An Empirical Study On The Image Of Small-sized Retail Store In Business Cluster

The scale of retail market in China has been developing in unbalanced directions. One of the tendencies is the miniaturization of business enterprises, most of which are individual-managed small-sized stores. The small-sized business enterprises, especially privately-owned ones, achieved primitive capital accumulation depending on their flexible systems and insights in the initial stage. Due to an absence of talents and knowledge, excessive competition and unfair competition is easily formed, which impede the healthy development of the small-sized business enterprises. It is necessary to analyze the small-sized store market and propose extensive suggestion for the management.The article intended to privode the theoretical support by answering the following questiones through the empirical study on the small-sized store image:Which significant image dimensiones are applicable to the small-sized store in the retail cluster?What is the relationship between cluster image and store image?How should the small-sized store manage the relationship between image dimensions?The research targeted at the small-sized stores in Guilin Retail Building and validated six dimensions of small-sized store image: commodity image, price image, service image, facility image, ambiance image, and cluster image. The innovation in the current research is to take cluster image as one dimension of store image. Concerning the distinctiveness of cluster image, the research formulated two hypotheses:Hypotheses 1: there are five significant dimensions for image of small-sized store in business cluster: commodity image, price image, service image, facility image, and ambiance image.Hypotheses 2: The consistency of store image and cluster image influences the consumer satisfaction.Two questionnaires were designed. Store image questionnaire was surveyed in the consumers who patronized Guilin Retail Building to collect the data on the former five store image dimensions. Consumer satisfaction questionnaire was used to collect data on store image and store satisfaction by surveying in the consumers who patronized store A and B in Guilin Retail Building.In testing hypotheses 1, prevenient study methods were refered to analyze the store image attributes data using the factor analysis approach and five dimensions were worked out: commodity image, price image, service image, facility image, and ambiance image.Through analyzing the relationship between store image and cluster image, hypotheses 2 was substantiated. Therefore cluster image can be considered as one of the store image dimensions. Studying the consistency between store image and cluster image by Mann-Whitney U test and integrating the store satisfaction data, it is found that store image consistent with cluster image has significant influence on store satisfaction. It is further proved that cluster image can be the sixth dimension of store image.Through the above research, the conclusion was reached. To achieve high customer satisfaction, five dimensions, commodity image, price image, service image, facility image, ambiance image and the consistency of these store image dimensions and cluster image have to be concerned in differentiating the small-sized stores in a specific business cluster.The literatures indicate that store image varys in the stores with different scale and style. The research analyzed the characteristics of the image of small-sized stores in a specific business cluster. Concerning the dependency of small-sized store on cluster image, the research initially introduced cluster image as a dimension of store image measurement and stated the relationship between the two. Moreover, the research is an empirical study on small-sized store image in Guilin Retail Building, hence it is of significance in guidance.