The Impact of Comparative Food Price Information on Consumers and Grocery Retailers: Some Preliminary Findings of a Field Experiment

There is reason to believe that consumers face a difficult task in securing adequate and accurate information upon which to judge relative price levels of competing foodstores. The objective of the research reported here was to investigate the potential of retail food price reporting for correcting this information problem. Both consumer and grocery retailer responses to this comparative food price information were analyzed. A pretest-post-test design with four pairs of experimental-control cities (with replications at two levels of concentration) was employed to collect price data. A modified Solomon-four group design was used for surveys of food consumers in experimental and control cities. The results of analysis of variance models lend support to the hypothesis that price reporting can lower the relative level of food prices, both for items individually identified in a price report and items not identified in the report. The magnitude of this effect varied among the cities. It appears that consumers' role in this experiment was a passive one: consumer behavior and patronage patterns did not change in a manner that would consistently reinforce the competitive effects of the price reports.     

On the Implications of Reporting Retail Food Prices over Extended Periods

This paper reports the results of economic experiments designed to determine the implications of a changed information flow to sellers in spatial markets. The experimental design used duopoly posted-price markets. Apparently, price and firm profit levels increase as a result of instituting a price reporting system when consumers are fully informed. In light of these findings, it appears that a retail food price reporting system may have adverse impacts on consumers, especially when instituted for longer time periods.     

Should firms display the sale price using larger font?

Prior work has shown that evaluations may be lower when retail price discounts are either small or large (vs. moderate), due to concerns about discount depth perceptions and/or product quality. Building from work on perceptual salience, we show that displaying the sale price in larger (vs. similar) font vis-à-vis the regular price makes the sale price more “salient”. In turn, when retail price discounts are either small or large (but, not moderate), such salience impacts how consumers process price discount information, mitigating concerns relating to discount depth perceptions and/or product quality, and so increasing evaluations. In effect, displaying the sale price using a relatively larger font increases consumers’ evaluations, somewhat mitigating the negative aspects of using small or large price discounts. We propose theory contributions towards research on display effects and pricing. Further, the proposed mechanism in this research note is easy-to-implement, and is expected to increase sales.     

Fairness perceptions of retail price increases by foreign and domestic brands: The roles of ethnocentric beliefs,profit stickiness,and contextual information

Although consumers do not usually take kindly to price increases, their perceptions of fairness of price increases are contingent on relevant factors. This study investigates consumers' perceptions of the fairness of retail price increase by a domestic versus a foreign brand, as moderated by consumers' ethnocentricity, bias toward inferring a profit motive from a price increase (i.e., “profit stickiness”), and relevant contextual information. Over the course of two sets of experiments, the authors find that ethnocentricity does not necessarily lead to the intuitively expected favorable (unfavorable) bias toward (against) a domestic (foreign) brand's decision to raise prices, subject to profit stickiness and contextual information. These findings have implications for theory, practice, and further research.     

Assessing the Impact of Price Promotions on Consumer Response to Online Stockouts

The recent growth of e‐commerce technologies has disrupted the traditional retail environment, leading to more consumers shopping online. While the manner in which consumers shop is changing rapidly, our understanding of how changing consumer behaviors affect retail supply chain management is lacking. In particular, our understanding of how consumers react to stockouts in an online shopping environment remains unclear. Making the challenge even more difficult is the fact that price promotions are heavily used to attract consumers in an online retail environment where consumer switching costs are low. This research develops a theoretical framework, based on expectation‐disconfirmation theory, to explain the effect of price promotions on consumer expectations of product availability and their reactions to stockouts in an online retail environment. Surprisingly, our findings suggest that consumers are actually less dissatisfied with a stockout of a price promoted item than a nonprice promoted product and are less likely to switch to another retailer's website. These findings may suggest that price promotions actually create a type of switching cost in the online retail environment, leading to interesting implications for researchers and supply chain managers.     

