the retailer, whether it is a food retailer or non-food retailer (Das, 2013). The most prominent method used to measure store loyalty is developed by Yoo and Danthu in two of their researches both in 2000 and 2001. The method is in the form of survey questions (since it uses consumer-based) in which the questions may become subjects for modification, depending on the purpose of the research and more importantly, the type of the retailing context. In the case of the non-food retailing context, Pappu and Quester (2006, 2008) adopted scale is the following:

• I consider myself loyal to the store. • I will not buy products from other retail stores, if I can buy the same item at the store. • The store would be my first choice.

The scale above is commonly used because it is already able to represent the extent to which the consumers held their commitment to re-buy or re-patronage a preferred product/service consistently in the future, thereby causing repetitive same-brand or same brand-set purchasing, despite situational influences and marketing efforts having the potential to cause switching behavior. 2.7 Moderating Effect of Gender Throughout the years, there have been many results that indicated differences between males and females in terms of their shopping behavior. For examples the results of researches by Shim (1996) who found that males were more utilitarian, whereas females were more social/conspicuous conscious. Males are also claimed to have more tendency in buying gender-congruent products (Fugate & Phillips, 2010). However, the same research also claimed that less traditional individuals were less focused on gender congruence. Other research from Dolicih in 1969 argued that gender is a major component of consumers’ self-congruity and males were said to make quick/careless decisions more commonly (Campbell, 1997), and are more independent, confident, externally motivated, competitive, and more willing to take risks especially with money (Areni and Kiecker, 1993; Prince, 1993). All of which leads us to the proposition that male consumers have different decision making traits with the females. Not only that, it also implicates that the stimuli from the outward


(brand personality) and inward (self-congruity) will have different level of impact on the consumers’ loyalty (Bakewell & Mitchell, 2006, p. 1297). Based on these researches, the following are the proposed hypotheses for moderation effect:

H3. Gender moderates the relationship between retail brand personality and store loyalty.

H4. Gender moderates the relationship between self-congruity and store loyalty.

Picture 1. Research Model Source: Impacts of retail brand personality and self-congruity on store loyalty: The moderating role of gender, Das, 2013

2.8 Multiple Linear Regression and Hierarchical Regression A multiple linear regression analysis is carried out to predict the values of a dependent variable, Y, given a set of p explanatory variables (x1,x2,….,xp) (Tranmer & Elliot, 2014). The relationship between the dependent variable and the explanatory variable is represented by the following equation:

yi = β0 + β1X1i + β2X2i + … + βpXpi + ei

Where: β0 = Constant term β1 to βp = the coefficients relating the p explanatory variables to the variables of interest. Multiple linear regression thus can be thought of an extension of simple linear regression, where there are p explanatory variables, or simple linear regression can be thought of as a special case of multiple linear regression, where p = 1. The term ‘linear’ is used because in multiple linear regression; it is assumed that y is directly related to a linear combination of the explanatory variables. Meanwhile, Hierarchical, or sequential or multilevel, regression is the type of multiple regression that is used to examine the relationships between a set of independent variables and a dependent variable, after controlling for the effects of some other independent variables on the dependent variable. According to Dennis Howitt and Duncan Cramer (2008), hierarchical regression allows the researcher to decide which order to use for a list of predictors. In hierarchical multiple regression, the independent variables are entered in two stages. In the first stage, the independent variables that need to be controlled control for are entered into the regression. In the second stage, the independent variables whose relationship wanted to be


examined after the controls are entered. After that, a statistical test of the change in R² from the first stage is used to evaluate the importance of the variables entered in the second stage. This method is used in this research for measuring the Moderation Effect. 3. Research Methodology

This research is a conclusive-descriptive research. Furthermore, this research can be categorized as the single cross-sectional designed research. The research used only the primary data that is obtained by using the quantitative method through the use of survey, distributed to respondents both offline and online. The respondents are males and females 17 years old and older, residented in Jakarta, Bogor, Depok, Tangerang, and Bekasi area or simply Greatar Area of Jakarta. In choosing the samples, the technique used by the researcher is the non-probability sampling, specifically the convenience sampling. In total there were 352 samples used in this research. The offline surveys were distributed to various locations such as shopping malls, FEUI campus, offices, and other locations while the online surveys were distributed through social media and instant messengers such as Facebook, Twitter, LINE, and WhatsApp. About 51 per cent of the samples were males and 49 per cent females. Based on the research model, therefore there are three latent variables, namely Retail Brand Personality, Self-congruity, and Store Loyalty with the first two variables act as the Independent Variable, while the lattest one act as the Dependent Variable. Moreover, to test the hypotheses, the researcher used the Regression Method that was conducted on the SPSS 20 software. For the first two hypotheses, the researcher used the Multiple Linear Regression, whereas for the last two hypotheses, which measures the moderating effect, the researcher used the Hierarchical Regression Method. Before the main research was started, the researcher conducted a preliminary pretest to 30 people to anticipate chances that the questionnaire might be difficult to be understood and/or to be filled by the respondents when the researcher gathered the data to a much larger number of samples. In this stage, the researcher tested the validity and reliability of the questionnaires. To test the validity, the Kaiser Meyer Olkin Measure of Sampling Adequacy (KMO) and Factor Loadings were used as the indicators. Values above 0.5 indicate that the data is already appropriate. Meanwhile, Cronbach Alpha was used as indicator to test the reliability. The following is the result of Validity and Reliability test:

