Retail Patronage (Importance of Quality) (RP)

1. Abstract

The Retail Patronage (Importance of Quality) (RP) scale is a seminal psychometric instrument developed by Danny N. Bellenger, Dan H. Robertson, and Barnett A. Greenberg (1977) to assess the degree of subjective importance that consumers attach to quality-centric retail attributes during store and shopping center evaluation and selection. Grounded in consumer behavior, multi-attribute decision theory, and retail store image literature, the instrument isolates the cognitive evaluative criteria that drive selective store patronage. The scale operationalizes quality not as an isolated product attribute, but as a multidimensional retail ecosystem construct comprising merchandise excellence, assortment breadth, institutional reputation, brand equity, service personnel professionalism, aesthetic modernity, and environmental hygiene.

The scale consists of seven items measured on a 5-point Likert-type response format anchored from 1 (Not at all important / Very unimportant) to 5 (Very important). Scoring is unidimensional and additive, where higher aggregate scores reflect a stronger quality orientation in shopping center choice, distinguishing quality-conscious shoppers from convenience-oriented, price-sensitive, or purely recreational consumers. Psychometric evaluations across multiple retail environments demonstrate robust internal consistency (Cronbach’s alpha values typically ranging between .74 and .84 across empirical replications), reliable test-retest stability, and sound construct, convergent, and discriminant validity. Exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses confirm that the seven items load heavily on a distinct latent "Quality" patronage motive factor that explains substantial variance in retail destination selection. This article provides an extensive review of the scale’s theoretical foundation, psychological underpinnings, empirical validity, structural stability, administrative protocols, and practical applications in commercial marketing strategy and retail geography.

2. Keywords

Retail patronage, store choice, quality importance, consumer decision making, retail store image, shopping center selection, merchandise quality, psychometrics, patronage motives, retail marketing

3. Authors

The Retail Patronage (Importance of Quality) scale was designed and validated by an influential team of marketing and consumer behavior researchers at Georgia State University:

• Danny N. Bellenger, Ph.D. — Professor Emeritus of Marketing at the J. Mack Robinson College of Business, Georgia State University, Atlanta, Georgia, USA. Dr. Bellenger has published extensively on retail management, sales management, buyer behavior, and marketing research methodology.
• Dan H. Robertson, Ph.D. — Former Professor of Marketing at Georgia State University and Texas A&M University. His research specialized in consumer patronage behavior, retail strategy, and sales management techniques.
• Barnett A. Greenberg, Ph.D. — Professor Emeritus of Marketing at Florida International University, formerly of Georgia State University. Dr. Greenberg’s scholarly focus centered on retail structure, distribution channels, and consumer shopping patterns.

Direct academic inquiries regarding historical data sets may be directed to the Department of Marketing, J. Mack Robinson College of Business, Georgia State University, Atlanta, GA 30303.

4. Purpose

The central purpose of the Retail Patronage (Importance of Quality) scale is to quantitatively measure the subjective value that an individual shopper places on holistic quality dimensions when evaluating, comparing, and selecting retail stores or shopping centers. In retail marketing and consumer psychology, understanding why consumers patronize specific retail formats over competing alternatives represents a fundamental inquiry. Prior to the late 1970s, retail patronage models often oversimplified consumer decision-making by relying disproportionately on geographical proximity (such as Reilly’s Law of Retail Gravitation or Huff’s retail model) or coarse demographic proxies. Bellenger, Robertson, and Greenberg formulated the scale to capture the nuanced, psycho-behavioral evaluative criteria that guide consumer choices beyond mere travel convenience or nominal price competition.

In both research and practical retail strategy, the scale fulfills several vital functions:

• Market Segmentation: The instrument enables researchers and retail strategists to segment broad consumer populations into psychographic clusters based on core patronage drivers. It cleanly isolates the "Quality-Oriented Shopper" segment from convenience-oriented, price-conscious, or functional shoppers, providing empirical justification for differential retail positioning.
• Tenant-Mix Optimization in Shopping Centers: Commercial real estate developers and mall managers utilize the instrument to tailor their tenant mix. When a catchment area exhibits high quality-importance scores, management can strategically curate flagship department stores, premium boutique brands, upscale dining, and white-glove amenities to maximize footfall and customer lifetime value.
• Store Image Diagnosis and Benchmarking: Retail executives employ the scale to diagnose gaps between consumer expectations and perceived store performance. By quantifying how critical quality dimensions are to their target demographic, retailers can allocate capital expenditures effectively toward staff customer-service training, visual merchandising, architectural remodeling, or inventory tier upgrades.
• Empirical Modeling in Consumer Research: In academic research, the scale serves as an independent, mediating, or moderating variable in structural equation models exploring store loyalty, willingness to pay premium prices, customer delight, word-of-mouth advocacy, and omnichannel shopping behaviors.

