CUSTOMERS’ BRAND AWARENESS, BRAND TRUST, AND BRAND LOYALTY FOR PRIVATE LABEL BRANDS IN SOUTH AFRICA.

Abstract

Private label brands have over the years gained insurgence in the grocery retail sector, creating opportunities for grocery retailers to increase variety in product off erings for their customers. Grocery retailers’ eff orts in creating brand awareness, brand trust, and brand loyalty are essential in building favorable customer perceptions towards private label brands. Therefore, in this paper, we explore South African customers’ brand awareness, brand trust, and brand loyalty for private label brands. We used a convergent parallel mixed-method approach, fi rst consisting of a quantitative phase where 389 structured questionnaires were collected and useable to measure customers’ brand awareness, brand trust, and brand loyalty for private label brands; followed by the qualitative phase using semi-structured interviews with 10 grocery retail managers. The results from both customers and grocery retail managers indicated that customers were aware of private label brands, revealing that customers do not entirely trust private label brands and as a result, they are attitudinally loyal.