Store choice behavior in food and grocery retailing in India an empirical analysis

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.