Table 1. Pretest Validity and Reliability Test Results

Latent Variable

KMO Measure of Sampling Adequacy

Factor Loadings Bartlett’s

Test of Sphericity

Cronbach’s Alpha

Retail Brand Personality (Das, Datta, & Guin, 2012)

0.727

Sophistication: 0.399

0.000 0.707 Empathy: 0.750 Dependability: 0.833 Authenticity: 0.817 Vibrancy: 0.540

Self-congruity (Sirgy, et al., 1997)

0.855

Ideal Self-congruity: 0.802

0.000 0.910 Actual Self-congruity: 0.891 Social Self-congruity: 0.898 Actual Self-congruity: 0.841


Latent Variable

KMO Measure of Sampling Adequacy

Factor Loadings Bartlett’s

Test of Sphericity

Cronbach’s Alpha

Ideal/Social Self-congruity: 0.856

Store Loyalty

(Pappu &

Quester,

2006)

0.640

Store Loyalty 1: 0.783

0.002 0.626 Store Loyalty 2: 0.711

Store Loyalty 3: 0.784

Source: SPSS 20 Output, Own-self processed

Based on the table above, the three latent variables measured in this research are proven to be valid. The values of KMO for each of the three variables are all greater than 0.5, meaning that the samples are already appropriate and thus valid. Moreover, the factor loadings are all greater than 0.3, indicating that the factors are important and not to be eliminated. As for the Cronbach’s Alpha, the standard of 0.6 is met by all of the variables, namely Retail Brand Personality, Self-congruity, and Store Loyalty. The result shows that the data is consistent when repeated measurements are made and therefore it is reliable. Moreover, the results of this test also indicate that the samples’ answers are relatively trustworthy. 4. Analysis and Discussion

4.1 Respondent’s Profile

From the 352 samples used in this research, as previously stated, 51% were males and 49% was females. About 56% of the respondents have graduated High School (or equivalent), 31% Bachelor Graduates or Undergraduates, 9% Diploma, 2% no formal education, and finally Elementary School and Middle School each accounts for 1% of the total respondents. Moreover, m of the samples in this research are students (82%). Followed by private company employees (9%), entrepreneurs (5%), civil servants (2%), and finally housewives and those who are not employed (1% each). Most samples are students because the researcher primarily distributed the questionnaires around FEUI Campus. Next, more than half of the respondents have around 1,000,000 – 2,999,999 Rupiah as their income per month (52%). This is due to the respondents’ employment; which are mostly students; therefore, their allowance is treated as their income. Followed by people with 3,000,000 – 4,999,999 Rupiah income per month (20%), then respondents with income below 1,000,000 Rupiah per month (18%), and finally those with income of Rp5,000,000 – 9,999,999 and those with income of ≥ Rp10,000,000 per month, each accounted for 5%. As for the monthly expenditure, More than half of the respondents currently spend around Rp1,000,000 – Rp2,999,999 (51%). Followed by respondents with monthly spending accounted for Rp500,000 – Rp999,999 (34%), < Rp500,000 (8%), then respondents with expenditure equal or more than Rp5,000,000 per month (4%), and lastly, those who spend Rp3,000,000 – Rp4,999,999 per month (3%). Within the questionnaire, the researcher asked the respondents to rank the listed fast fashion brands available in Greater Area of Jakarta based on their purchase frequency. The following are the top five fast fashion brands based on the results: (1) Zara, (2) H&M, (3) Uniqlo, (4)


Giordano, (5) Forever 21. After ranking the fast fashion brands, the researcher also aksed the respondents to choose their main reason to purchase a product at the store which was ranked one (1) on their previous answer. Based on the results, 56 per cent of the respondents claim that the main reason they purchase at a fast fashion retail store because of its good designs. Followed by comfortable material (25%), then favorable price (15%), and then other reasons such as famous brand, store ambience, and also because many people they know shop at the store. Each accounts for 1 per cent. 4.2 Hypothesis Testing As previously stated, the researcher used the Multiple Linear Regression to test the first two hypotheses. Using SPSS 20 with 95% level of confidence, the following is the regression formula obtained:

SL = 0.437 + 0.027 (RBP) + 0.741 (SC) p-values = (0.143) (0.768) (0.000)

Note: R Square : 44.4% F-stat (2, 349) : 139.448 Model p-value: 0.000 Based on the formula above, it is proven that Retail Brand Personality does not have any significant (positive) impact on Store Loyalty, shown from its p-value of 0.768, indicating that Retail Brand Personality variable has no significant relationship with store loyalty. On the other hand, Self-congruity does have a significant and positive impact towards Store Loyalty, shown from its p-values which below 0.05 and with positive coefficient showing that the relationship is positive. This implies that the increase Self-congruity will lead to increase in Store Loyalty. As for the last two hypotheses which measure the moderating effect, Hierarchical Regression was used by the researcher. The significances of the moderation effect were measured by looking from the R-square change. The result is the following:

