How sustainable store brands drive satisfaction, trust and loyalty towards grocery retailers

The last decade has been characterized by a sharp increase in environmental problems and the sustainability and sustainable practices have gained a great relevance. Today individuals are more aware about social and environmental problems than in the past and they have begun to react more sensitively towards the eco-friendliness of product offerings. Therefore, retailers are facing pressure to promote sustainable consumption to engage in environmental supply chain management and to push green products in their supply chains. Retailers could build their sustainable image through many marketing levers but store brands have a strong importance because of their uniqueness and distinctiveness. Starting from these considerations, our research aimed to understand if sustainable store brands could be drivers of consumers’ choice towards retailer and, consequently, if satisfaction with the sustainable store brand directly affect satisfaction, trust and loyalty for the retailer itself. We conducted descriptive analysis and linear regressions based on data coming from 188 respondents who were familiar with grocery shopping in order to investigate their attitude towards the sustainable store brand and the relevance that the latter could have in affecting consumers’ perceptions about retailers. Our findings could suggest retailers to invest in sustainable store brands’ strategy in order to increase customer’s satisfaction and achieve customers’ loyalty in the actual retail environment where sustainability is becoming a new driver of competition.