Eco-warriors: Shifting sustainable retail strategy via authentic retail brand image

• Sustainable retail brand strategy traditionally focuses on supply chain issues such as reducing manufacturing and transport waste.
• This research investigates how authentic sustainable store brand image supports retail strategy.
• Outcomes of an authentically sustainable retail image include enabling consumers to trust in retailer’s claims.
• Further, to embrace those products as a way to protect themselves, support their health, and to catalyse and model sustainable values.
• Such an outcome allows an Eco-warrior retailer brand to better position itself in the marketplace.
• It also helps refine its brand image further, as its customer base coalesces around the values it encourages them to consume and share.

Sustainability in retail often looks at retail supply chains and the effects of retail outputs on people and the planet. Sustainable retail strategy then, in the main, retains this focus. Taking an interpretive approach, this study instead focuses on a successful sustainable retail brand to explore the characters that make up its image. The sustainable New Zealand store and product brand, the Ecostore, is seen by consumers as an Eco-warrior: A legitimate, trustworthy and authentically sustainable store and store brand. Its image is composed of Guardian, Catalyst and Paragon qualities that allow consumers to be healthy and protect themselves, their families, and friends, while also exhibiting and teaching sustainable values to them. Implications of this research for retailers regard not only their branding and positioning, but points to the importance of an authentically sustainable retail orientation – one that has sustainability at its core.

Chinese Abstract零售业的可持续发展性通常着眼于零售供应链以及零售输出物对人类和地球的影响。 因此，可持续发展的零售战略也是以此为主。而这项研究另辟蹊径，诠释性地通过聚焦一个成功的可持续发展的零售品牌来探讨那些塑造其品牌形象的特质。Ecostore是新西兰的一个可持续发展的商店和产品品牌。它被消费者视为一位生态卫士：一个遵纪守法的、值得信赖的、以及真正做到可持续发展的商店和品牌。它的品牌形象由保卫者、推动者和模范者组成，这些品质能为消费者提供健康，并能为他们、他们的家庭和朋友提供保护，同时还能向他们展示和传授可持续发展的价值。这项研究对零售商的意义不仅在于品牌塑造和定位，还在于它诠释了真正可持续发展的零售业导向 — 即以可持续发展性为核心的导向的重要性。