R2 = 0.463 ΔR2 = 0.017 ΔF (2,346) = 5.341 p-value = 0.005 ( the Significance of F-change)

The results show that there might be a potentially significant moderation effect of gender on the relationship of the two independent variables and the dependent variable. Furthermore, the following is the regression function of Retail Brand Personality (RBP) and Self-congruity (SC) with Gender (G) Interaction with respect to Store Loyalty (SL):

SL = 1.178 - 0.199(RBP) + 0.778(SC) - 1.742(G) + 0.542(RBP*GDR) –

p-values = (0.003) (0.093) (0.000) (0.004) (0.003) 0.097(SC*GDR)

p-values = (0.394) From the above formula, it is proven that Gender has positive interaction with Retail Brand Personality with respect to the Store Loyalty. Gender enhances or strengthens the relationship among the other two variables. However, this result is not close to the precision, and should not be much of a concern because based on the previous hypothesis result; Retail Brand


Personality was proven not to have any significant relationship with Store Loyalty. Therefore, even though the moderation looks significant (p-value below 0.05), but this result is actually not close to precision. We cannot justify whether it is true or not. Whereas, for the interaction effect of Gender on the relationship between Self-congruity and Store Loyalty, from the above formula we can conclude that there is no significant moderation effect (since the p-value is greater than 0.05). Based on the two regression functions, the researcher could derive the decision whether to accept or reject the four hypotheses proposed before. The following table summarizes the decisions:

Table 2. Hypotheses Testing

Hypotheses Hypotheses Statement P-values t-value Decision

H1 Retail brand personality has positive impact on store loyalty

0.768 0.295 Hypothesis Rejected

H2 Self-congruity has positive impact on store loyalty

0.000 12.914 Hypothesis Accepted

H3 Gender moderates the relationship between retail brand personality and store loyalty


H4 Gender moderates the relationship between self-congruity and store loyalty


Source: SPSS 20 Output, Own-self processed

5. Conclusions and Suggestions 5.1 Conclusions

Based on the results of the hypotheses testing, retail brand personality does not have any significant relationship with store loyalty (p-value 0.768), let alone positive impact. This indicates that even if the customers perceive the fast fashion retail stores as having good brand personalities, however it does not necessarily mean that the customers would be loyal to fast fashion stores. In other words, there is no significant effect of retail brand personality in customers’ store loyalty. Next, self-congruity does have significant relationship with store loyalty (p-value 0.000). This implies that self-congruity has positive impact on store loyalty in which the higher the customer perceives that the image of fast fashion store is congruent/similar/identical to how they see or how they would like to see themselves; the more loyal they become towards the fast fashion retail stores. As for the moderation effect, the result of the hypothesis testing did prove that gender moderates the relationship between retail brand personality and store loyalty in which it strengthens the relationship between the two variables. However, recalling the previous hypothesis result, retail brand personality was proven not to have any significant relationship with the store loyalty. In consequence, this result needs not to be paid attention at, since it is not close to precision. Lastly, the result of the hypothesis testing also shows that gender does not significantly moderate the relationship between self-congruity and store loyalty.


5.2 Managerial Implications

Since retail brand personality was proven not to have any impact on store loyalty, it is then no use for the fast fashion retailers to put too much attention on the attributes of the retail brand personality for the sake of increasing store loyalty. This includes the store layout and architecture, symbols and colors, advertising, sales personnel, and all other physical and emotional attributes of a retail environment. However, those in-store and out-store communications are still needed to show the brand’s personality and in the hope to increase the brand equity; however, they are not the core aspect to increase consumers’ loyalty. Next, the research results found that self-congruity is a better factor in increasing consumer’s loyalty. However, as a manager, it is not easy to determine whether the current image of the brand is already congruent with the consumers’ image or not, let alone trying to create image that the consumers want, since every consumer has different self-image and thus they desire different things. Consequently, what managers can do is to carefully study and understand the market (using Enhanced Design - the cater function), segment the market and finally target those who have congruent image. In other words, the crucial part is to firstly understand the market, then understand the customers. Focus on those types of customers whose images are congruent with the current brand image or personality of the fast fashion retailer, instead of trying to cater the whole market. 5.3 Suggestions for Subsequent Research Based on the research results and findings, the following are the researcher’s suggestions for any subsequent research studying similar topic:

1. Find out why Retail Brand Personality has no significant relationship with Store Loyalty.

2. Find out why the moderation effect of Gender on the relationship between Self-congruity and Store Loyalty is not significant.

3. Expanding the scope of research. 4. Add domicile questions to better fit with the given research title. 5. Add more questions within the questionnaire to elicit more detailed information

and much richer insights. 6. Use the Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) for determining the cause and effect

relationship between the independent variables and the dependent variable, also to measure the precise moderation effect of gender between retail brand personality and self-congruity on store loyalty relationship.

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