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This research aims to fill the research gaps regarding customer preferences for digitalisation to create value for retailers and customers, as well as focus on retail change and shopping behaviour in grocery retail stores in the emerging market.

This paper contributes to the research in this area by evaluating customers' and retailers' attitudes towards digital transformation in retailing through interviews. Methodologically, 200 questionnaires were gathered, and data were analysed with the partial least squared structural equation modelling method.

The findings of this study reveal that the effect of digital transformation in the retail industry will be more apparent in an emerging market.

The paper's originality consists in understanding the future retail structure in an emerging market. Notably, focussing on business-to-consumer businesses appears helpful in distinguishing between behavioural (buying) intention and online buying behaviour (actual usage) in an emerging market.

Despite retail digitisation and research efforts focussed on online and omnichannel shopping, there is insufficient knowledge regarding retail patronage formation in the grocery category, where in-store sales dominate. This study analyses the retail patronage formation in grocery in-store fill-in shopping.

The authors designed a questionnaire to measure retail patronage behaviour, consumer satisfaction (CS), store attributes evaluation and e-retail usage. Then, the authors analysed the path structure for retail patronage behaviour formation using structural equation modelling. Additionally, they performed a mediation analysis using the bootstrap method and a moderation analysis based on a chi-square difference test.

This study provides three main findings. First, the authors' model has two ways to increase Share-of-Wallet (SOW). One is to increase Share-of-Visits (SOV) and another is to increase CS amongst non-users of e-retailing. Second, the results of the moderation analysis suggest the influence of customers' use or non-use of e-retailing on SOW formation. Third, service evaluation plays an interesting role in the overall model: the lower the assessment of service, the higher the SOV; the higher the evaluation of service, the greater the CS; the greater the CS, the higher the SOV.

The authors proposed the framework for the relative retail patronage formation in grocery fill-in shopping to examine the relationship between two relative patronage indicators (SOW and SOV) in the path structure and the mediating effect of CS and the moderating effect of e-retailing usage on retail patronage formation.

This study investigates the factors influencing re-usage intention of online and mobile grocery shopping among young adult consumers in South Africa.

Data were collected from selected young adult participants using a stratified probability sampling strategy. Smart PLS was used to analyse the data.

The findings of the study indicate that perceived usefulness (PU), peer review (PR) and attitude (ATT) positively influence continuance intention (CI).

In line with the available literature, there are few prior post-adoption studies that delineate the influence of individual characteristics on digital commerce usage activities. There is high mobile penetration as a result of positive digital commerce and mobile application usage and adoption, creating the need to investigate and better understand the drivers behind, not just adoption and usage, but continued use of digital commerce platforms and applications. Since the sample size is relatively small, further future research studies can test the same model with bigger sample sizes to assess generalisability of the results in different locations.

This study adds to the current literature by concentrating on the extent to which systems and marketing elements influence young adult customers' intention to continue using online and mobile grocery shopping platforms in South Africa.

The study adds value from a theoretical standpoint, contributing to the antecedent factors of the technology acceptance model (TAM), theory of reasoned action (TRA) and stimulus-organism-response (S-O-R) model and giving marketing academics insights into what aspects drive re-use of online and mobile grocery shopping and on what should be the focus.

Perishable inventory management for the grocery sector has become more challenging with extended omnichannel activities and emerging consumer expectations. This paper aims to identify and formalize key performance measures of omnichannel perishable inventory management (OCPI) and explore the influence of operational and market-related factors on these measures.

The inductive approach of this research synthesizes three performance measures (product waste, lost sales and freshness) and four influencing factors (channel effect, demand variability, product perishability and shelf life visibility) for OCPI, through industry investigation, expert interviews and a systematic literature review. Treating OCPI as a complex adaptive system and considering its transaction costs, this paper formalizes the OCPI performance measures and their influencing factors in two statements and four propositions, which are then tested through numerical analysis with simulation.

Product waste, lost sales and freshness are identified as distinctive OCPI performance measures, which are influenced by product perishability, shelf life visibility, demand variability and channel effects. The OCPI sensitivity to those influencing factors is diverse, whereas those factors are found to moderate each other's effects.

