The evolution of the relationships between product attributes in determining consumers' behavioural loyalty

This work presents a new statistical distribution, called Qualitative Multinomial Distribution (QMD), able to analyse the relationships between brands and product attributes in determining consumers’ behavioural loyalty. In this study the QMD will be applied to the retail purchases of wine in Italy made in two three-year periods (2003-2005 and 2006-2008), and the relationships between three product attributes – formats, prices and quality designations – will be observed. The results show a general presence of interaction effects among these attributes. In particular, the outcomes evidence that in both interval times format drives loyalty more than quality designation and price. However, while in 2003-2005 price and format show the strongest interaction, format and quality designation take the lead in 2006-2008.