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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.

Omnichannel (OC) logistics is undergoing a significant transformation in grocery retail. To shed light on this important but underresearched phenomenon, this study aims to investigate how grocery retailers transform and why some are more successful in transforming OC logistics.

Applying dynamic capabilities as a theoretical lens, a multiple case study was conducted with three grocery retailers at different stages of their transformation.

Six microfoundations of dynamic capabilities were identified as critical for enabling OC transformation. The study highlights important differences in dynamic capabilities, which can be attributed to investment decision-making, governance and creating co-specialization. Finally, the authors propose seven propositions for contextualization of dynamic capabilities for OC transformation in grocery retail.

This study is original by contextualizing microfoundations in grocery OC retailing. The study contributes to theory and practice by showing the value of dynamic capabilities, stressing the important interrelation among a retailer's governance structure, leadership and capability to make investment decisions, increase logistics coordination and co-specialize.

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.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the role of the retailer’s brand strength as a potential predictor of loyalty. It also examines the role of customer satisfaction (CS) to the retailer’s loyalty as well as its impact on the retailer’s brand strength.

The study was conducted in the grocery context and in a market under recession using the European Customer Satisfaction Index (ECSI) model. Data were collected through a telephone survey from 2,000 participants responsible for the household grocery shopping with a quota of 250 respondents from each of the leading grocery retailers in Greece. A formative measurement model was developed and the collected data were analyzed using partial least square path modeling.

The findings revealed that the strength of the retailer’s brand and CS influence retail loyalty and that brand strength mediate the strength of CS to loyalty. Results also suggested that the expectations and the perceptions toward the retailer’s product offering are the most important drivers of CS and loyalty. Thus, the study has proved the importance of the functional store attributes to CS and loyalty in the grocery store setting.

Research examining the suitability of the ECSI model in the grocery setting and in a market under economic crisis is scarce. This paper addresses these shortcomings by examining a customer loyalty model which incorporates the brand strength construct and investigates the role of brand strength as a potential predictor of loyalty as well as the role of CS in the brand strength and loyalty.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate how grocery retailers configure their online fulfilment centres (OFC) as they move towards an omni-channel structure and what contextual factors influence their decisions.

An exploratory case study with three grocery retailers in the Nordic countries was conducted. The study investigates the current OFC configurations and identifies nine important contextual factors.

This study shows the importance of understanding the changes that omni-channel retailing entails for an OFC configuration. Nine contextual factors were identified. Several of the factors are found in previous theory, but this paper extends the knowledge of how they affect the configuration of an OFC in grocery retail. The changes in, for example, order characteristics create different requirements for picking, packing, sorting and shipping when compared with traditional distribution centres (DC). Although representing a separate flow for online fulfilment, OFC configuration depends on how the other logistics flows from the DC to stores are designed.

To support further theory development, nine contextual factors and their relationship to OFC configurations are proposed.

This study provides managerial value in two ways. First, grocery retailers with one or more OFCs can benchmark existing solutions using the empirical case descriptions. Second, the findings provide grocery retailers with knowledge of how to configure an OFC.

The literature lacks a holistic approach towards how grocery retailers configure their OFCs and what factors affect these decisions. This study provides the first in-depth analysis of how the omni-channel context affects the configuration of all the aspects of an OFC.

Unethically behaving customers deviating from morally acceptable norms have posed an additional challenge to retailers, frontline employees (FLEs) and other customers in recent crisis-dominant environments. While research concerning customer behaviour ethicality focusses on purchasing modes and consumption behaviour, unethicality in all its facets receives limited attention, leaving dimensions of unethical customer behaviour (UCB) and effective managerial strategies unexplored. The purpose of this paper is to describe dimensions of UCB, investigate its causes, explore its consequences for customers and FLEs and infer practical implications for retail management by collecting customers' and FLEs' views in collaboration of each other.

Due to the explorative nature of this research, qualitative semi-structured interviews with 45 customers and 51 FLEs were conducted, following a content analytical approach and the establishment of inter-rater reliability coefficients.

The findings reveal multiple UCB dimensions operating on situational and individual behavioural levels, targeting mainly employees, followed by customers. The reasons for UCB arising correspond to customers' attitudes, social influences and egoistic motives. UCB imposes risks of financial losses for retailers, due to the wasting of resources as a consequence of employees' stress and emotional exhaustion, demanding managerial boundary-spanning activities. Further, it negatively impacts customers' shopping behaviours, provoking online shopping and shopping avoidance.

The study fills the research gap regarding perceived unethicality of customer behaviour by describing and explaining differing forms of UCB, considering customers' and FLEs' views in retail stores. It develops a UCB framework, identifies UCB dimensions beyond current academic research and derives specific practical implications to make the phenomenon manageable for retailers. The originality of this paper lies in the synthesis of the three UCB dimensions, consisting of antecedents, forms of UCB and consequences for customers and FLEs.

The purpose of this paper is to determine whether there is a difference in the development of shopping lists and use of advertisements as pre-store food-buying practices in terms of planned shopping by South African consumers who dwell in different socio-economic status (SES) areas. The paper also considers the influence of shopper and socio-demographic characteristics on pre-store food-buying practices in a developing country.

A self-administered questionnaire was used to survey 1 200 consumers in retail stores in low, middle and high SES areas in South Africa. A generalised linear model was employed for the statistical analysis of pre-store food-buying practices within the SES area groups in a developing country.

