Attributes of loyalty card programme membership and their influence on customers’ behavioural and attitudinal loyalty: a case of fashion retailing in the Sri Lankan context

Abstract

Purpose: Loyalty card programmes are commonly used by fashion retailers with the intention of building customer loyalty and increasing the efficiency and effectiveness of company financial performance. The purpose of this paper is to study whether customer loyalty depends on the loyalty membership, number of loyalty cards and gender. These questions remained unanswered as the past studies showed mixed results and even very few studies have been carried out in Sri Lanka on this topic. 
 Design/methodology/approach: The study critically analyses the influence of loyalty card programs under three aspects; the loyalty program membership, the number of loyalty cards available, and the gender of the cardholders to find out if there is any loyalty difference between male and female customers. 250 fashion retail customers within the Western Province of Sri Lanka were conveniently selected for the sample. All hypotheses were tested using an independent sample t- test. 
 Findings: The findings show that a loyalty difference exists between the customer being a member of a loyalty card programme and a non-member whereas no difference is shown in terms of the number of cards a customer holds and the customer’s gender. 
 Originality: The study fills the existing gaps of knowledge and arrives at a proper conclusion on the influence of loyalty card programme membership on both behavioural and attitudinal loyalty in fashion retailing in the South Asian context whereas the majority of the studies have focused on grocery retailing (Liu, 2007and influence on behavioural loyalty aspect only (Ha, 2007).
 Implications: The loyalty programmes can be identified as a means of building customer loyalty. It brings other benefits for retailers such as providing opportunities for personalization and aiding in decision-making encouraging to invest on such programmes. While the present study fills the gap of knowledge regarding the attributes of loyalty programs and gender to some extent it still offers a lot of potential for future research.