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The purpose of this paper is to demonstrate how product knowledge is utilised by specialist independent grocery retailers (SIGRs) and how it can enhance competitive advantage for these firms.

A case study approach was deemed most appropriate to gain insight into an unexplored area of study. A total of 30 in‐depth interviews were conducted over a six‐month period supported by the collection of observation data and documentation. A purposive sampling method was adopted and the owner managers of the chosen retailers were interviewed as key informants for the study.

It was found that four main resources created the concept product strategy and ultimately explained the success of SIGRs. These relate to knowledge of how to provide a unique product; knowledge of identifying and sourcing from quality suppliers; knowledge of recipes, preparation and storage methods; and knowledge of how to merchandise products.

It is argued that if these specialist grocery firms can achieve sustained competitive advantage from building and exploiting product knowledge, so too can other independent retailers in the sector.

This paper provides empirical evidence and theoretical understanding of product knowledge as a competitive advantage for SIGRs, which is a neglected area of study in the retail literature.

The purpose of this paper is to review and discuss a distribution outsourcing alliance between a small‐to‐medium scale food processor and a national distributor of frozen and chilled food products. The paper discusses the influence of market dynamics, core and differentiated competencies and strategic intents on alliance formation and operations in the small‐to‐medium scale food enterprise sector.

The dyadic relationship of a small‐to‐medium scale food processor and its distributor is investigated through reviewing past studies of processor‐distributor alliances, conducting in‐depth face‐to‐face interviews with senior managers in both firms, and reviewing documents and correspondence between the firms.

The partners do not complement their core and differentiate competencies to achieve greater customer value creation through a joint enterprise business model. The alliance focuses pre‐eminently on short‐term sales development and cost savings targets. Non‐achievement of these targets adversely influences partners' trust and commitment to the alliance. A significant strength of the alliance is its capacity to identify customer needs and use this knowledge to speedily develop and introduce new products. In its present form this alliance is unsustainable. The partners should adopt a new philosophy and vision to pursue an alliance that will use their core and differentiated competencies more effectively.

To generalise the findings and inform theory building, the research has to be replicated in other businesses and market environments. The findings are specific to the market environment and strategies of a single small‐to‐medium scale food processor and a single national distributor of frozen and chilled foods. Multi‐case studies in multi‐contexts (capturing varying sizes of business, industry sectors, target market segments, competitive environments and market environments) have to be completed to enable generalisation and theory building.

This paper demonstrates the disadvantages of pursuing distribution outsourcing alliances with a short‐term and enterprise level perspective. The case study provides real life evidence of the benefits of pursuing distribution outsourcing alliances based on a joint enterprise philosophy.

This paper contributes to knowledge on distribution outsourcing alliances, a topic that several recent studies have identified as not having been explored in great detail in extant supply chain studies.

The structure of the UK food manufacturing industry is highly fragmented and consists of some 5,000 firms. Of these, however, the ten largest companies are estimated to account for one‐third of all sales. The importance of the 100 largest private sector firms has traditionally been relatively high within the industry and in 1975, for example, they produced 55 per cent of the food sector's net output, compared with the 40 per cent provided by a similar sample in the total manufacturing sector. Similarly, evidence from both Ashby and Mordue demonstrates that during the 1970s the average size of food manufacturers/processors overtook that of manufacturers as a whole in terms of numbers employed. By the same measure, businesses with more than one hundred employees continued to expand at a faster rate in food than the average for all manufacturers, so that the mean employment size of these larger food enterprises in the late 1970s was more than one‐third greater than in all manufacturing. Smaller establishments, by contrast, are relatively under‐represented in the UK food, drink and tobacco sector, both in comparison with the average for all manufacturers and internationally.

In social psychology literature, gender is often an important predictor of differential outcomes. However, gender as it influences consumer behavior has not attracted much research interest in a retailing context. The main purpose of this paper is to analyze associations between gender, drivers (antecedents) of store satisfaction and store satisfaction in grocery retailing. It employs various approaches. Thus an additional purpose is to discuss the findings from the various approaches with respect to consumer marketing.

The data source is a survey among customers of a chain‐based Norwegian grocery store. T‐tests, factor analyses and various multiple regression analyses were conducted.

A direct significant effect of gender on store satisfaction was found when controlling for other included antecedents. Gender does not have any moderating effect on the relationships between antecedents and store satisfaction. Females have higher satisfaction levels than males, but the satisfaction drivers are gender independent.

This research has been applied to a specific grocery store belonging to a specific chain of retailing grocery stores.

Findings that could be perceived as mixed, confusing and difficult to handle in decision making are discussed and clarified, which should provide consumer marketers insights into resource allocation with respect to the “satisfaction‐profit chain.”

Gender has only a direct effect on store satisfaction. Stable gender‐independent drivers of store satisfaction were identified. These insights can contribute to consumer marketing activities that favorably influence shoppers' attitudes, thus resulting in sustained revenues and profitability in the future.

Considers the structure of grocery retailing in Australia and, in particular, presents and contrasts the development strategies being pursued by the three major retailers in this highly concentrated market. Woolworth’s, the market leader, is a classic corporate recovery story and is emerging as one of the most impressive food retailers in the world. By contrast, the grocery businesses of Coles Myer, Australia’s leading retailer and one of the largest retailers in the world, are under intense pressure from both a rejuvenated Woolworth’s and the company’s own internal weaknesses, many of which are a legacy of a long period of unchallenged market dominance. Coles now faces the challenge of reinventing itself and is taking an approach quite different to that of Woolworth’s. Franklins is number three in Australian grocery retailing and its origins are as a price aggressive discounter. However, as Franklins’ own market position has come under pressure, the company is responding by moving towards more direct competition with Coles and Woolworth’s.

