The urbanites segment is differentiated from the other key segments on what two dimensions?

The landscape of grocery shopping is changing fast. Having been around for several decades, online grocery shopping is now increasing significantly around the world (Nakano and Kondo, 2018). In the UK, for example, 41% of shoppers bought groceries online in 2017 (IGD, 2017) and this share is expected to grow further by more than 50% between 2017 and 2022, fueled by new developments such as fast deliveries (within hours, not days), more unattended delivery options and the emergence of voice ordering (IGD, 2018). Nonetheless, online shoppers tend to engage in multi-channel shopping, typically combining online and larger stores, and online and convenience1 stores (Ganesh et al., 2010; Lee et al., 2017). Half of UK shoppers use five or more different channels every month and buy from twelve different store brands on average (IGD, 2018). One reason for the popularity of multi-channel grocery shopping is the rise to prominence of hard discount stores. Recent trends show that online shopping and discount stores were responsible for 80% of growth in the UK grocery market between 2012 and 2016 (Gladding, 2016).

The central premise of this paper is that focusing on the ‘average grocery shopper’ is not very helpful if the objective is to understand recent and future changes in grocery shopping. This claim is supported by a suite of recent studies demonstrating that online retailing via home delivery or click and collect, convenience stores and various hybrid shopping channels are gaining popularity with some consumers, whereas many other consumers are reluctant to accept change and try new services and technologies (Asger Nielsen and Ramus, 2005; Chu et al., 2010; Hand et al., 2009; Harris et al., 2017a, 2017b). Behavioral differences such as these suggest that market segmentation techniques may provide useful insights into how different groups of people make different shopping choices. Market segmentation has been applied productively in past research on shopping behavior (e.g. Chetthamrongchai and Davies, 2000; Konuş et al., 2008; Müller and Hamm, 2014; Nakano and Kondo, 2018; Putrevu and Lord, 2001; Sands et al., 2016). Nonetheless, there are few recent studies that have identified groups of individuals using online and multi-channel shopping by considering both observable behavior and associated attitudes – feelings, beliefs, opinions and behavioral dispositions – and by drawing explicitly on attitude theories from social psychology.

The current paper thus aims to identify and describe groups of grocery shoppers using a psychographic segmentation approach that is explicitly grounded in the Theory of Planned Behavior (TPB) (Ajzen, 1991) and its close cousin, the Technology Acceptance Model (TAM) (Davis et al., 1989). Both theories are extensions of the Theory of Reasoned Action (Fishbein and Ajzen, 1975) and have been used across many research fields to examine why particular behaviors are undertaken and technological innovations adopted. Although criticized on multiple grounds, they remain very popular and highly regarded in numerous research fields, which is why they were selected as theoretical points of departure for the current study. Below they are used to derive a meaningful consumer segmentation (or typology) by using factor and hierarchical cluster analysis on primary survey data from a study sample of 2032 UK grocery shoppers. The segments are then profiled in terms of observed shopping preferences and demographic, socio-economic and geographical characteristics.

This approach, we propose, deepens understanding of consumer heterogeneity in a fast evolving grocery retailing landscape by clarifying how, for different groups of grocery shoppers, attitudes regarding how, when and where to conduct grocery shopping are associated with observable choices regarding channel (online, offline, or combinations of both as with click and collect) and type of outlet and location for offline shopping (e.g. large, out-of-town supermarket or convenience store nearby). Understanding those associations for different groups is useful in at least three respects. Firstly, it can inform the development of marketing strategies, for instance to encourage more online shopping that are tailored to the feelings, beliefs, opinions and behavioral dispositions of specific consumer segments. Secondly, it can advance understanding of which kinds of grocery retailing might be affected when, where and to what extent by further uptake of grocery shopping. Such understanding is pertinent for multiple reasons, including the perspective of including social equity (Badrinarayanan and Becerra, 2018). If, for instance, further growth of online shopping means that physical stores will disappear in certain locations, then individuals and social groups who rely on those stores because they lack access to online shopping or appropriate means of transport may be disproportionally disadvantaged. Finally, knowledge of the associations between grocery shopping behavior and attitudes for different consumer segments can inform research that examines what delivery traffic will be required when and where, with due consequences for road congestion and, depending on vehicle propulsion technology, local air pollution and greenhouse gas emissions (McKinnon et al., 2010).

The paper progresses by first reflecting on the theoretical basis of the study and briefly reviewing the relevant literature. Section 3 outlines the data collection and analysis methods. The results of the segmentation analysis are presented and discussed in Sections 4 Results, 5 Discussion. The paper concludes with a number of implications for research and practice.

Theoretical underpinnings

A wide range of theoretical approaches can be, and has been, used to understand variations in grocery shopping between and within individuals. Among the most basic are studies that rely on the ad hoc specification of relationships between one or more facets (product, channel, time/frequency, etc.) of grocery shopping and characteristics of the choice alternatives or shoppers in question. In this context ad hoc means based on previous research, intuition and/or inductive reasoning. This approach

Survey design

The primary data collection instrument was a newly developed self-completion survey questionnaire employed online across the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland (UK). The survey consisted of multiple parts, including sections on people's current grocery shopping behavior (who, what product types, which shopping channel, when, how often and by which mode of transport); their attitudes, norms and perceptions about shopping as well as broader social and environmental values; and

From attitudinal statements to meaningful constructs

The PCA of the attitudinal statements produced eight independent constructs, which in line with the framework (Fig. 1) were labelled: Positive Attitudes, Negative Attitudes, Social Norm, Perceived Behavioral Control (Time Pressure), Innovativeness (Affect and Knowledge), Grocery Shopping Attitude and Outcome Awareness, Outcome Expectancy and Outcome Awareness (Efficiency) (see Table 4). As demonstrated in Table 5, many of the created latent constructs map onto the theoretical ones in Fig. 1,

Summary of findings

This paper identifies and describes groups of grocery shoppers using a psychographic segmentation approach that is explicitly grounded in the TPB and the TAM. It provides an investigation of the attitudes and behaviors related to grocery shopping for a largely representative and stratified sample of 2032 grocery shoppers across the UK. The principal component analysis with varimax rotation and Kaiser normalization of 30 attitudinal statements yielded eight overarching, psychologically

Conclusions

Starting on the premise that there is no such thing as an ‘average grocery shopper’, this study identified and described groups of grocery shoppers using a psychographic segmentation approach that is explicitly grounded in the TPB and TAM. Attitudinal segmentation and profiling of British shoppers produced five meaningful consumer groups. Each of the five segments represents a unique combination of self-reported likelihood to shop groceries online and differs in terms of average perceptions,

Declarations of interest

None.

Declaration of competing interest

The authors declare that they have no conflicts of interest.

Acknowledgments

The research supporting this paper was undertaken for the UK Centre for Sustainable Road Freight and UK Energy Research Centre. CB and TS received funding by the UK Research Councils (EPSRC grant number EP/K00915X/1). CB and JA received funding by the UK Research Councils (EPSRC grant number EP/L024756/1). The authors acknowledge the helpful input of the editor, associate editor and reviewers. In addition, the authors thank the many participants of the online panel survey and Accent Marketing &

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