Alternative Modes of Measuring Store Image: An Empirical Assessment of Structured versus Unstructured Measures

Store image has been measured frequently by means of structured scales. Some researchers exhort against the use of structured scales for the measurement of this construct and recommend the use of unstructured measures instead. They argue that structured scales are inadequate for capturing the “gestalt” associated with the perception of a store image. This research attempts, for the first time, to investigate empirically the relative efficacy of the structured scales and the unstructured measures of store image. The results reveal that the two types of measures have similar properties and that the structured scales are more correlated with a set of self-reported behavioral measures. Thus practitioners should feel more comfortable utilizing structured, semantic differential scales to assess their store image.