To manage perishables more effectively, with less waste and lost sales for the business and fresher products for the consumer, omnichannel firms need to consider store and online channel requirements and strive to reduce demand variability, extend product shelf life and facilitate item-level shelf life visibility. While flexible logistics capacity and dynamic pricing can mitigate demand variability, the product shelf life extension needs modifications in product design, production, or storage conditions. OCPI executives can also increase the product shelf life visibility through advanced stock monitoring/tracking technologies (e.g. smart tags or more comprehensive barcodes), particularly for the online channel which demands fresher products.

This paper provides a novel theoretical view on perishables in omnichannel systems. It specifies the OCPI performance, beyond typical inventory policies for cost minimization, while discussing its sensitivity to operations and market factors.

This study aims to enhance the understanding of impulse buying in grocery stores, where such purchases are pervasive and consumers face greater decision fatigue and diminished willpower than in more frequently examined retail environments. The intent is to demonstrate the influence of variables known to affect impulse buying in other environments on grocery shopping behavior, identify and profile segments that vary along those constructs and reveal how those segment characteristics help to explain impulse buying differences.

A purposive sample of 234 grocery shoppers approached at the point of purchase in a metropolitan area in Northeastern USA completed scales for theoretically derived variables and reported on their impulse purchases.

Anxiety, perceived financial pressure (PFP), novelty/variety seeking and shopping enjoyment positively influenced, whereas need for cognition had a negative effect on impulse-purchase activity. Two distinct segments of impulse buyers emerged: anxious and innovative shoppers. Anxious shoppers were higher in anxiety, PFP and compulsive buying, whereas innovative shoppers had higher levels of need for cognition and novelty/variety seeking.

The evidence for the dominance of anxiety and novelty/variety seeking as key motivators of distinct segments of impulse buyers in grocery stores is unique to this study. Results yield new insight on tension between the effects of motivational variables on the immediate impulse buying decision and post-purchase evaluation and add precision to marketers’ efforts to encourage spontaneous in-store decision-making.

Virtual grocery shopping (VGS), or online grocery shopping, traditionally has seen slow adoption in Canada; however, the COVID-19 pandemic has forced consumers to seek safer ways to shop. Retailers have invested in building new infrastructure to meet the current consumer demands for VGS. However, the main driver for VGS behaviour has not been yet clearly identified. Additionally, it is also not unknown whether the shopping modalities will continue VGS after the pandemic. This study provides insights into consumer intentions to use VGS by extending the model of goal-directed behaviour (MGB) to incorporate consumer technological readiness.

The study collected 935 valid survey responses from an online survey panel of Canadian consumers. A two-step approach was applied to analyse the data, comprising confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) and structural equation modelling (SEM). The data quality and model fit were tested before testing the proposed relationships among the constructs: attitude, subjective norm, perceived behavioural control, positive and negative anticipated emotions, as well as technological readiness, desire and behaviour intentions. The mediation role of desire between frequency of past online grocery shopping behaviours and the future behavioural intention was also tested using SPSS PROCESS.

The study results showed that attitudes, subjective norms, perceived behavioural control, positive and negative emotions, technological readiness and frequency of past VGS have a major impact on consumers' desire to embrace VGS in the future. Consumer desire also played a significant mediating role between frequency of past VGS behaviours and future shopping intention online. In addition, the frequency of past VGS showed an even stronger impact on behavioural intention among female consumers than among male consumers.

The findings of this study provide an original insight into the social, cultural and psychological factors that impact consumers' use of VGS, particularly the impacts of gender.

Introduction: Artificial intelligence (AI) and digitisation offer substantial human potential and profit margins, making them promising retail solutions. Retail leaders have successfully integrated comprehensive uses into their daily operations, while competitors heavily invest in new projects. The Indian retail sector is undergoing a significant transformation, which can be attributed to factors such as growing income, demographic characteristics, and enhanced consumerism, as well as the rapid development of new technologies such as digitisation and AI, which is changing both consumers’ and retailers’ buying behaviour.

Purpose: This study aims to determine the influence of AI on elements that drive digitisation in the retailing sector, as well as the factors that lead to organised retailers adopting digitisation and its impact on their business.