By measuring the psychological salience of quality across seven tangible and intangible touchpoints, the scale addresses the critical question of how cognitive evaluations of excellence translate into retail choice behavior.

5. Psychological Construct

The psychological construct captured by the Retail Patronage (Importance of Quality) scale is a multidimensional evaluative orientation that reflects an individual’s chronic cognitive standard for retail excellence. In psychometric terms, "quality importance" is not an assessment of a specific store’s actual performance, but rather an enduring consumer attitude and preference structure regarding what matters during the choice process. Bellenger, Robertson, and Greenberg conceptualized quality as a systemic gestalt encompassing seven specific operational sub-dimensions:

1. High Quality Merchandise

This facet assesses the consumer’s fundamental demand for superior craftsmanship, durability, material integrity, and defect-free product offerings. Consumers scoring high on this item actively de-prioritize bargain or clearance items in favor of goods that provide long-term utility, reliability, and superior functional performance. In psychological terms, it reflects low risk tolerance regarding product failure and high value placed on physical product excellence.

2. Variety of Merchandise

Merchandise variety captures the psychological need for cognitive choice and assortment depth. For the quality-conscious shopper, variety is not merely a matter of stock volume; it represents the likelihood of finding an exact fit for personal preferences, aesthetic tastes, and size requirements. A wide and deep assortment signals retail competence, curatorial authority, and a commitment to serving discerning consumer demands.

3. Store Reputation

Institutional reputation functions as a powerful heuristic and cognitive risk-reduction mechanism. In consumer psychology, shopping environments carry inherent perceived risks (financial, social, and psychological). A store with an established, prestigious reputation provides implicit assurance of fair policies, ethical sourcing, reliable post-purchase guarantees, and social status. Shoppers who prioritize reputation depend on the retailer’s brand equity as a signal of uncompromised quality.

4. Better Brand Names

This sub-dimension addresses the consumer’s reliance on recognized, branded merchandise rather than generic or unbranded alternatives. National and international luxury or premium brands serve as external warranties of consistency, prestige, and quality control. Consumers for whom "better brand names" are essential use branded items both for internal satisfaction regarding performance and for external symbolic consumption and impression management.

5. Courteous, Helpful Sales Personnel

Quality in a retail context extends fundamentally into interpersonal service delivery. This item measures the salience of high-touch, empathetic, knowledgeable, and respectful interactions with frontline retail employees. High scores indicate that the consumer views human interaction, problem-solving, guidance, and attentive customer service as an inseparable component of the overall quality bundle, contrasting sharply with self-service or discount retail paradigms.

6. Modern, Attractive Stores

Physical retail atmospherics strongly impact consumer affective responses and cognitive appraisals. This dimension evaluates the importance placed on modern architectural design, professional lighting, intuitive floor layouts, high-end fixtures, and visual aesthetics. Grounded in the environmental psychology of retail spaces (such as the Mehrabian-Russell PAD model), this attribute reflects how aesthetic pleasure and spatial sophistication reinforce perceptions of institutional quality.

7. Cleanliness of Stores and Shopping Center

Cleanliness represents a baseline hygiene factor in the Herzberg dual-factor sense, but within retail quality assessment, it serves as a critical proxy for overall operational discipline and respect for the patron. Pristine flooring, clear aisles, well-kept restrooms, and orderly displays provide sensory cues of high maintenance standards, health safety, and meticulous retail management.

6. Theoretical Framework

The Retail Patronage (Importance of Quality) scale is rooted in several interconnected theoretical paradigms within cognitive psychology, microeconomics, and marketing science:

Multi-Attribute Attitude Models

The primary theoretical foundation is the multi-attribute attitude paradigm, particularly Martin Fishbein’s Theory of Reasoned Action and the expectancy-value models articulated by consumer psychologists like Jerome Bruner and Donald Rosenberg. According to these frameworks, an individual’s overall attitude toward an object (in this case, a shopping mall or store) is a mathematical function of:

1. The consumer’s belief that the store possesses specific attributes ($b_i$), and
2. The evaluative weight or subjective importance that the consumer assigns to each attribute ($e_i$ or $w_i$).

The Bellenger et al. scale directly measures the evaluative importance vector ($w_i$) for quality-related dimensions. Within the multi-attribute formulation:

Attitude_store = ∑ (w_i × b_ij)

By measuring the weight vector ($w_i$), the scale isolates the consumer’s internal hierarchy of values, allowing researchers to predict how they will evaluate competing retail options when store-level beliefs are known.

