Impacts of retail brand personality and self-congruity on store loyalty: The moderating role of gender

•Explore the symbolic retail brand benefits-store loyalty links.•Also explore the moderating role of gender in these symbolic retail brand benefits-store loyalty links.•Results reveal that symbolic retail brand benefits have positive impacts on store loyalty and gender significantly moderates these impacts.•The findings have implications for retailing theory and managerial practice.

The present study was an effort to investigate the impacts of both retail brand personality and self-congruity, using them together in the same study, on store loyalty. Subsequently, this study explored the moderating role of gender in these relationships of retail brand personality and self-congruity with store loyalty. Questionnaire was used to collect data (n=355) using systematic sampling from department store shoppers of age 18 years and above in Kolkata, a metropolitan city of India. Multivariate data analysis techniques like exploratory factor analysis, structural equation modeling were used to analyse the data. Results revealed that both retail brand personality and self-congruity constructs have positive impacts on store loyalty and gender significantly moderates these impacts. Arguably, this paper is the first to examine the three constructs namely, retail brand personality, self-congruity and store loyalty using them together in the same model. Academic and managerial implications are further discussed.