To maximize profits as a company you can proceed in two ways: at customer level; attracting and holding them. The latter can be done by creating a long-term relationship with the customer. It could be argued that by maintaining this so-called loyalty the consumer will become dependent on his supplier. The question is whether an impulse-driven consumer really loses his independence or whether long-term relationships do not imply loyalty. Customer loyalty is often strongly linked to repeat purchases, however this is not the whole story. It is a two-dimensional construct that contains behavior, in this case repeat purchases, but also relative attitude. Relative attitude can be explained as a function of object evaluation. The factors that create a relative attitude can be divided into three categories. There are cognitive antecedents – associated with information such as “brand beliefs”, affective antecedents – the feeling a consumer has towards a product and a conative antecedent – ​​think about factors such as sunk costs or expectations. In this model, customers are divided into four loyalty groups. Those with high relative attitude and a high number of repeat purchases, those with neither, and a combination of both. The aim is to see if a customer is truly loyal and therefore predict their loyalty and defection. A consumer who always buys from the same store, but has a relatively low attitude, is not someone who depends on that supplier. It will also abandon its supplier when it finds another brand or product in which it has a strong relative attitude (Dick & Basu, 1994). To test whether the effects of relative attitudes on loyalty an experiment was conducted. Customers of several supermarkets in Britain and New-Z...... middle of paper ......iment, it can be concluded that loyalty is more than buying a product over and over again. Providing incentives in the form of discounts and gifts will lead to repeat purchases, but does not affect relative attitude at all. Instead of these loyalty programs, companies should focus on designing better products to influence relative attitude. In the end, the big queues at Apple outlets weren't due to the discounts they offered.Works CitedDick, A., & Basu, K. (1994). Customer loyalty: towards an integrated framework. Journal of the Academy of Marketing Sciences, 99-113. East, R., Sinclair, J., & Gendall, R. (2000). Fidelity: Testing the Dick and Basu model. ANZMAC Conference, (pp. CD-ROM). Griffith University, Gold Coast. Garland, R., & Gendall, P. (2004). Testing Dick and Basu's customer loyalty model. Australian Marketing Journal, 81-87.