Exploring Point of Sale Strategies for Improving Seafood Retailing: The Case of the Australian Oyster Industry

The commodification of many food products, combined with increasing market share of supermarkets, has increased the importance of point of sale (POS) strategies in specialty food retailers such as fishmongers. This study seeks to develop strategies to improve the retailing of seafood in fishmongers, specifically oysters, an underutilized species; although they are eaten by many consumers, purchase frequency is low. A literature review identifies the key drivers and barriers to oyster consumption and the information consumers want at POS. Based on these findings, a retailing strategy is developed and tested in two consumer focus groups with results informing revisions to the recommended retail strategy, importantly including a change in collateral from a production focus to a consumption focus. This study contributes to theory and practice by bringing together the existing literature on drivers and barriers and consumer information requirements about oysters to develop and to test practical retail strategy concepts.     

Robustness of an Intermittent Program of Comparative Retail Food Price Information

This study compares the distribution of food-item market basket prices across stores and relative to a local newspaper retail food price report. Distributions of prices for market baskets comprised of national brands and cheapest alternative brands coincided closely with the intermittent retail food price report. This suggests that consumer organizations with limited resources can produce comparative food-store price reports that provide useful information to consumers.     

Determinants of switching intention in the electricity markets - An integrated structural model approach

This study adopts an integrated approach and combines the theory of planned behavior and push-pull theory to unpack the antecedents of customer switching intention in a contextual setting (Western Australia) that has a regulated electricity market. Partial least squares structural equation modeling was used to analyze data from a survey of 405 retail electricity consumers, which reveals that perceived relative price, electronic word-of-mouth, customer-based reputation of a service provider, past switching experience, and subjective norms significantly influence attitude toward switching and switching intention. Our findings contribute to the literature on retail electricity markets by showing the importance of customer-based reputation and positive electronic word-of-mouth in shaping consumers’ attitude and intention toward switching their electricity providers. The results also provide insights for electricity retailers to design better offerings and control customer switching.     

Do Consumers Respond to Country-of-Origin Labelling?

Seafood was the first class of foods to fall under the 2002 US regulatory requirements for mandatory country-of-origin labelling (COOL). If this regulation created benefits for consumers, filling an information void by demanding information that the market did not, then there should have been an observable response in the demand for seafood. To gauge the impact, we examined markets most likely to respond. We estimated retail demand for shrimp, seafood that in the USA is largely sourced from Southeast Asia and has a history of raising food safety concerns. Our estimated demand systems included standard variables consistent with economic theory—price and expenditure changes, ongoing trends, and seasonality in consumption patterns. The demand systems also accounted for regulations that required country-of-origin labels for some, but not all, foods prior to COOL. Data came from a nationally representative panel of households that record retail food purchases, allowing us to construct relatively high-frequency market data suitable for testing for the presence of even short-lived impacts. Household demographic information allowed us to separately estimate demands by consumers most likely to respond to label information. The demand systems yielded reasonable price and expenditure elasticity estimates, but none of the variables related to COOL revealed evidence of an impact.     

Budget over health unless overweight: A Solomon four‐group study

Budget and health motivations for food purchase (e.g., discounts and health consciousness, respectively) affect consumer choice while shopping and well‐being afterward. However, not all findings from research have suggested that discounts/taxations on healthy/unhealthy food encourage health‐conscious food choice. On the other hand, the consumer behaviour line of research on the influence of front‐of‐package health messages has mostly echoed similar results that such communication leads to overconsumption; thus, obesity. We examined the influence of market practices targeting consumers’ budget and health‐related motivations for food purchase in a 2 (price: recommended retail price, discount price) × 2 (product: regular potato chips, potato chips with ‘75% less saturated fat’) experiment using six Solomon four‐group designs. Our results indicate that overweight consumers are not prone to discounts, unlike their normal‐weight counterparts. A price cut nullifies the influence of health messages on purchase intentions among normal‐weight buyers when the regular and healthier packaged foods are both on discount.     

