VALIDITY AND RELIABILITY OF TURKISH ADAPTATION OF THE STORE PERSONALITY SCALE

Abstract

1. LITERATURE

In determining the customer base of a retail store, there is sufficient power as well as location factors, price ranges and product presentations. It is suggested that this power is the store personality or the store image. The store is defined as an atmosphere (aura) of partly functional properties and partly psychological properties in the customers' mind (Martineau, 1958:47). Store personality is generally expressed as a mental description of a store on dimensions that address human personality (d'Astous and Levesque, 2003:457). Although store personality is a concept derived from brand personality, there are some differences between the two concepts (Das et al., 2013:474). While generally positive statements about personality are included in the Aaker (1997)’ brand personality scale, both positive and negative expressions are included in the d'Astous and Levesque (2003)’ scale which is the widely used scale of store personality. Also, while there may be various overlaps between the meanings of brand personality and store brand personality, some meanings such as sales personnel are specific to retail stores (Das et al., 2013:474). Zentes et al. (2008) suggest that Aaker (1997) 's brand personality scale can be used to evaluate the personality of retail stores/brands, but the scale is not entirely appropriate (Zentes et al., 2008:180).

While there are many international studies on the store personality literature (d'Astous & Levesque, 2003; Willems et al., 2011; Das et al., 2013), in the national literature, comprehensive studies on the validity and reliability of store personality have not been found. Besides, while measuring the studies in the national literature about store personality, the use of international scales and the lack of a Turkish version of the scale is the starting point of this study. In this context, the main aim of this study is to test the validity and reliability of the store personality scale in Turkey.

1. DESIGN AND METHOD

In this study convenience sampling method, one of the non-probability sampling methods was preferred. The research was carried out with two different study groups in Rize city centre. The first study group was conducted on 45 participants who received service from the International coffee chain for the pretest. The second study group of the study was applied on 477 (235 women, 242 men) people who received service from the International coffee chain to conduct AFA and DFA analyzes in order to determine the validity and reliability of the Turkish form of the scale. The data was collected in May 2019, and face to face questionnaire was applied as the data collection technique.

1. FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION

In this research applied on international coffee chain customers, the store personality dimensions of the coffee chain were obtained differently from the original scale (d'Astous and Levesque 2003) as a result of the exploratory factor analysis (EFA) and confirmatory factor analysis (CFA). Firstly, factor analysis was applied to the data. Seven factors were obtained, explaining 64% of the total variance. It shows that the factors with high explanation rate have an essential effect on the determination of the store personality of the customers receiving service from the international coffee chain. The "enthusiasm" factor with 12.66% have an essential effect on determining the store personality perception of consumers receiving service from the international coffee chain. While this factor is followed by the "Genuineness" factor with 9.56%, the "Leadership" factor with 9.19% has the third significant effect on the store personality scale. The seven-dimensional structure of the "Store Personality" scale, whose construct validity was provided with exploratory factor analysis, was also carried out with confirmatory factor analysis. In the confirmatory factor analysis, it was observed that the seven-dimensional structure and all items ensure scale fit at an acceptable level. Composite reliability and average variance values were examined to explain the convergent validity of the scale. It can be said that the convergent validity is provided. After applying AFA and DFA analysis, it is seen that the analysis results overlap. It is recommended to look at the Pearson correlation analysis to examine the relationship between the seven dimensions that emerged in both analyzes. As a result, it is seen that there is a significant relationship between all dimensions of the scale.

1. CONCLUSION AND RECOMMENDATIONS:

There is a difference between the original scale dimensions and the scale dimensions obtained. The difference arises from the fact that the unpleasantness dimension in the original scale is divided into two separate dimensions, unpleasantness and outdatedness; and the dimension of solidity is divided into two dimensions, namely solidity and leadership. The Store Personality Scale was found in 7 dimensions consisting of 29 items as a result of EFA and DFA in order to contribute to Turkish literature. These dimensions are named as enthusiasm, sophistication, genuineness, leader, solidity, unpleasantness and outdatedness by considering factor loadings and sticking to the original scale. The results of the exploratory factor analysis are consistent with the results of the confirmatory factor analysis. This may be related to the mass involved in study and culture. It can be said that the Turkish version of the store personality scale is a reliable and valid measurement tool at an acceptable level. In future studies, this research can be repeated on the customers of different retail formats and groups that have different demographic and psychographic characteristics in terms of the validity of the scale.