South African consumers that reside in high SES area displayed the largest of shopping list development, while consumers who dwell in low SES areas showed the highest incidence of advertisement usage. Several shopper and socio-demographic characteristics were also found to have an influence on pre-store food-buying practices in different SES areas in South Africa.

A qualitative approach would offer a deeper understanding of consumers’ pre-store food shopping predispositions as opposed to the quantitative approach, which was adopted for this study. A longitudinal design would also provide a more extensive representation of pre-store food shopping practices over a longer time frame than cross-sectional research. The survey was conducted on Saturdays, whereas consumers who shop during the week may have different shopping and socio-demographic characteristics.

Astute food brands, marketers and grocery stores could use the findings of this study to assist with their marketing efforts that they direct at consumers in different SES areas in South Africa and other developing countries.

The findings of this study may assist consumers in developing countries, especially those who reside in low SES areas, with food-buying strategies to reduce food costs, make wiser purchase decisions and reduce shopping.

No study (to the best of the researchers’ knowledge) has considered shopping list development and use of advertisements’ pre-store food-buying practices in different SES areas in a developing country. Furthermore, there is a dearth of research analysing shopper and socio-demographic characteristics in relation to pre-store food-buying practices among different SES areas in developing and developed countries.

Using panel data on gasoline and grocery transactions in Korea, the purpose of this paper is to empirically explore the effect of a retail chain store’s establishment of on-site fuel sales. The empirical analyses present strong empirical evidence that the sale of fuel had statistically and economically significant effect on retail store traffic and revenue in the short run. However, the effect did not remain significant in the longer run. To explain the dramatic decrease in the effect of the fuel sale, the authors consider the enhanced competition in the local gasoline retail industry and examine cross-sectional price variations at the station level. The results suggest that the increased competition led to the reduction in the price dispersion across stations and thereby to an increase in consumer welfare.

Using a linear specification that has traditionally been used to model retail chain data, the authors developed a series of difference-in-differences models. This technique is ideal for estimating the effect of a treatment in the presence of possible selection bias and has been widely employed in many social-science studies on policy intervention.

In a certain environment, introducing fuel sales did not increase retail chain store traffic or revenue in the long run, despite having statistically and economically significant effects in the short run. The results document empirical evidence of myopic management in a common marketing practice, which often leads to a negative impact on the firm value in the long run.

The span of data and sample size were limited to meet the company’s data protection policy.

Considering that many of developed countries are characterized by a gasoline retail environment similar to that which is investigated in this paper, the authors believe that the implications of the results are particularly valid for practitioners and policy makers.

The findings document empirical evidence of myopic management in a common marketing practice, which often leads to a negative impact on the firm value in the long run. Marketing researchers should make efforts in establishing metrics to help identify myopic management decision.

This paper addresses an interesting and practical issue related to the effects of the introduction of gasoline sales by a supercenter store on its store traffic.

Despite competition and supply-chain disruptions during Covid-19 pandemic (2019–2021), one grocery retailer consistently thrived and was ranked top. The sources of the sustained performances needed examination. Guided by self-congruity theory and integrating three models, the authors examined how much the retailer's brand performances (brand loyalty, equity, preference and repurchase intentions) were emanating from brand personalities and marketing offerings. The mediating roles of brand loyalty and equity were tested.

Cross-sectional data was collected from 480 frequent customers using an online questionnaire posted on the researchers' social media pages. Factor analysis was conducted to identify the dimension that best describes the grocery retailer. Partial least square–structural equation modelling (PLS-SEM) was used to test a conceptual model.

Factor analysis results show that brand sincerity (28.582% variance-explained; M = 4.1) was top (factor 1), followed by excitement (20.336% variance-explained; M = 3.9) and then trustworthiness (18.854% variance-explained; M = 3.87). PLS-SEM results revealed that two brand personalities (brand excitement and trustworthiness) and marketing offerings (price, place, product, promotion) impacted loyalty found to be a strong driver of brand equity. Repurchase intention and brand preference were influenced by brand equity. Brand loyalty mediated most of the relationships between brand personality dimensions, marketing offerings and brand equity. Brand equity also significantly mediated the relationships between brand loyalty, preference and repurchase intentions. The integrated model produced high explanatory powers with brand equity (67.8%), brand preference (71.7%), brand loyalty (63.2%) and repurchase intentions (54.2%).

The study extends a brand personality-loyalty model through integrating two other models that provided marketing offerings and brand equity outcomes. It demonstrates that a stream of profitable customers' responses awaits a retailer who holds both brand and customer mindsets by building admired brand personalities while providing desired marketing offerings.

The success of last-mile delivery is dependent on consumer acceptance of such services, yet little is known about unattended delivery experience. This paper's purpose is to provide empirically based understanding of customer experience dimensions in unattended home delivery.

Using an engaged scholarship approach, this field study investigated nine households that actively used an unattended delivery service for a period of six to nine months. Empirical data were collected primarily from in-depth interviews.

The study demonstrates that unattended delivery experience is a multidimensional construct that comprises consumers' cognitive, emotional, behavioral, sensorial, physical and social responses to the service. The empirical evidence provides rich descriptions of each customer experience dimension, and the research offers a framework and propositions on unattended delivery experience.

The results guide and support managers in assessing and developing delivery services using a consumer-centric approach to enhance customer experience.

This research is one of the first to address unattended delivery experience by providing a comprehensive, empirically grounded framework. The results provide a foundation for future investigations of last-mile delivery experience dimensions.