Measuring Cross-Category Specials Purchasing: Theory, Empirical Results, and Implications

The typical Hi-Lo grocery retailer offers consumers thousands of price specials each week to build traffic and influence economic performance. Retailer reliance on price specials may engender heavy cross-category specials purchasing by shoppers. Retailers contend that high cross-category specials purchasing can damage profitability because many of the specials presented to consumers have reduced gross margins. The present study measures the level of cross-category specials purchasing in a Hi-Lo grocery market and develops and tests a model of the determinants of cross-category specials purchasing using shopping basket level data, information from surveys of shoppers, and retailer promotions. The results of the study show about 39% of all items purchased on a shopping trip were on special and that about 30% of consumers surveyed were highly sensitive to price specials, purchasing more specials than regular priced items on their shopping trip. The findings indicate that the consumer search behaviors, such as reading flyers, significantly affected the level of cross-category specials purchasing as did the demographic variable - household income. The study concludes with a series of practical implications for managers to help them gain profitable shopping baskets and set of implications for researchers interested in developing new insights on cross-category specials purchasing.