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This chapter offers a preliminary investigation into the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on consumer purchasing behaviour within the grocery retail industry and supports evidence that since the pandemic began at the end of 2019, there have been changes in the demands and behaviours of consumers (Donthu & Gustafsson, 2020). Previous research has reported that the pandemic resulted in retail consumers spending less and saving more (Jorda, Singh, & Taylor, 2020), as well as panic buying (Nazir, 2021), both of which initially contributed to the limited availability of goods. This preliminary study reports upon survey data collected from retail consumers and answers the question ‘What were the changes in consumer behaviour in the grocery sector as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic?’ Findings reveal that an increase in online shopping occurred more distinctly during the first of the UK’s lockdowns, which waned over time. Findings also reveal a lower shopping frequency, but higher shopping spends during lockdown, and that social distancing and discipline were key drivers of this behaviour change. Findings also reveal an intention to maintain a combination of new and old shopping behaviours and habits after lockdown, giving rise to the continuing importance of meeting consumers’ grocery needs online as well as in-store. This chapter further discusses the implications arising from the reported findings.

Marketplaces are changing, and customers are demanding improved experiences where they want, how they want, and when they want. The omnichannel concept is perceived as an evolution of multichannel retailing, which implies a blurring division between the physical and online stores. In the omnichannel environment, customers move freely among physical and online stores expecting seamless shopping experiences between channels. Among different generational consumer groups, Gen Z deserves marketers’ particular attention, which is the new rising segment for omnichannel experiences. The purpose of this chapter is first to verify the essence of generational differences in consumer’s omnichannel buying behavior by giving a special focus on the Gen Z segment. Secondly, this chapter discusses how retailers should integrate their online and offline store channels to provide the best retail brand experience to these distinctive Gen Z consumers.

This chapter explores how customer's attributes, shopping behavior, and preferences affect the retail choice in fiercely competitive retail environments of megacities from developing countries. We study how small, family-owned retailers (i.e., nanostores) compete against organized chains from the modern channel (i.e., convenience stores and supermarkets) at different socioeconomic levels in 9 out of 16 boroughs from Mexico City. Primary data were collected using a combination of instruments (i.e., observation, interviews, and surveys) that were applied to relevant stakeholders of the retail footprint where nanostores develop their operations. We analyze the data via statistical tools such as descriptive statistics and independent nonparametric tests to understand the significant factors of the competitive landscape in which nanostores are immersed. We supplement our research methodology by using causal loop diagrams to identify opportunities in the way suppliers, shopkeepers, competitors, and customers interact with each other and new business models for the nanostore supply chains. By breaking down our result analysis into low-, middle-, and high-income areas, we provide insightful recommendations to increase nanostores' survival, improve their operations, and grow them in Mexico City by addressing issues from the supply, store management, and customer service.

Customer segmentation is an important research area that helps organizations to improve their services according to customer needs. With the increased information that shows customer attitudes, it is much easier and also more necessary than before to analyze customer responses on different campaigns. Recency, frequency, and monetary (RFM) analysis allows us to segment customers according to their common features. In this chapter, customer segmentation and RFM analysis are explained first, then a real case application of RFM analysis on customer segmentation for a Fuel company is presented. At the end of the application part, possible strategies for the company are generated.

Purpose: The information-intensive nature of the tourism and hospitality industry requires regular communication between firms and customers. Yet, customer service personnel’s high contact levels with customers often lead to customer dissatisfaction arising from embarrassment in emotion-inducing service encounters. Accordingly, such companies have been seeking a cost-effective means of maintaining consistency in customer contact. Thus, it seems that the future of chatbots is here.

Design/methodology/approach: This chapter examines chatbots in two ways: the technical composition and its adoption by tourism firms. The technical perspective is represented by a diagram which espouses the functioning of chatbots from inputs query to output reply. On its adoption by tourism firms, two main organizational theories were proposed.

Findings: While chatbots are diffusing rapidly in other areas, their use in the tourism and hospitality industry remains low. We have examined the role of chatbots in various areas of the tourism and hospitality industry and highlighted the barriers to their successful adoption. By applying a conceptual and theoretical approach, our study used a hybrid of institutional theory and organizational learning theory and diagrammatically espouses how the integration of these theories can aid subsequent studies to understand the environmental and organization-specific factors influencing chatbots adoption.

Research limitations/implications: This study is conceptual, consequently, we recommend future studies to empirical test and validate our proposed conceptual framework.

Originality/value: This study is one of the earliest studies that advances firm-level adoption of chatbots by integrating two key organizational theories.

This chapter looks at how Latin American immigrants go about shopping for groceries in Nashville, Tennessee, and relates this simple act to a wider political economy. The chapter examines the act of shopping for groceries and the immigrants' preferences through elements largely ignored by the prevailing economic paradigm. To some extent, the immigrants are aware that their mode of shopping is not entirely “rational” and that their choices are often informed by nothing more than “feelings” toward a place or product. The ethnography examines how the immigrants deal with their now dislocated practice of shopping in their everyday life in the new city. In examining this process, the ethnography considers the public spaces in which the practice of shopping takes place, and includes both those stores catering directly to immigrants and those serving a wider market.

Shopping is an activity that is central to the tourism experience. It is also an important source of employment and often generates significant revenue for the public sector. For the retail to function effectively, retailers need to understand the needs of their customers and update their range of goods as demand changes. If the retail sector fails to recognise changing demand patterns, consumer gaps will emerge as has been the case on Norfolk Island. In this case, the consumer gap has emerged because the destination has failed to recognise that the generational membership of its seniors market has shifted from the Builders generation to the Baby boomer generation. The problem has been made in worse on Norfolk Island because the government derives a significant proportion of its tax revenue from a 10% tax on the sales of goods. This chapter examines the extent of the consumer gap in the retail sector and finds that it can only be redressed by a rejuvenation of the Island's shopping sector.

Traditional sets of attributes characterizing shopping centres need to be updated to relate to new specific consumers' needs and choices, to ensure the survival of shopping centres. To this end, this chapter revisits shopping centres’ attributes in the light of consumers' choices of actual centres, taking into account the recent increasing role of technologies, leisure activities and changes in consumer behaviour. In doing so, we aim to improve perceptions of modernity and help to regenerate (or at least mitigate the decline of) shopping centres. Specifically, the new set of attributes include appearance (external appearance), convenience, entertainment and leisure activities, memorable experiences, green place and policy, image (modern image), price, service, size and technology.

This study aims to identify the elements that characterise spaces for tourists and those that characterise spaces for locals in a shopping district based on the perspectives of local students. Forty-five local undergraduates took photographs of settings that impressed them in the shopping district in Naha-shi, Okinawa Prefecture, Japan, and the reasons given by each respondent for photographing a particular setting were recorded. Frequently used nouns and adjectives were extracted for each category. The results suggest the importance of the types of commercial facilities and people on the perspectives of locals. Affordable and mundane products are associated with local spaces, while souvenirs may be regarded as symbols of touristic spaces. The absence of locals and the presence of tourists may be characteristics of touristic spaces whereas the potential attractiveness of encounters with locals for tourists is also implied.