Abstract
Ph.D. (Marketing Management)
As more retailers gain access to similar technologies, information and processes, it is becoming increasingly difficult to establish a sustainable competitive advantage in the marketplace, ensure customer satisfaction and encourage repurchase intention. This is especially true for high fashion retailers, since their higher margin customers have greater expectations to receive value from these high fashion retailers. To succeed in a highly competitive marketplace, high fashion retailers must become adept not just at providing quality products, but also at providing value to their customers. Only those businesses that truly offer the value that customers want and expect, remain competitive in the long term and are able to increase customer satisfaction levels. Higher levels of customer satisfaction leads to improved repurchase intention. It is therefore important for high fashion retailers to ensure that they offer value to their customers. Despite research undertaken in customer value, much debate still exists as to what contributes to customer value and what the relevant customer value dimensions are.
Customer value is of managerial interest to high fashion retailers, as these retailers need to identify the dimensions they should focus on to increase the value they are delivering to their customers in order to obtain or retain a sustainable competitive advantage. Customer value leads to customer satisfaction and customer satisfaction in turn is a strong indicator of repurchase intention. This study therefore focuses on uncovering the concept of customer value, with specific emphasis on determining the underlying customer value dimensions from the perspective of the customer shopping at high fashion retail stores. The aim of this study is to propose a multidimensional model of customer value for high fashion retailers, including the interrelationship between customer value, customer satisfaction and repurchase intention.....