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To find out if and how delivery charge and three other situational factors affect consumers' grocery shopping channel choice.

A survey was conducted among a convenience sample of 152 supermarket shoppers in South England. Each respondent was presented with two hypothetical grocery shopping scenarios characterised by four situational factors. Respondents were asked to indicate their preference for shopping online or in‐store in each described situation. They also provided information about their last grocery shopping trip.

The results show that all four situational factors affect consumers' shopping channel preference. It was further established that, though of influence, delivery charges are not the most important factor. Fifteen minutes difference in travel time to the grocery store had a greater impact on the relative preference to shop online or in‐store than a delivery fee of £5.

Although experimentally controlled, the findings are based on behavioural intentions and not on real market behaviour. Also, they are based on a convenience sample of intercepted shoppers only.

Attempts to promote online grocery shopping should focus on communicating the time savings gained by shopping online rather than lowering delivery charges.

Only few studies have investigated effects of situational factors, including delivery charges, on consumer channel choice for grocery shopping. Experimental studies are particularly scarce.

Social and demographic changes are putting pressures on traditional gender roles in the house‐hold. Reports on the role of married males based on a large‐scale survey of upscale households. The data suggest that males in married households are responsible for shopping activities in varying degrees. The level of shopping responsibility is a function of the spouse′s occupation as well as the type of goods to be purchased. Responsibility for grocery shopping is limited among married males (about 15 per cent claim primary responsibility) but the ones who are responsible express the most enlightened attitudes about shopping and report the greatest degree of enjoyment with shopping at the supermarket. Although 56 per cent of the married males claim primary responsibility for their clothing, enjoyment of the shopping mall is greater among those who share responsibility jointly with their wives. The perceptions of alternative shopping methods such as store, catalogue and computer shopping suggest that store shopping is more fun, satisfying and rewarding. Because of these hedonic components, store shopping is likely to remain popular in the near future.

The purpose of this paper is to examine attitudinal and behavioral shopping patterns related to hypermarket shopping in an Asian market, which has undergone a revolutionary transition from traditional to modern trade food retailing in the past decade. The first class includes shopping enjoyment, risk aversion, price signaling, innovativeness, trust and future purchase intentions. The second group of behavioral shopping patterns includes advocacy, time, and money spent shopping.

A sample of 244 shoppers was interviewed across Bangkok using a structured questionnaire through face‐to‐face personal interviews.

The study finds that grocery shoppers tend to be more risk averse when time pressured, but less risk averse if they are innovative. Bangkok Thais score high on innovativeness and shopping enjoyment and are more frequent patrons of hypermarkets than other grocery store formats. While a particular aspect of hypermarket grocery shopping behavior is found to relate to advocacy and future loyalty intentions, it does not contribute to enhanced store trust.

While Thailand is part of Southeast Asia, not all countries share the same cultures or consumer behavior. Similarly, as Bangkok is a mega city, it cannot be said to represent rural parts of the country.

As the majority of modern retailers are owned and managed by western countries, the format is relatively new in most Asian markets. Their growth has not evolved naturally and may result in cross‐cultural consumer behavior conflicts, thus findings help extant or new retailers better understand consumer behavior. Because of high risk aversion, private label brands may require that stores develop greater trust among consumers, perhaps through sampling or building awareness of the concept behind private label. Thai hypermarket shoppers appear driven more by convenience than by time pressure. Because they tend to shop in groups and enjoy this experience, retailers may want to consider more of the experiential or social aspects involved in shopping, rather than purely functional offerings.

By applying predominantly western theories to a developing Asian market, their generalizability can be tested.

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.

The pandemic impacted consumers' shopping processes, leading them to approach the online channel for grocery shopping for the first time. The paper contributes to the retailing literature by identifying different grocery shopper segments willing to switch online moved by heterogeneous motivations. Integrating the technology acceptance model 2 (TAM-2) and the protection motivation theory (PMT), this study identifies technology-related and Covid-related motivations jointly impacting channel switching.

A mixture regression model was estimated on the 370 valid questionnaires, filled out by Italian shoppers, delivering four internally consistent segments.

