QUALITATIVE MARKETING RESEARCH

Qualitative Marketing Research Group Project

Qualitative Marketing Research Group Project

Introduction

From the year 2002, retail sales of Morrisons PLC have grown at a steadfast rate the customer service improved and the purchases by young consumers the 18-25 year segment has brought a positive change. The reasons noted in the questionnaire prove that Morrisons plc has ome a long way in satisfying its young consumers.

Consumers nearly always have the opportunity to change their shopping behaviour. They assess and reassess the shopping opportunities available to them. As a result they may change their behaviour by switching between stores or retailers. Consumer store-switching behaviour (defined as the change of the main shop for a main shopping trip, e.g. food) is thus of fundamental importance to retailers. The ability to generate change in behaviour and then to retain the “switched” customer is a critical long-term success factor for retailers. Similarly, the ability to reduce switching to rival retailers by valuable consumers will lead to a competitive advantage. For regulatory and policy decision-making bodies examining market structures and new stores, a knowledge of consumer store-switching behaviours and/or propensities, would also seem to be necessary. Given this importance, one would perhaps expect a large research literature on consumer store-switching behaviour. However, as some of the few researchers that have looked at this subject note:

Research addressing consumer preferences and behaviour is limited and the need for new knowledge is considerable (Seiders and Tigert, 1997, p. 227). This research is motivated by the relative absence of work on customer mobility in retail settings (Rhee and Bell, 2002, p. 234).

There has been some interest in switching, but it has tended often to focus on the development of store choice modelling and store selection criteria (Fox et al., 2004; Popkowski-Leszczyc et al., 2000). The focus and contribution of this paper is different, being expressly interested in the level and form of actual store-switching behaviour amongst retailers operating under a particular set of market and regulatory circumstances. The focus is the UK main food shopping. The paper relates the results of its study to the limited previous work on store-switching and emphasises the need for further research on this topic and the new directions and dimensions that this work could take.

After the Morrisons takeover of Safeway in the UK, a decision sanctioned by the Competition Commission following considerable investigation of the sector. Morrisons and Safeway had different customer bases and profiles. What then happens to the shopper base when a new company takes over a store? What switching/retention behaviour is exhibited? How does this relate to existing results from store-switching research?

This paper is structured into four sections. First, a review of the literature on store-switching is presented and the key dimensions summarised. Secondly, the situation examined in the paper is introduced in terms of the retail network in the study area and the survey methodology. Thirdly, the survey results are presented. Finally, conclusions are drawn.

Market share is the macro-scale quantification of millions of individual and household decisions about where to ...