Study 1: Building Retailer Brand Equity Based on Perceived Brand Globalness: The Role of Country of Origin

Abstract

Retailing was originally regarded as a local business with a national scope (Gielens and Dekimpe 2007; Treadgold 1988). However recently dynamically internationalizing retailers like Walmart, Zara, and Starbucks shift their attention to emerging, psychic distant markets, driven by opportunities in these countries, such as high growth rates, growing middle-class, and low concentration rates (Goldman 2001). To expand their business to an emerging market, retailers must reconsider major differentiation criteria (e.g., price and quality) to distinguish themselves from domestic competitors in often restricted and diverse markets to attract customers from the top to the bottom of the pyramid (Pan and Zinkhan 2006). Additionally, domestic firms are under pressure and are being taken over by foreign investors. For example, the U.S. giant Yum! took over the Chinese service retail brand Little Sheep.