This article seeks to understand whether Indian consumers are likely to move from traditional kirana stores to large organized retailers while shopping for groceries.

Two hypotheses were proposed: H1: customer patronage differs for different grocery store attributes and H2: customer perceptions of grocery store attributes differ for kirana stores and organized retailers. The study was carried out across four Indian cities‐ two major and two smaller cities with around 100 respondents from each city. Stratified systematic sampling design with a sample size of 409 was used for the study. Multivariate statistical techniques were used to analyze the data collected with the help of a structured questionnaire.

Customer patronage to grocery stores was found to be positively related to location, helpful, trustworthy salespeople, home shopping, cleanliness, offers, quality and negatively related to travel convenience. Kiranas do well on location but poorly on cleanliness, offers, quality, and helpful trustworthy salespeople. The converse is true for organized retailers.

Kiranas have major disadvantages on all customer perception scores except location. These scores being less important determinants of patronage compared with location, in the short run kiranas may not be ousted out of customers’ favour. However, in the long run if they do not work on these other factors, they would face oblivion.

Kiranas need to upgrade their facilities to be able to compete with the organized retailers, who are expected to improve their location scores rapidly in the near future.

The paper predicts whether the foray of large organized grocery retailing would close down millions of kirana shops and result in loss of livelihood, suggesting measures to counter the onslaught.

The purpose of this paper is to examine how the introduction of auditory sensory cues, through a human voice, affect children’s and parent’s shopping behaviour in a retail grocery setting. In the field of retailing and sensory marketing research, there is a paucity of knowledge on how auditory sensory cues impact on consumers’ shopping behaviour.

The empirical study was a field experiment and entailed direct observation of shoppers of the Swedish grocery retailer ICA. The observations were based on a convenience sample of shopping families assigned to a control group (n=200) and an experimental group (n=131). A new innovative Swedish audio story track system was to be tested in a hypermarket containing 13 different stories for children.

Auditory sensory cues affect children’s and parent’s shopping behaviour in a significant way. Children are quieter, more relaxed and do not move around and reduce the parental stress behaviour during the shopping process.

The findings demonstrate that auditory sensory cues through human voice have a positive effect on children’s and parent’s shopping behaviour. It is also obvious that parent’s perceived stress is significantly influenced by the children.

The study provides guidelines for grocery retailers who wish to offer children and their parents a more pleasant shopping trip by emphasizing the role of the children.

The research demonstrates that the introduction of auditory sensory cues through human voice in a significant way affect the children’s and their parent’s shopping behaviour in a retail setting.

Retailers are facing conflicting strategic variables as they enter the next decade; horizontal versus vertical diversification; high street versus greenfield out‐of‐town siting; own label versus branded goods; staff cost reductions versus loyalty and commitment of service staff. This article looks at these strategic choices in the context of the UK grocery retail sector, drawing comparisons with retail banking. It concludes that the industry is likely to consolidate market share by acquisition; that overseas diversification is unlikely; that “superstore” development will slow or stop; but that stores will expand product lines, particularly in non‐food items.

Food and grocery, which accounts for around 60% of the overall retail market in India, is the most promising area for launching a retail firm. The objective of this research paper is to conduct a thorough investigation of the impact of customers’ geographic, demographic and psychographic characteristics on the selection of retail store format choice behavior in the quickly growing Indian food and grocery retail industry, also to analyze the mediating role of store image on the store choice behavior.

A descriptive research design is used to collect data using the survey method and a structured questionnaire. The data collected from more than 400 food and grocery retail customers from neighborhood Kirana stores, supermarkets and hypermarkets in Karnataka, India, would be analyzed using both descriptive (mean and standard deviation) and Structural equation modeling (SEM) techniques. SEM techniques are used for validation of the model with independent constructs namely Demographics factors, Socio-Economic factors, Geographic factors, Lifestyle and Shopping Motives, a Mediating variable Store Image, and a dependent variable Store choice behavior. Partial least squares structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM) is used to examine the suggested theoretical framework.

The model is tested to reveal the impact of shoppers’ age, gender, occupation, education, monthly household income, family size, and distance traveled to the store, which all play a role in their retail format choice. Also, the socio economic and life style factors of shoppers influence their purchasing decisions as well; store image partially mediates between customer characteristics and store choice behavior.

The study has practical implications for food and grocery retailer in understanding customer behavior in the context of changing customer demographic and psychographic features in the Indian retailing sector. The findings aid retail merchants, allowing them to develop more successful retail marketing strategies and gain a competitive advantage.

This study could serve as a springboard for future research in this field. Retail marketers will benefit from the findings in terms of format creation and reorientation of marketing strategies in the shortest time.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate whether the influence of shopping experience on consumer satisfaction shown in non‐food retail sectors has a similar effect in food retailing, specifically with large‐scale grocery retailers. The paper also investigates differences in shopping experience and its effect across different retail settings.

An empirical study of a customer satisfaction database combining satisfaction with store attributes across several large‐scale grocery retailers in the specialty, traditional, and discount sectors. Hierarchal regression is used to meaure the effect of a composite shopping experience index on overall satisfaction, after controlling for basic economic factors of food shopping such as product quality, assortment, availability, and prices.

There was support for three hypotheses, suggesting that: food shopping experience effects overall consumer satisfaction for grocery retailers; shopping experience varies across different grocery retail settings; and the effect of food shopping experience on consumer satisfaction varies across grocery retail settings.

Data report a single point in time and aggregate measures. Guidance is provided for food retailers wanting to further develop shopping experience to impact consumer satisfaction.

The paper gives important empirical support for the influence of shopping experience on customer satisfaction for large‐scale grocery retailers and across various retail settings.