Traditional bazaar or supermarkets: A probit analysis of affluent consumer perceptions in Hanoi

Abstract

This paper sheds light on the preferences and behaviour of Vietnamese consumers in an emerging market economy. We analysed survey data of affluent consumers in Hanoi by using a binary choice Probit model for traditional bazaars versus supermarkets. The purpose of the analysis was to measure the factors which influence decision-making by consumers when selecting particular retail outlets for shopping. Our results show that freshness, price and convenience are important in shaping the choice by consumers for traditional outlets for fresh food, while price played a key role in selecting shopping outlets for processed food and drinks and non-food products. The results provide a basis for understanding the strengths and weaknesses of the old and the new retail outlet formats.     

Effects of shopping information on consumers’ responses to comparative price claims

This article describes three studies that examine the effects of shopping information on consumers’ responses to comparative price claims in retail advertisements. Results of the studies show that 1) the opportunity to shop across retail stores reduces the effect of comparative price claims on consumers’ estimates of lowest price for a particular item, but has less impact on their estimates of the store’s regular price; 2) access to advertising from competing retailers has the same pattern of effects; and 3) across exposure to a series of ad claims, these effects generalize from estimates of specific item prices to judgments of the store’s general pricing. For branded shopping goods, the results show that comparative price claims may prove counterproductive for retail advertisers by leading consumers to believe that the store’s regular prices are high without convincing them that its sale prices are low.     

Inclusive or exclusive? Investigating how retail technology can reduce old consumers’ barriers to shopping

This paper investigates older consumers in-store shopping experiences and the barriers that they face. The aim is to understand how new retail technologies (e.g., interactive in-store displays, self-service tills, robots etc.) can help seniors access satisfying, autonomous retail experiences, helping them to achieve a sense of inclusion in physical retail settings. Drawing upon the social inclusion/exclusion theory and information overload theory, the research employs a qualitative approach based on an inductive design, including face-to-face semi structured interviews with 36 consumers aged 75+. The findings highlight (i) old consumers have scarce interactions with in-store technologies (adding knowledge to motivations literature), (ii) the need to develop new technologies to support these consumers, and (iii) the extent to which these technologies are excluding rather than including old consumers (adding knowledge to the drivers of the field of exclusion). Results provide guidelines for retailers to enhance the sense of inclusion for old consumers through a better usage of new technologies.     

Food retailers' perceptions of older consumers in Northern Ireland

Demographic changes' occurring in developed countries has meant that older consumers are becoming an increasingly important consumer segment that retailers need to pay particular attention to. It is essential that their specific needs within the food and other service sectors are met, as food plays an important role in their social well‐being. Very little research has focused upon the extent to which retailers meet their demands and particular needs. The aim of this study, as part of a wider study on older consumers, is to address this lack of information by examining the level of awareness held by food retail management as to the needs of older consumers (60+ years old) and the problems that they encounter while shopping. Qualitative data were collected using face‐to‐face interviews with retail managers (n = 5) from food retailers in Northern Ireland. These were analysed according to Gillham's content analysis guide. Food retailers stated they were aware of the issues older consumers face and recognize their importance as a growing consumer segment; however, there would appear to be relatively little actual consideration/evidence of them meeting their needs. All interviewees expressed an interest in improving the food shopping experiences of older consumers, and were keen to make an increased effort towards this segment of the population, but these were often not put into practice. In order to overcome the problems faced by older consumers and strengthen the food shopping experience for this age group, it is suggested that retail management make practical changes to improve in‐store facilities, increase affordability of food products and home delivery services, and enhance customer communication.     

Showrooming,Webrooming, and User-Generated Content Creation in the Omnichannel Era

Omnichannel retailing characterizes a seamless and integrated approach of diverse retail channels. Showrooming and webrooming are prominent shopping trends among consumers in omnichannel retail. The purpose of this study was to examine (1) whether omnichannel consumers’ psychographic characteristics (i.e., information attainment, price comparison, social interaction, assortment seeking, and convenience seeking) had an influence on showrooming and webrooming, which then had an influence on omnichannel consumers’ user-generated content creation intention on social media and (2) whether the social-local-mobile (SoLoMo) experience moderated the links between omnichannel consumers’ showrooming/webrooming and user-generated content creation intention. An online survey was administered to a total of 680 omnichannel consumers with showrooming and webrooming experience from a U.S. consumer panel. This study found that omnichannel consumers’ showrooming and webrooming positively affected user-generated content creation intention on social media. Omnichannel consumers’ information attainment, price comparison, and social interaction positively affected showrooming. Information attainment, social interaction, and assortment seeking positively affected webrooming. The SoLoMo experience moderated the link between webrooming and user-generated content creation intention on social media. Managerial implications were discussed.     

