Abstract:
Shopping for food and grocery products has witnessed a paradigm shift in Indian retail market
with the changes in consumer buying behaviour driven by strong income growth, changing
lifestyles and favourable demographic patterns. But the very fast changing trends in consumption
patterns, food and eating habits of consumers have contributed immensely to the growth and
development of 'Western' format typologies such as convenience stores, discount stores, super
markets, and hyper markets. The present study is exploratory in nature to identify and examine
the determinant attributes influencing consumer behaviour towards super market store format
choice decisions in the fast growing food and grocery retailing in India. The population of the
study is confined to the retail customers (7.5 crore) ofAndhra Pradesh state and sampling sources
are twin cities of Secunderabad and Hyderabad (58 Lakh population). The 'mall intercept' survey
method is adopted to study the attitudes and opinions of retail customers through questionnaires.
The descriptive statistical tools (like mean, standard deviation and median) and inferential
statistical tools like Factor Analysis, Chi-Square, ANOVA, Correlation, and Multiple regressions are
used to test the formulated hypotheses and validate the model. The study has found significant
association between shopper attributes and store format choice decisions. The findings revealed
that merchandise, customer service, location and atmospheric related store attributes are
affecting the store format choice behaviour. The study has discussed various academic and
managerial implications for retail industry in general and food & grocery in particular.
