Service Quality Dimensions: A Study on Various Sizes of Grocery Retailers – A conceptual Paper

The slow growth of grocery products in Malaysia since the Asian financial crisis and the influx of multinational and large scale retailers since early 1990s allow Malaysian consumers to be more selective of their choice of grocery stores. Smaller grocery stores in Malaysia are seen as offering more personal services but with inadequate stocks and facilities; a contrast to the larger retailers which are seen as offering better merchandise choice and public amenities but with standardized and non-personalized services.As grocery retailers are seen as offering similar products in the store, improving service quality is seen as critical to ensure customer loyalty. Despite the extensive research on the measures used by consumers to measure service quality in the service sector, there is lack of empirical studies on it in the retail sector. A need to look into service quality dimensions for each country is called for, as each country is believed to have its own unique set of quality dimensions. This conceptual paper identifies the service quality dimensions critical to urban grocery shoppers for small, medium, and large-sized grocery stores. It will identify the critical quality dimension of Malaysia urban grocery shoppers based on the Retail Service Quality Scale by Dabholkar et al., (1996) that takes into account the retail setting. The instrument will be modified based on literature review.