Contents lists available at ScienceDirect Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/jretconser Store satisfaction and store loyalty: The moderating role of store atmosphere Barbara Francioni a, ⁎ , Elisabetta Savelli a , Marco Cioppi b a Department of Economics, Society, Politics University of Urbino, Via Saffi, 42, 61029 Urbino, Italy b Department of Communication Sciences, Humanities and International Studies. Cultures, Languages, Literatures, Arts, Media University of Urbino, Via Saffi, 42, 61029 Urbino, Italy 1. Introduction Store loyalty is a topic of great interest to both academics and companies (Martos-Partal and González-Benito, 2013), and several antecedents of store loyalty have been studied in recent years. Customer satisfaction with a store has been indicated as one of the major pre- cursors of store loyalty (Kumar et al., 2013), even if questionable. Store atmosphere has also received increasing attention, especially the question of what atmospherics most affect consumer shopping behavior in a store (Turley and Milliman, 2000). However, although the majority of studies demonstrate a positive relationship between store loyalty and both consumer satisfaction and store atmosphere, some contributions reveal contradictory results (Bloemer and de Ruyter, 1998). Therefore, more research is needed on this topic. In addition, to our knowledge, there is a lack of studies that examine the role of store atmosphere in the relationship between store sa- tisfaction and loyalty. Therefore, the principal aim of this article is to add to the literature and provide a picture of how the perception of store atmosphere can increase or decrease the effect of store satisfaction on store loyalty. To achieve this, we used data from a panel of 623 Italian customers from 2010 to 2012. Panel data analysis was preferred because it allows the investigation of a certain phenomenon across time and individuals, thus providing an effective and dynamic exploration of the research issue. This research provides two main contributions to the extant litera- ture on store loyalty. First, it examines the effect of store satisfaction and store atmosphere on loyalty in a longitudinal way. To the best of our knowledge, no other studies adopted this methodology. Second, it provides initial evidence of how, in addition to directly influencing store loyalty, store atmosphere also has a moderating effect on the re- lationship between store satisfaction and store loyalty. The rest of the paper is structured as follows. The next section presents the theoretical background and introduces the hypotheses. Section 3 outlines the research methods, explaining the sample, the variables, and the research design. Section 4 describes the empirical outcomes, while the last section provides conclusions as well as re- search limitations and propositions for future work. 2. Literature review and hypotheses 2.1. Store loyalty The concept of loyalty was originally conceived through the adop- tion of a behavioral perspective (Bridson et al., 2008). One of the oldest and most frequently adopted definitions comes from Jacoby and Kyner (1973, p. 2), who define loyalty as “a biased behavioral response ex- pressed over time by a decision-making unit with respect to one or more alternative brands out of a set of brands and being a function of psy- chological processes”. Bustos-Reyes and González-Benito (2008, p. 1016) provide a more comprehensive definition, where “loyalty refers to consumer behavior guided by a brand, product, or particular store over time, operationalized as the observed patterns of purchase re- petition or relative volume of purchase of the same brands or in the same stores”. Over the years, several authors (Meyer-Waarden, 2015; Oliver, 1999) have noted that the attitudinal approach should also be con- sidered, i.e., when “customers feel a sense of belonging or commitment to the good or service” (Thomas, 2013, p. 18). However, different re- searchers support the use of the behavioral approach, including specific measures, particularly when it is not possible to obtain attitudinal in- formation, such as in the case of frequent consumption markets, when evaluating repeatedly purchased products, or when analyzing situations involving only purchase data (Bustos-Reyes and González-Benito, 2008; Oliver, 1999). At the store level, authors measure behavioral store loyalty using different variables (Bustos-Reyes and González-Benito, 2008), such as repetition of purchases in the store (Sivadas and Baker-Prewitt, 2000), repeat patronage (Johnson et al., 2015), switching frequency (Knox and Denison, 2000; Martos-Partal and González-Benito, 2013), customers’ frequency of visiting a store (Martinelli and Balboni, 2012), and con- sumption expenditure in a store (Bustos-Reyes and González-Benito, 2008; East et al., 1995). A growing interest in the analysis of factors influencing behavioral store loyalty has also developed, placing emphasis on store satisfaction (Kumar et al., 2013). Although previous studies have examined behavioral store loyalty https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jretconser.2018.05.005 Received 14 October 2016; Received in revised form 23 April 2018; Accepted 10 May 2018 ⁎ Corresponding author. E-mail addresses: barbara.francioni@uniurb.it (B. Francioni), elisabetta.savelli@uniurb.it (E. Savelli), marco.cioppi@uniurb.it (M. Cioppi). Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services 43 (2018) 333–341 0969-6989/ © 2018 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. T