What is a retail brand - a systematic review of terms and definitions

PurposeAlthough many scholars have acknowledged inconsistencies in the use of the retail brand term within the existing empirical literature, no one has conducted a systematic study to clarify the confusion of terms. Aiming at unifying the use of terms, this study aims to explore the terms that best express each retail brand concept, and discusses the definitions of proposed terms that can distinguish the connotation of different retail brand concepts.Design/methodology/approachThrough a systematic review, 463 articles were obtained, from which retail brand terms and their definitions were further extracted. Semantic analysis and content analysis were adopted to analyze terms and definitions, respectively.FindingsSemantically, the terms that best express four levels of retail brand concepts are own product brand, store brand, platform brand and retailer brand. Six key elements to distinguish different levels of a retail brand are identified through the content analysis of definitions, and on this basis, four proposed terms are defined.Originality/valueNoting that no study focuses on the conceptual confusion of retail brands in recent decades, the findings are expected to clarify the confusion of terms and unify the use of terms, hence facilitating the communication between scholars and the sharing of research results.