Consumers in a Turbulent Economy: Normative, Egoistic and Economic Antecedents to Store (DIS)Loyalty and Store-Brand Proneness

Abstract

Since 2007, the global economic downturn has become one of the most destabilizing, ambiguous and deterministic macro-environmental step changes to confront retailers in recent decades. Although it is often (erroneously) assumed that conditions revert to “normal” post-crisis, the theory of cyclical asymmetry suggests that consumers are quicker to reduce their spending in response to a crisis than they are to revert back to “normal” (Deleersnyder et al. 2004). In this context, the researchers seek to understand how and why the economic crisis has impacted the key retailing foci of store loyalty and store-brand proneness.