Customer Retention and the Bottom Line: Examining the Role of Customer Share of Wallet (SOW) as a Moderator of Affect- and Trust- Mediated Effects

This study presents a model in which store affect and store trust mediate the effects of store characteristics on store outcomes. It is proposed that the impacts of store atmosphere and merchandise value on two types of loyalty intentions are mediated by store affect and store trust simultaneously in a dual process model. Customer share of wallet is hypothesized to moderate the effects of these relationships. To represent 38 retail-store categories based on the North American Industry Classification of retail categories, data were collected from 71 retail stores located in the Northeast United States. The results from multi-group structural equation modeling largely favor a dual-mediated model with affect having a greater impact on commitment for low share customers and trust having a stronger impact on repatronage intentions for high share customers.