Methodology: The study employs a standardised questionnaire distributed to organised stores via an online link, and the data are analysed with SmartPLS software 3.0.

Finding: The retail sector is driven by elements that promote digitalisation in food and groceries retailing, such as simplicity of operation, adoption of digital payment, quicker internet connection, retailer consumer interface, and the involvement of AI.

Research implication: AI has significant consequences for retailing, which serves as the interface between marketers and customers.

Theoretical implication: The study’s findings reflect the perspectives of retailers, store managers, and entrepreneurs on how digitalisation and AI are crucial for the creation and growth of long-term competitive advantages in retail.

After completion of the case study, the students would be able to comprehend the crisis at hand for Milkbasket, why did it resist Reliance’s takeover in the first place, then to evaluate the pros-cons and future prospects for the organization post-acquisition; to evaluate from an ethical standpoint the process of mergers and acquisitions using ethical frameworks to understand how, when, to whom and through what processes do mergers and acquisitions qualify the test of being ethical; and to analyse different hostile takeovers, especially through tender offers, proxy contests and toehold bidding strategy in this case.

Founded in 2015, Milkbasket was a micro-delivery start-up based in Gurugram (near New Delhi), India. Milkbasket would let its subscribers order till midnight and deliver groceries, milk and other everyday essentials to its subscribers before 7 a.m. next day. It had burnt a lot of cash and was facing difficulty in getting investors; as such they were engaged in discussions with many companies. Two of them – Reliance Retail Venture Limited and BigBasket – were not accepting the proposed valuation, but Milkbasket got term sheets from other two companies.

This case study can be used for graduate courses on strategic management, business ethics and corporate governance. This case study can also be used in corporate finance course to highlight the importance of making ethical/responsible judgements to protect stakeholder interests.

Teaching notes are available for educators only.

CSS 3: Entrepreneurship.

COVID-19 disrupted the lives of consumers across the globe, and the retail sector has been one of the hardest hits. The impact of COVID-19 on consumers' retail choice behaviour and retailers' responses has been studied in detail through multiple lenses. Now that the effect of COVID-19 is abating, there is a need to consolidate the learnings during the lifecycle of COVID-19 and set the agenda for research post-COVID-19.

Scopus database was searched to cull out academic papers published between March 2020 and June 6, 2022, using keywords; shopping behaviour, retailing, consumer behaviour, and retail channel choice along with COVID-19 (171 journals, 357 articles). Bibliometric analysis followed by selective content analysis was conducted.

COVID-19 was a black swan event that impacted consumers' psychology, leading to reversible and irreversible changes in retail consumer behaviour worldwide. Research on changes in consumer behaviour and consumption patterns has been mapped to the different stages of the COVID-19 lifecycle. Relevant research questions and potential theoretical lenses have been proposed for further studies.

This paper collates, classifies and organizes the extant research in retail from the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic. It identifies three retail consumption themes: short-term, long-term reversible and long-term irreversible changes. Research agenda related to the retailer and consumer behaviour is identified; for each of the three categories, facilitating the extraction of pertinent research questions for post-COVID-19 studies.

Based on the stimulus-organism-response (S-O-R) model, this study examines how safety measures, related assistance and tangible benefits affect consumers' emotional and cognitive states, leading to behavioural responses in an uncertain store environment.

The proposed model was tested with the survey data collected from grocery shoppers in Japan and Croatia (n = 314 in each country) and analysed using structural equation modelling.

Safety measures and related assistance decreased perceived threat in Croatia, enhanced arousal in both countries and caused fear in Japan. Tangible benefits reduced fear in Japan and increased arousal in Croatia. In a crisis, perceived threats push unplanned buying and motivate consumers to protect themselves. Arousal drives unplanned buying but diverts consumers from health-focussed behaviour. Loyalty can be gained if fear is controlled.

To retain consumers, retailers should secure a safe shopping environment that reduces fear and provides enough benefits to outweigh the threat.

Using the S-O-R framework, this study enriches the literature on consumer behaviour in a pandemic by contributing new insights into (1) the impact of safety measures and tangible benefits as stimuli, (2) the organismic response through affective and cognitive states, (3) health-focussed behaviour as a novel outcome and (4) comparing the effects in the two countries.