How do e-brand experience and in-store experience influence the brand loyalty of novel coffee brands in China? Exploring the roles of customer satisfaction and self–brand congruity

Abstract

China’s coffee sector is experiencing a transformation related to sustainability. While the media have reported various novel coffee brands in China, scholars have mostly focused on established non-Chinese coffee brands. These studies still cite the relevance of the growing middle class, which adopts coffee as part of an ‘exquisite Western lifestyle’ and form the antecedents of brand loyalty from an established coffee brand perspective. These antecedents may not directly apply to novel coffee brands that face the changing consumption habits of younger Chinese consumers, who stress coffee’s functionality and price performance. Drawing on a social service perspective, this study addresses how E-brand experience and in-store experience each affect customer satisfaction and brand loyalty, as well as the role of customer’s self–brand congruity. The conceptual model was empirically tested using an online survey of 332 Chinese novel coffee brand customers. Our results suggest that E-brand experience (EBE) and in-store experience (SBE) both affect customer satisfaction (CA), with each relationship moderated by self–brand congruity (SBC); CA mediates the relationship between EBE and brand loyalty and that between SBE and brand loyalty. Moreover, younger respondents in this study were more likely to develop customer satisfaction and brand loyalty toward novel Chinese coffee brands.