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Top1. Introduction
Huang C. (2004) pointed out that after the 1990's, due to the high economic development in Taiwan, national income rose, and people’s living standards and quality of life improved. This also change patterns of living and created new consuming trends, and promoted the rapid growth of the integrated retail industry (such as hypermarkets, convenience stores, supermarkets and other chain stores). As a result, the traditional retail industry gradually lost the market. Hypermarket rose in recent years, with large store spaces, complete list of items, cheap and convenient parking and other advantages, leading to their growth, and contributing to their outstanding performance in the retail sphere. Hypermarkets occupy a pivotal position in Taiwan's integrated retail market, and also contribute to enhancing employment opportunities and promoting industrial prosperity. Hypermarkets have also attracted many scholars in Taiwan to carry out extensive studies on the topic of hypermarkets (Zhang G., 1992; Huang J., 2003; Huang H., 2003; Zhang Y., 2004; Zhang J., 2001; Li Q., 2004).
Examining the development of hypermarkets in Taiwan, beginning with the establishment of Markro and Carrefour in 1989 to 2003, respectively, there were originally 97 stores. After year 2000, in a highly competitive environment, the number of hypermarkets reduced significantly, since the market environment had become highly competitive and oversaturated. In 2004, the highest share of Carrefour had 31 stores, followed by 22 stores of Rt-Mart, and 13 stores of Fe-amart. These three hypermarkets had a total of 66 shops, a share of 68% of retail market, showing that hypermarket dominated the retail market in Taiwan (Huang C., 2004). Therefore, as far as the operation of Taiwan's hypermarkets is concerned, how to establish a hypermarket’s profits in a competitive environment should be a topic of consideration for the operators of hypermarkets. According to the study of Mitchell (2001), store image has a certain impact on store operation performance. Having store staff inside and outside the store, store design, its display of merchandise, customer service and other factors contribute to create a unique store image, so that customers can have a good understanding and impression of the store, and therefore will be more likely to return and shop at the store. This study intends to establish that a good image of the stores will help enhance customer’s awareness and create a positive association, and thus help improve stores’ operational performance. After reviewing the current literature regarding hypermarkets in Taiwan, most of them emphasize on how to improve the quality of service, improve customer satisfaction, enhance customer loyalty, establish a hypermarket's own brand, and engage in promotional activities. Although there are a few studies focusing on the store image, the emphasis is on the combination of marketing strategy and having the brand itself lead the discussion (company point of view). Little literature explores how to enhance the store image of a shop in order to encourage a customer’s willingness to provide repeat business (customer point of view). According to Baker (2002), the willingness of customers to repurchase is an important indicator of consumer behavior. Thus, this study holds that it is important to explore customers’ willingness to return and shop. However, consumers’ behavior is varied in different countries or regions, therefore, it is necessary to re-examined the constructs of willingness to repurchase for evaluating consumers’ behavior in Taiwan. In order to establish a suitable questionnaire for this research purpose, a data analysis technique is needed for deeply examining the content of questionnaire and factor loading analysis may be applied.