Store Assortment

‘Assortment’ is viewed as the number of different items in a merchandise category (Levy and Weitz 1995). There are numerous and mixed effects of assortment on choice. Several studies have found a positive effect of increasing assortment on choice (Briesch et.al 2009; Koelemeijer and Oppewal 1999), whereas others have demonstrated a negative effect of assortment on choice (Chernev 2003; Iyengar and Lepper 2000).Broniarczyk et al. (1998) explored that retailers can reduce assortment size in stores without affecting customers’ perception of the store.

Store image and store satisfaction is influenced by the perceived store assortment (Anselmsson, 2006). The customer’s perception about the product quality and assortment have a positive relationshipwith

Store Environment is used to maximize shoppers’ emotional responses, which has a positiveimpact on their attitudes, perceptions, and shopping behaviors (Chebat and Morrin 2007).

The visual element of environment includes color, lighting, and the sizes and shapes of goods(Zentes et al. 2011), which affects the customers’ perceptions, attitudes, and purchase intentions in retail environments.

In a retail context, research on customer loyalty lacks a comprehensive model for analyzing the store environment's impact on customers’ loyalty (Baker et al., 2002). (Baker et al., 2002) have taken first stepto develop a model relevant to a supermarket context. The authors argue that customers’ perceptions aboutthe store environment can influence their cognitive responses.

Managers of retail outlets recognize that the store environment has a significant impact on sales (Milliman 1982, 1986; Smith and Cumow 1966; Stanley and Sewall 1976), product evaluations, (Bitner 1986; Rappoport 1982)and satisfaction (Bitner 1990). In fact, it is seen that attitudes of the customers towards the store environment are more important in determining store choice than are attitudes toward the merchandise (Darden, Erdem, and Darden

(Del Vecchio et al. (2006) proposed that that sales promotion can increase or decrease the post-promotion brand preferences, depending upon characteristics of the sales promotion and the promoted product.MontanerandPina(2008)also found product category moderates the relationship between the price promotion and the consumers’ evaluation of brands.

Sivakumar (1996) suggested that high-priced brands get benefit frominfrequent,largepricecuts, while low-pricedbrands get benefit more from frequent, small price cuts. Raghubir and Corfman (1995) argued that the effect ofprice promotions on brand evaluations by the customers dependsupon the frequency of price promotions. They found that a brand that is promoted more frequently was perceived to offerpoorerquality as compare to other brands in the industry.

2.4 Sales person