The results reveal the existence of four segments willing to switch towards the online channel for grocery shopping in the aftermath of the pandemic. Utilitarian shoppers would switch online as they consider the online channel useful and easy to use. Responsive shoppers will prefer the online channel driven by the fear of being infected in-store. Novel enthusiasts show interest in the online channel to not catch the virus and cope with emotional fear, although they consider online shopping as an enjoyable and useful activity as well. Smart shoppers consider online shopping as an easy-to-use alternative for their grocery purchases.

This paper identifies technology-related and Covid-related motivations jointly impacting shoppers' channel switching to online and presents a novel method – i.e. mixture regression – allowing for the identification of shopper segments motivated by different reasons, both emotional and utilitarian, to switch towards the online channel for their grocery shopping. Among other motivations, the fear of Covid-19 is identified as a relevant motivation to switch to online.

The purpose of this paper is to segment primary male grocery shoppers based on store and product attribute evaluations. A rich profile for each segment is developed. These developed contemporary shopper typologies are contrasted against earlier works.

Data of 280 male grocery shoppers was attained by a survey questionnaire. Factor analysis, cluster analysis and ANOVA were employed to develop specific segments of male shoppers.

Four distinct cohorts of male shoppers emerge from the data of eight constructs, measured by 46 items. One new shopper type, not found in earlier typology literature, emerged from this research. This shopper presented as young, well educated, at the commencement of their career and family lifecycle, attracted by a strong value offer and willingness to share the family food shopping responsibilities.

Research outcomes encourage supermarket retailers to implement targeted marketing and rationalized operational strategies that deliver on attributes of importance.

This research makes a contribution to segmentation literature and grocery retail practice in several ways. It presents the first retail typology of male supermarket shoppers, employing a cluster analysis technique. The research provides insights into the modern family food shopping behaviour of men, a channel in which men are now recognised as equal contributors. The research provides the basis for further gender comparative and cross‐contextual studies.

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.

The purpose of this paper is to add to current knowledge of online customer experience (OCE) by examining various drivers and outcomes of online grocery shopping experience that can help researchers and retailers answer the pressing question: “Why do online grocery customers stay or switch?”

This study applied netnography and critical incident analysis to a pool of 1,004 reviews captured from forum and review sites dedicated to online grocery shopping.

Two broad dimensions of OCE, four attributes and 13 factors corresponding to shoppers’ psychological states and their utilitarian and hedonic orientations emerged from the data analysis. The proposed framework, containing these four attributes and corresponding 13 factors, captures the consumers’ intention to stay with the current retailer or switch.

The study contributes to existing knowledge of OCE by providing a dynamic and yet holistic framework that encompasses experiential states and utilitarian or hedonic orientations in an online grocery context. Although its contributions are valuable to both researchers and practitioners, further quantitative analysis is needed to validate the findings.

In addition to providing superior customer experience by implementing the various drivers of OCE identified here, online grocery retailers can use the study findings as a strategic guide toward building a frictionless and pleasurable shopping experience.

The study employs netnography and critical incident technique to identify experiential attributes such as reliability, responsiveness, return and refund, which are unique OCE attributes in online grocery, a relatively unexamined field of retailing.

The purpose of the study was to examine the potential outcomes of consumers' intention to engage retail store community. The research question focused on: what impact will intention to engage retail store community have on store satisfaction, store commitment, shopping enjoyment and store employee trust?

Survey data were collected from a national panel of 232 adult consumers in the USA. The theoretical model and hypotheses were tested using path analysis in AMOS.

The model was supported. Intention to engage retail store community had a significant impact on store employee trust, shopping enjoyment, store satisfaction and store commitment. In addition, store employee trust and store satisfaction had a significant impact on store commitment.

The study identified a breadth of outcomes that result from an intention to engage with retail store community. Furthermore, the study is limited to a grocery shopping retail store context and only outcomes are identified.

Managerially, retailers want to find innovative ways to compete in the marketplace, and the findings of this study highlight the benefits that can accrue to retailers who want to pursue a community strategy.

Few papers have examined retail store brand communities, and none has identified the outcomes of intention to engage with retail store community.

The analysis of attitude statements made in respect of grocery shopping has now been undertaken in several locations. Results from the Portsmouth area are reported and such statements are related to the grocery store actually reported as being used by respondents. A further refinement is to disaggregate the results by contrasting two source areas of shoppers, one with a higher socioeconomic profile. It is noted that differences do sometimes emerge in the responses offered by this segmentation. Implications of these findings are discussed.