소비자들은 서비스 제품인 점포를 단순히 하나의 물리적 개체로 보는 것이 아니라 개성을 지닌 인격체로 인식함으로써 점포의 개성적 특성이 점포와 고객 간의 관계 형성, 유지에 직접적으로 영향을 준다고 볼 수 있다. 특정 점포가 가진 개성차원은 소비자의 점포에 대한 느낌과 태도를 깊이 이해 할 수 있게 하므로 점포 내 광고, 패키지, 촉진 등의 마케팅의사결정에 유용한 지침을 제공한다. 본 연구에서는 소매 점포에 적합한 점포개성 척도를 개발하고자 하였으며 이를 소매 점포에 적용하여 점포개성의 효과를 실증적으로 검토하고자 하였다. 첫째, 점포개성 척도를 개발하였다. 그 결과 따뜻함, 세련됨, 활발함, 진취적임, 엄격함의 5가지 점포개성 차원이 개발되었다. 이는 고객들이 점포를 방문할 때 점포를 단순히 구매를 위한 장소라는 개념의 정의에서 벗어나 점포를 하나의 인격적인 존재로 여기고 관계의 대상으로서 특정 개성차원이 관계형성의 중요 요인이 된다는 것을 의미한다. 둘째, 이러한 점포개성의 구성개념에 대한 확인을 위하여 다양한 소매 점포유형을 선정하고 점포개성의 구성개념에 대한 확인과 주요하게 관련되어 있는 점포동일시 및 점포충성도의 관계에 대해 확인해 보았다. 그 결과, 점포개성은 특정 점포들의 개성을 측정할 수 있는 유용한 도구로 확인되었으며, 점포개성은 점포충성도에 유의한 긍정적인 영향을 미치고 조절변수인 점포동일시 또한 긍정적으로 작용함이 확인되었다. 따라서 점포개성 차원들은 점포 내 쇼핑상황 속에서 경험할 수 있는 전반적인 개성차원에 관한 내용을 담고 있으며, 점포개성의 개념을 측정하기에 적합한 것으로 판단된다.
Marketing managers struggle to understand competitive situation of stores by looking into consumer` store selection process and to build discriminative competition advantage because of fierce competition among stores. While the past marketers use store attribute such as price, service, store size, the present marketers use store personality which is a symbolic and emotional mean of differentiation. Store personality assumes that a store has characters like a human. For instance, GS25 convenience store highlights aggressive and considerable store personality by providing convenience service of living as cash withdrawal, receiving of utility bills in store. On the other hand, Buy The Way convenience store emphasizes sophisticated and modern store personality by establishing a space for coffee shops in store. The researches to measure a store personality have applied Aaker`s brand personality scale. These studies have a limitation to understand the symbolism of a store which is one of the service products. First, Aaker`s personality dimensions did not include different dimensions in a point of view of an unique service product because Aaker`s study mainly focused on the physical products to develop the scale of a brand personality. Second, even though factors affecting formation of the store personality and the brand personality are partially identical, the most crucial factors are different each other. For instance, factors such as a commercial, a product user, a brand name, a symbol and logo and a product category etc affect development of brand personality, but the most important factor among them is the commercial. On the other hand, the dynamic factors of a store which are formed by interaction among a consumer, a store, a seller and other consumers affect development of store personality. It is expected that the store personality affects formation and maintenance of relationship between the store and the consumer, since consumer does not regard a store, one of the service products, as a physical object but count it as a person having individualities. Moreover, the knowledge of a store personality supply marketers, who are in charge of determining important guidelines for advertisements, packages and promotions and so forth, useful information about human relationship between the consumer and the store as well as their feeling and attitude toward the stores. Therefore, in order to understand the store personality in detail, this research has dealt with two topics explained as follows. First, this study is to develop a scale to identify the store personality, based upon a variety of the previous studies which have investigated on concepts which reflect the store personality desirably and distinctly. Second, store loyalty has been studied as one of the most important fields in retail marketing. This study researched on the relation before and after mental and rational processes, by analyzing the store personality, the store identification and the store loyalty, which is the final process of consumer behaviors. Consumer occasionally considers a store as a symbol to represent themselves or the group to which they are belong because the symbolization helps them to express who they are and to improve their personal images. From an extensive point of view, this study deals with moderating effect of the store identification and the relationship between store personality and store loyalty. Several suggestions for the preparation of strategy to analyze the advantages were proposed. The results of this research are as follows. First, this research developed the scale of the store personality. It consists of the warmth, sophistication, activity, progressiveness, and strictness. These result imply that a particular product category has adequate personality dimensions. Consumers regard a store as not just a place to purchase a product but also a subject for them to make a relationship as a person make a relationship with other people. Further more, these days when companies compete each other harshly with the quality, attribute and price of an product, the companies suggest that they consider store personality, which is an invisible factor, as one of the important strategies to differentiate themselves with their competitors. Second, the store personality has significant impact on the store loyalty. Besides when store identification has a moderating effect, the store personality has better significant impact on the store loyalty. Consumers have a tendency to maintain consistency among their opinion, belief, and other cognitive factors. These factors work interdependently or dependently as the consumers express themselves. During this process, they consider a store for a symbolic means. Thus, companies need a segmentation strategy to build the relationship between their stores and target consumers who have a self concept which is the same as the store personality. A store should provide something more than a product. This means that a store must offer not only utilitarian benefits but also emotional and self-expressive benefits. This research suggest that the better store personality coincide with consumer`s self concept, the longer a store can maintain the firm relationship with a consumer.