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Introduction
The global supermarket sector was valued at US$8.77tn in 2015 and has shown consistent growth in recent years, and these trends are predicted to continue into the foreseeable future (Grand View Research, 2017). Driving this growth is the increasing disposable income of shoppers that are enabled by technology to shop for whatever, wherever and whenever, and are clearly in the driver’s seat (Lissitsa and Kol, 2016). These market conditions have rewritten the rules of retailing, disrupted traditional business models and necessitated unparalleled transformative change, to better serve more demanding customers and provide an invigorated shopping experience (Lissitsa and Kol, 2016; Malhotra et al., 2017). The enormity and speed of these changes challenge retailer’s growth and profitability, with those retailers unable to cope at risk of losing customers and market share to retailers that can adapt to the fast-changing consumer needs (Lissitsa and Kol, 2016; Zhuang et al., 2018).
Now considering supermarket sector sales through e-commerce channels have jumped by 30% in the past couple of years, supermarkets must implement strategies to transition from traditional brick-and-mortar stores to combining bricks and clicks (Hernant and Rosengren, 2017). Be that as it may, “physical retail stores are not going away” (Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu Limited, 2018, p.6) because “90% of worldwide retail sales are still done in physical stores” (eMarketer, 2017). However, to compete with the convenience of online shopping, supermarkets must also transition from providers of goods to suppliers of unique merchandise offers and service quality beyond what customers can find online, in a unique in-store experience (Hernant and Rosengren, 2017). Service quality is paramount because it influences customer satisfaction and loyalty and retailer profitability (Seth et al., 2005).
The motivation for this research is the existing gaps in the literature and the desire to close those gaps through theoretical and practical contributions. Several studies relating to the interrelationship between service quality and customer loyalty in the supermarket sector of developed and developing countries have been conducted (Kitapci et al., 2013; Ladhari, 2009; Su et al., 2016a). However, research of the supermarket sector of small island developing states (SIDS), such as Fiji, that investigate the context-specific interrelationship between the constructs service quality, customer loyalty and disloyalty, and their dimensions remains understudied. Theory...