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Brand equity is commonly considered one of the key ways in which every company achieves competitiveness (Nuseir, 2020). In both business practice and academic research, brand equity is a very relevant concept because marketers can benefit from competitive advantages by strong brands (Anselmsson et al., 2017; Çifci et al., 2016). Previous research focuses on understanding how brand value can be established, evaluated and managed (Farquhar, 1989; Jara & Cliquet, 2012; Keller, 2008; Netemeyer et al., 2004; Sasmita & Suki, 2015). More such comprehension of brand equity and its impact is important, as branding is prominent because almost every marketing activity works to create, maintain and leverage brand equity (Aaker, 1991; Keller, 1993). Customers want to spend more money on their preferred brands because they feel that no competitor can provide more value than their chosen brand (Raut et al., 2019). The customer's premium price is partly justified by brand loyalty (Kataria & Saini, 2020). Brand loyalty is, thus, considered a pre-requisite for profitability and longevity of an organization (Chaudhuri & Holbrook, 2001). A strong brand equity tends to offer high quality of services to their customers (Jeon, 2017; Su & Chang, 2018). When the customers are able to identify and recall a particular brand and its positive experience with that brand, their loyalty towards that brand increases (Quan et al., 2020). Without the loyal customers almost no business will survive and one of the most reliable ways of achieving loyalty is to improve the brand of the company (Souri, 2017).
Extant literature were unable to achieve a clear consensus on the relationship between customer-based brand equity and brand loyalty (Kataria & Saini, 2020; Lei & Chu, 2015). Aaker (1991) opined brand loyalty as one of the essential elements of brand equity while Keller (1993) claimed brand loyalty not as determinant but as an outcome of brand equity. Also, Nam et al., (2011) endorsed Keller's view and stated that loyalty is not an aspect of brand equity, but rather a result of it because brand equity is a perception while loyalty is a behavioural construct linked to purchase intention. Hence, brand loyalty is considered as a dependent variable of brand equity and not as a determinant. Therefore, it is important for managers to better understand the concept of brand equity and its effect on brand loyalty of the customers for an improved brand management practice.
Brand equity has become increasingly important for e-commerce industry in India where the competition rivalry is at a very large scale (Amin & Nika, 2019). In the past few decades, there has been rapid global growth in the e-commerce industry, generating intense rivalry among players in the industry. The e-commerce industry in India has advanced upwards and is projected to overtake the US by 2034 to become the world's second largest e-commerce market (IBEF, 2020). In India, the number of online customers in 2018 reached 120 million and is forecast to reach 220 million by 2025. The growth of the e-commerce industry is driven by the increase in digitalization, rising cross-border e-commerce firms, the popularity for online shopping among the young people and increased internet penetration. In India, the internet penetration rose from just 4% in 2007 to 52.08% in 2019 and between 2007 and 2019 reported 24% CAGR. There are expected to increase the number of Internet users in India from 687.62 million by September 2019 to 829 million by 2021. This study focuses on the online shopping industry as it is one of the world's fastest growing (services) industries and the future world's shopping.