Perceived Value and Brand Loyalty in Fine Dining Service

The Value Phenomenon

The value phenomenon has assumed centre stage in marketing due to the developments in the demand and supply side of business. On the demand side, the choice and information is making consumer highly demanding, unwilling to absorb any dissatisfaction. On the other hand, there has been great intensification of competition fostered by diminished barriers to the flow of goods and firms. In such a scenario, development and delivery to loyalty generating value seems the only panacea. The strategy must therefore begin with an understanding of what constitutes value for target consumer. Value conceptualization broadens the exchange perspective to include all forms of flows between parties. A marketing exchange is much more than simple good and monetary flows. It involves other aspects including time and efforts. It is a tradeoff concept encompassing all qualitative and/or quantitative, subjective and/or objective aspects that constitutes the consumption experience (Zeithaml, 1988). The two sides in the value equation are made up of benefits and sacrifices. The benefits include functional, economic and social for which money, time, and efforts may be sacrificed.

Although the construct of CPV appeared long back in the marketing, yet the literature on the concept is fragmented and suffers from lack of clarity. Woodruff (1997) argues that there is an absence of widely accepted theoretical foundation. The abstraction surrounding the construct makes it amenable to misinterpretations. It is often confused with concepts like quality, benefits, and price (Zeithaml, 1988). It is in this background that the CPV construct deserves more academic attention and empirical verification. In terms of construct domain, the definitional analysis views CPV as ‘a trade-off between benefits received against sacrifices made’ in which functional or utilitarian aspect are the key components (Kainth & Verma, 2011).