The main objective of this study is to examine the influence of Islamic branding and customer experience on repurchase intention and brand trust as its mediator. This study is motivated by the increasing practice of Islamic branding in the service industry, which assumes that Islamic symbols can shape Muslim consumer loyalty. However, various empirical findings show inconsistent results regarding the effectiveness of this approach on repurchase intention. On the other hand, studies on the role of customer experience in shaping Muslim consumer loyalty are still limited, especially in the context of beauty services that rely heavily on perception and experience. This study uses a quantitative explanatory approach through a survey of 165 respondents who are customers of the beauty service "Hayyu Skin Clinic" in Malang City, East Java, Indonesia. The analysis uses the Partial Least Squares-Structural Equation Modelling (PLS-SEM) approach. The results show that customer experience significantly affects repurchase intention and brand trust. Conversely, Islamic branding does not directly influence repurchase intention or brand trust. Furthermore, brand trust cannot significantly mediate the effect of Islamic branding on repurchase intention. These findings underscore the importance of real-life experience-based marketing strategies over religious identity symbols and provide insight into Muslim consumers' increasingly rational and pragmatic behaviour.
Slamet et al. (Wed,) studied this question.