Smart and Virtual Food Shopping

Research has shown very slow consumer adoption to new grocery shopping options, particularly virtual shopping in North America. While consumers have been willing to purchase objects virtually, there is an inherent scepticism in purchasing food using these modes. Research has also shown while this may be the case in some western countries, eastern countries such as China have seen different acceptance. Urban eastern consumers have embraced virtual shopping and have already moved to hybrid shopping modes including smart grocery shopping. This paper reviews theoretical assumptions which may explain a shift in western consumer's behavioural changes and posits a hypothetical conceptual framework for future empirical investigations. The framework advances the idea that cultural change acceptance may be an antecedent to other social factors such as consumer learning, affective factors, cognitive factors, normative appeals among others, trust, perceived privacy and security, and these provide links to the adoption to these new retail modalities.

Self-service technologies (SSTs) have been widely implemented across the supermarket sector, which has presented opportunities for grocery retailers to move beyond self-checkout systems. This research used the extended Technology Acceptance Model to investigate the current usage of self-checkout systems by comparing different groups of consumers and sought to determine the causal factors that allow these groups to adopt smart grocery shopping technologies. The study found that different segments of consumers have already adopted self-checkout, though at varying levels. It concludes that there is a general readiness among consumers to adopt smart grocery shopping with behavioural intention mostly influenced by consumers attitudes towards the mode of shopping and convenience.

Purpose-It has generally been anticipated that the growth of Internet technology and e-commerce would result in virtual grocery shopping (VGS) becoming a normal way of life for consumers worldwide. However, the adoption of VGS, except in China and other Asian countries, has been quite slow and there is little understanding for this reason. Using Canada as a research context, the purpose of this study was to investigate the attitudes of consumers towards VGS with a focus on their technological readiness and the impact of the optimisation of consumer learning. Design/methodology/approach-A quantitative research methodology was undertaken using cluster analysis with descriptive statistics to segment the different groups of consumers from a sample of 1,034 adult respondents. Structural equation modelling (SEM) was then used to test a theoretical model for consumers' intention to adopt VGS. Findings-The study found that the attitudes of consumers towards virtual shopping, convenience motivation, perceived ease of use (PEOU), perceived risk and consumer learning are all factors that impact consumers' intention to adopt virtual food shopping. The research also identified four segments of consumers in the Canadian market based on their attitudes and intention to adopt VGS. These results allow grocers to target the consumer groups favourable to VGS and provide insights on the factors that can be manipulated via marketing strategies to reach these consumers. Practical implications-Retailers are provided with insights on consumers behaviour that will allow them to target specific segments with shopping modalities. Originality/value-This research investigated VGS, focussing on consumer learning as a socio-cultural influence as well as the consumer's technological readiness as an intention to adopt to this modality of shopping for food. These constructs have not been investigated by previous studies on food grocery shopping.