Retail price discount depth and perceived quality uncertainty

This study analyzes the impact of retail price discount depth on consumer perception of quality uncertainty and its implications. While the extant research finds a negative relationship between perceived mean quality (indicated by the mean of quality perception) and price discount, we suggest an inverted-U-shaped relationship between perceived quality uncertainty (indicated by the variance of quality perception) and price discount. The underlying mechanism for this phenomenon is that consumer attribution of price promotion varies by discount depth. Specifically, when provided with a moderate discount (compared with a low or high discount), consumers cannot ascertain whether the discount is related to product quality; thus, they perceive a higher level of quality uncertainty and correspondingly rely more on other cues, such as country of origin and product popularity information, to make inferences about quality. Those findings have implications for setting the depth of retail price discounts and providing product quality-related information in the context of price promotion.     

零售业态均衡与创新的要素分析——基于零售业态价格梯度模型的研究

文章提出了一个业态价格梯度模型,该模型将价格梯度与业态竞争分布相联系,通过引入"消费者偏好"概念,较好地刻画了零售业态中服务、价格、成本三者之间关系,在此基础上验证并发展了"技术边界线"理论,提出业态取得竞争优势的关键因素是技术进步、满足消费者偏好以及管理创新带来的成本下降,我国家电零售业态历史发展变化情况也在一定程度上验证了模型的有效性。模型为今后同类研究提供量化分析工具的同时,也为进一步完善业态进化理论提供了新的研究视角。     

Competitive strategies in retailing—an investigation of the applicability of Porter's framework for food retailers

The objective of this research is to develop a framework for competitive strategies in food retailing. Managers of food retail channels were surveyed in order to derive the basic dimensions of competitive advantages that companies attempt to achieve in this industry sector. In a second study based on consumers, the central dimensions of retail store perception were investigated. Both studies reveal that three basic types of competitive advantage seem to prevail in food retailing: (1) price, (2) quality (with a comprehensive set of quality-orientated instruments, including customer service), (3) convenience. We find quality leadership and price leadership to be independent factors which can be achieved without conflicting with one another.     

Price-matching guarantees as signals of low store prices: survey and experimental evidence

Many retailers offer a price-matching guarantee that promises to pay consumers the difference if they find a lower price elsewhere. This article proposes that the effectiveness of a price-matching guarantee as a signal of low store prices depends on individuals’ beliefs about the degree to which other consumers in the market engage in price search, enforce price-matching guarantees, or both. Consistent with signaling theory, results of a survey and two experimental studies demonstrate that market level factors affect consumer beliefs about the extent to which others engage in price search and thereby the effectiveness of price-matching guarantees in lowering perceptions of store prices. The implications of the findings for retail strategy are discussed along with directions for future research.     

Consumers’ Intent: In the Organic Food Market

ABSTRACT

This paper examines the determinants that influence consumers' intention to purchase organic products. Ajzen's theory of planned behaviour (TPB) provides the conceptual framework of the research and the appropriateness of the theory is tested. A survey of 144 consumers was used to determine the beliefs which determine consumers’ intent to purchase organic food. Furthermore, attitudes, subjective norm, and perceived behavioral control were examined to determine whether they affect consumers’ intention to make organic products purchases. The findings offer considerable support for the robustness of the TPB in explaining intention in the sample. In addition, empirical evidence suggest that price, availability of organic products, product information and the subjective opinions of others are important determinants of consumers intent to buy organic products. The results are consistent with previous research.