Saving money or losing face? An international study on social stigmatization in discount stores

Social stigmatization is detrimental to its victims, leaving them devalued and discriminated against by society. Can social of marginalized low-income groups also influence non-stigmatized high-status consumers? If so, does the individual's cultural value power distance (PD) moderate this relationship? Previous consumer research on has neglected these questions. In a discount-store context, we analyze moderating effect an PD link between customers customer loyalty higher-income customers. international scenario-based experimental study, collected data in United Kingdom, Germany, China, Russia, resulting sample size 1675 consumers. The empirical findings, which are based structural equation modeling with latent variables, show positive direct negative indirect relationship results multi-group causal analysis indicate that strongly influences strength relationship. These findings demonstrate stronger effects individuals high level PD.