Customer perceived service quality in the supermarket and the discount store - Examination of a service quality measurement scale in a Swedish context

Service has traditionally been a forceful competitive tool in grocery retailing. Lately discount stores has proven to be a winning concept within North European grocery re-tailing and this has evoked a renewed interest in service quality and grocery retailing. The overall aim of this study is to enhance the understanding of customer perceived service quality within grocery retailing, by testing a previously published service qual-ity model for Spanish supermarkets in a Swedish supermarket and discount store con-text. The study is based on 400 Swedish customer interviews. The result shows that the traditional grocery store performs better on all service attributes, specifically on assort-ment issues. Also, the findings call for more research on how to measure service quality in north European grocery retailing.