Specialty food retailing: examining the role of products’ perceived quality

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to address the following issue: “Does the products’ perceived quality influences the consumer behaviour in the specialty retailing setting?” Design/methodology/approach For this purpose, the authors propose and empirically test a conceptual model on the creation of consumer satisfaction and loyalty in specialty retailing, to examine the influence of products’ quality perception and its potential moderating role. Data were analysed through structural equation modelling on a sample of 592 consumers Findings The findings show that the store-based attributes have different influence on customer satisfaction and loyalty, according to the quality perception of products, and suggest the moderating role of products’ perceived quality. Practical implications Retailing managers may use the product’s perceived quality as a segmentation variable in the specialty food retailing context. Originality/value The major contribution of this paper is the empirical analysis of one subjective customer-based variable in the specialty retailing setting.