Effect of shopper attributes on retail format choice behaviour for food and grocery retailing in India

Abstract

PurposeRetailing in India is an unchartered territory. Food and grocery is the most promising area for setting up retail business in India. An understanding of shopper retail format choice behaviour will enable retailers to segment their market and target specific consumer groups with strategies premeditated to meet their retail needs. The purpose of this paper is to make a detailed study on the effect of shoppers' demographic, geographic and psychographic dimensions in terms of format choice behaviour in the fast growing Indian food and grocery retailing.Design/methodology/approachDescriptive research design is adopted applying mall intercept survey method using structured questionnaire for data collection. Both descriptive (mean and standard deviation) and inferential statistical tools like χ2, factor analysis and multivariate analysis are used to analyse the data collected from 1,040 food and grocery retail customers from upgraded neighbourhood kirana stores, convenience stores, supermarkets and hypermarkets in conjoint cities of Secunderabad and Hyderabad in Andhra Pradesh in India.FindingsThe findings suggest that shoppers' age, gender, occupation, education, monthly household income, family size and distance travelled to store have significant association with retail format choice decisions. The choice decisions are also varied among shoppers' demographic attributes. The findings from shoppers' psychographic dimensions like values, lifestyle factors and shopping orientations resulted in segmentation of food and grocery retail consumers into hedonic, utilitarian, autonomous, conventional and socialization type.Practical implicationsThe study has practical implications for food and grocery retailers for better understanding the shopper behaviour in the context of changing consumer demographic and psychographic characteristics in an emerging Indian retail market. The findings may help the retailers to segment and target the food and grocery retail consumers and, as a consequence, to undertake more effective retail marketing strategies for competitive advantage.Originality/valueGiven the absence of published academic literature and empirical findings relating to store format choice behaviour in food and grocery retailing in India, this study may serve as a departure point for future studies in this area of concern. The research is also relevant to retail marketers in terms of format development and reorientation of marketing strategies in the fastest growing Indian retail market.

Grocery Retailing in India: Online Mode versus Retail Store Purchase

“…5;2016 processing industry has kept the organized chains basically non competitive and out of fray from the main marketing scene. Despite these road blocks, organized food retailing is expanding and making its presence felt in different pockets of the country (Prasad & Aryasri, 2011). Now some savvy customers are making a shift towards this format.…”

Examining the Effectiveness of Government Policy for Retail Districts: Evidence from Korea

“…on consumer selection of retail shops [25][26][27][28][29][30][31][32]. In addition, several studies have used socio-economic factors such as academic background and income, etc.…”

“…When choosing a shop, a consumer considers the facilities/services, environmental factors, accessibility, shop mood, salespersons, and their competencies, and so on, as their main factors. When there is a feeling of satisfaction with the experience, the consumer revisits the shop and may recommend it to acquaintances [29,[42][43][44][45][46][47][48][49]. Location factors are also important factors that affect consumer purchase behavior in Korean traditional retail districts [50].…”

Demographic Profiling of Retail Consumers in Zimbabwe

“…However, demographic factors alone do not fully explain retail practice or consumer choices and decisions. Thus, Prasad & Aryasri (2011) asserted that "Traditional demographic variables cannot identify the complete characteristics of an evolutionary retail market because consumers in the same demographic group have very different psychographic make-up". Martínez & Montaner (2008) observed that psychographic rather than the socio-demographic profiling of consumers better explains store brand proneness.…”

“…A study of shopper attributes and behaviour in the retail sector in India recognized that "shoppers' age, gender, occupation, education, monthly household income, family size and distance travelled to store have significant association with retail format choice decisions" (Prasad & Aryasri, 2011). The authors also asserted that demographic factors have important practical implications for food and grocery retailers, for creating better understanding of shopper behaviour, segmenting and targeting consumers and formulating of effective and competitive marketing strategies in the emerging Indian retail markets they studied.…”