PurposeThe opening up of the Indian retail sector has seen a proliferation of the corporate players through different retail formats and stores – the majority being in the food and groceries. This necessitates creating, building, and managing differentiated retail store brands, and image differentiation, to attract and retain shoppers. This research paper attempts to understand whether the Indian consumers differentiate the various store brands and images based on their experiences.Design/methodology/approachThe study was conducted in two stages – list of parameters of evaluation of retail store image (developed from the literature), discussed with middle‐level managers from the retail sector to finalize parameters relevant for store image measurement in the Indian context and a questionnaire evolved for primary data collection, administered to 326 SEC A and B respondents (shoppers of food and grocery from modern retail stores). To assess the store image dimensions perceived by these shoppers, factor analysis was employed and for understanding various store image attributes used for differentiation of store brands one‐way analysis of variance was employed.FindingsResults reflect that Indian shoppers have started identifying the dimensions of retail store image and are differentiating the various stores on the basis of functional attributes. Eventually, the stores would have to create differentiation based on psychological attributes.Research limitations/implicationsThe paper is limited to the organised modern food and grocery retail stores of Ahmedabad city.Originality/valueThe paper can be helpful to Indian retail store chains to focus on elements to create a differentiated store image.