The impact of grocery retail superstores location on the customer’s perceived quality of servicescape in Jordan

Abstract

The aim of this study was to examine the impact of customers’ perceived location quality of retail stores on the perceived quality of the servicescape. Therefore, this study examined to what extent the customers shopping at more convenient, accessible, visible and attractive location; are shopping also at more convenient store environment in term of visual, olfactory, and auditory cues. Three retail superstores were surveyed in Amman the capital of Jordan. These retail superstores were: Carrefour, Safeway, and C-Town. A questionnaire was designed to collect the data from customers of these retail stores. A sample of 1055 customers was surveyed. Multiple linear regression analysis was used to analyze the relationship between the location factors and the servicescape factors. This study revealed that the impact of retail stores location dimensions on perceived servicescape quality was moderate to low in two cases, and low in one case. This indicates that locating store’s branches in high access, visible, and attractive location have low to moderate servicescape quality. In addition, retail stores that exist in good locations have better visual cues than auditory and olfactory cues. This result was the same for the three retail stores. The theoretical stance of retail stores location and servicescape quality is too fragmented. The majority of previous studies have focused on reporting the location or servicescape as a separated construct. Very limited studies have investigated this issue in service sector in general and retailing in particular.