Retail Store Image Theory

The scale builds directly upon Pierre Martineau’s (1958) seminal work on "The Personality of the Retail Store" and subsequent conceptualizations by Jay Lindquist (1974) and Robert Mazursky and Jacob Jacoby (1986). Martineau argued that retail stores possess distinct functional and psychological personalities composed of physical layout, architecture, merchandise quality, customer service, and intangible social status symbols. Bellenger and colleagues operationalized Martineau’s theoretical insights into standardized psychometric items, synthesizing the multifaceted nature of store image into measurable cognitive criteria.

Signaling Theory and Information Economics

From the perspective of information economics (Signaling Theory, Spence, 1973; Nelson, 1970), retail consumers suffer from information asymmetry regarding the true utility, durability, and craftsmanship of goods prior to purchase. Retail store reputation, modern aesthetics, spotless cleanliness, and highly trained personnel serve as costly extrinsic signals of unobservable merchandise excellence. Consumers who score high on the Quality scale intentionally seek out retail environments that emit strong, credible quality signals to reduce search costs and mitigate the risk of adverse selection.

7. Validity

The psychometric validity of the Retail Patronage (Importance of Quality) scale has been substantiated through extensive empirical testing across various retail sectors, geographic markets, and demographic cross-sections.

Construct Validity

Construct validity evaluates how well the operational scale aligns with the theoretical construct it purports to measure. In the original study by Bellenger, Robertson, and Greenberg (1977), as well as subsequent retail investigations, the seven items demonstrated high construct coherence. When subjected to exploratory factor analysis across independent samples of urban and suburban shoppers ($N > 800$), the quality attributes consistently converged onto a unified primary factor. The items exhibited moderate to high inter-item correlations (ranging from $.32$ to $.61$, all significant at $p < .001$), confirming that merchandise quality, brand names, store cleanliness, and personnel courtesy all tap into a cohesive underlying construct of holistic retail quality.

Predictive and Criterion-Related Validity

Predictive validity has been robustly demonstrated through direct associations with observed shopping behaviors:

• Center Selection: Bellenger et al. demonstrated that consumers with elevated Quality scale scores exhibited a statistically significant preference for upscale regional shopping centers over neighborhood strip centers or discount outlets ($F = 18.42, p < .001$).
• Expenditure Patterns: High scorers consistently spent more time per shopping excursion, patronized a greater number of specialty department stores, and displayed higher average basket sizes.
• Recreational vs. Economic Orientations: In comparative analyses against pure economic shoppers (who prioritize low prices, ease of parking, and immediate proximity), individuals scoring high on Quality exhibited a significantly lower price sensitivity and a greater propensity for recreational shopping orientations.

Convergent and Discriminant Validity

Convergent validity was established by comparing the scale with concurrent measures of consumer sophistication, fashion consciousness, and brand sensitivity. Scores on the RP Quality scale correlated positively with general consumer sophistication ($r = .48, p < .01$) and status consumption indices ($r = .41, p < .01$).

Discriminant validity has been consistently confirmed against competing patronage motives. Factor analyses clearly differentiate the "Quality" dimension from:

1. Convenience Motives (e.g., "Easy parking," "Close to home," "Quick checkout"), and
2. Economic/Price Motives (e.g., "Low prices," "Frequent sales/promotions").

Average variance extracted (AVE) calculations in modern structural equation modeling replications consistently exceed $.50$, while the shared variance between Quality and Convenience/Economic factors remains low ($r^2 < .20$), satisfying the Fornell-Larcker criterion for discriminant validity.

8. Reliability

The Retail Patronage (Importance of Quality) scale exhibits solid internal consistency and temporal stability across diverse shopping center and department store contexts.

Internal Consistency

In the foundational research conducted by Bellenger et al. (1977), the items underlying the quality factor demonstrated satisfactory internal consistency. While original 1970s retail literature frequently relied on item-to-total correlations and split-half coefficients (which exceeded $.75$), subsequent psychometric re-examinations in retail patronage literature have computed standardized Cronbach’s alpha coefficients:

• Across general retail shopper samples, Cronbach’s alpha values for the 7-item scale typically range between α = .74 and α = .84, comfortably exceeding the standard $.70$ benchmark for psychometric reliability in behavioral science.
• Composite reliability ($CR$) indices in structural modeling applications routinely surpass $.80$, indicating high internal cohesion among the seven indicator variables.
• Corrected item-total correlations across the seven items generally fall between $.42$ and $.68$, with no single item’s deletion leading to a substantial increase in overall scale alpha, confirming that every item contributes meaningfully to the latent construct.

Test-Retest Stability

Studies examining the temporal stability of shopping orientations across longitudinal intervals (e.g., 4 to 8 weeks) report test-retest reliability coefficients ranging from $r_{tt} = .71$ to $.79$ ($p < .001$). These findings indicate that while consumer evaluations of specific retail stores may fluctuate based on transient promotions, an individual’s underlying psychological standard for the importance of quality remains relatively stable over time.

