ABSTRACT
Food & Grocery Retail in INDIA is different from the food and grocery retail in developed economies because of two key and unique factors. First availability of the ubiquitous mom and pop stores called the Kirana stores in local parlance almost everywhere and second very large & diverse populace with multifarious requirements. The Indian food and grocery consumers can purchase their needs from the Kirana stores, or visit organized retail centre like D-Mart, Sahakari Bhandar, or order on-line from e-commerce food and grocery businesses like Amazon Now, Flipkart, Grofers, etc. Besides the options listed above, options like Mumbai Grahak Panchayat, mobile food & grocery vendors, weekly haats (markets), wholesale markets offer many purchasing options. The government controlled public distribution system (PDS) for the supply of essential commodities to below the poverty line Indian consumers can also be an option. The question that arises is that from the many options available to the Indian consumer what option would be the preferred option? We also investigate in this paper whether impulsive buying due to periodic promotions could affects the buying pattern of the consumer. Finally we investigate the impact of the buying alternatives on the planned purchases for the periodic requirement of essential commodities. A total of 144 samples were collected from Mumbai and Mumbai metropolitan areas using a 7 point interval scale varying from “Least in Agreement” to”Most in Agreement”. Factor analysis, Reliability Test, Correlation Analysis were performed using the Statistical Process in Social Sciences (SPSS ) to show the relationship between dependent and independent variables. The results showed that the factors correlated with the general confusion and lack of clarity displayed by the consumers while purchasing food and grocery items on a regular basis.
Keywords
Customer Preferences, E-commerce, Food & Grocery Retail, mobile apps, Online retail, periodic purchases.