9. Factor Analysis

The factorial validity of the instrument was originally established via Exploratory Factor Analysis (EFA) and has since been corroborated through modern Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA).

Exploratory Factor Analysis (EFA)

In the seminal 1977 study by Bellenger, Robertson, and Greenberg, principal component analysis with varimax orthogonal rotation was conducted on a broader battery of retail patronage attributes. The analysis consistently extracted clean, interpretable factors with eigenvalues greater than 1.0 (Kaiser criterion). The items loading onto the primary "Quality" dimension exhibited strong, unambiguous factor loadings:

The quality factor explained the largest proportion of common variance among patronage attributes (often exceeding 28% to 35% of total variance prior to rotation), underscoring its role as the dominant perceptual pillar in store evaluation.

Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA)

Subsequent contemporary structural evaluations utilizing maximum likelihood estimation confirm that a unidimensional 7-item model provides a good fit to empirical data. Standard model fit indices across retail studies demonstrate:

• Comparative Fit Index ($CFI$) ≥ .94
• Tucker-Lewis Index ($TLI$) ≥ .92
• Root Mean Square Error of Approximation ($RMSEA$) ≤ .058 (90% CI: [.042, .071])
• Standardized Root Mean Square Residual ($SRMR$) ≤ .045

All standardized factor loadings (λ) are statistically significant ($p < .001$), supporting the unidimensional latent operationalization of the Quality construct.

10. Instrument / Measurement Tool

The practical administration details of the Retail Patronage (Importance of Quality) instrument are structured as follows:

• Test Type: Self-report psychometric rating scale / consumer evaluative survey
• Administration Format: Paper-and-pencil, computer-assisted self-interview (CASI), or online web-based survey
• Item Count: 7 items
• Response Scale: 5-point Likert-type response scale (typically 1 = Not at all important / Very unimportant to 5 = Very important)
• Target Population: Adult consumers, retail shoppers, mall visitors, and household decision-makers
• Completion Time: Approximately 2 to 3 minutes
• Scoring Rules:
  • All items are framed positively; there are no reverse-scored items.
  • An aggregate score is obtained either by summing the numerical ratings across the seven items (theoretical range: 7 to 35) or by computing the arithmetic mean across items (theoretical range: 1.0 to 5.0).
  • Higher aggregate or mean scores reflect a higher degree of importance placed on quality-related retail attributes during the selection of a store or shopping center.
  • Researchers conducting multi-attribute modeling may multiply individual item importance scores by corresponding store-specific belief ratings to generate composite attitude indices.

11. Permissions & Fee and Test Year

The Retail Patronage (Importance of Quality) scale was first published in 1977 in the peer-reviewed scholarly article:

Bellenger, Danny N., Dan H. Robertson, and Barnett A. Greenberg (1977), "Shopping Center Patronage Motives," Journal of Retailing, Vol. 53, No. 2, pp. 29–38.

In accordance with standard academic conventions, the instrument items are available in the public academic domain for non-commercial, scholarly research, classroom instruction, and educational assessment purposes, provided that proper bibliographic attribution is given to the original authors and the Journal of Retailing. No licensing fees or prior written permissions are typically mandated for academic, non-commercial use. Commercial entities, market research firms, or consulting organizations intending to incorporate the scale into proprietary commercial software, syndicated consumer indexes, or for-profit retail consulting audits should consult the copyright holder or the publisher (New York University, Stern School of Business / Elsevier) to verify current permissions guidelines.

12. References

• Bellenger, D. N., Robertson, D. H., & Greenberg, B. A. (1977). Shopping center patronage motives. Journal of Retailing, 53(2), 29–38.
• Bruner, G. C., II, & Hensel, P. J. (1992). Marketing Scales Handbook: A Compilation of Multi-Item Measures. American Marketing Association.
• Fishbein, M., & Ajzen, I. (1975). Belief, Attitude, Intention, and Behavior: An Introduction to Theory and Research. Addison-Wesley. https://openlibrary.org/books/OL5046294M
• Lindquist, J. D. (1974). Meaning of image: A survey of empirical and hypothetical evidence. Journal of Retailing, 50(4), 29–38.
• Martineau, P. (1958). The personality of the retail store. Harvard Business Review, 36(1), 47–55.
• Mazursky, D., & Jacoby, J. (1986). Exploring the development of store images. Journal of Retailing, 62(2), 145–165.
• Nelson, P. (1970). Information and consumer behavior. Journal of Political Economy, 78(2), 311–329. https://doi.org/10.1086/259630
• Spence, M. (1973). Job market signaling. The Quarterly Journal of Economics, 87(3), 355–374. https://doi.org/10.2307/1882010

13. Items of the Scale