Consumer perceptions of grocery retailers: the role of store formats and store banners.

In the new competition scenario, characterized by an increasing similarity between store formats, our work intend to understand which are the levers that retailers should manage in order to differentiate themselves from competitors, achieve a sustainable competitive advantage and consolidate their position in the market. This study used a two-stage approach to collect the data. Firstly, we carried out an empirical research based on the focus group discussion aimed to investigate the role of store formats in purchase decisions. Secondly, we conducted a consumer survey based on a structured questionnaire aimed to construct an indicator of differentiation for each retailers. The survey data were analyzed using SPSS. Findings shows that consumers do not perceive big differences neither among store formats, nor among retailers. Even if they recognize structural differences among store formats, they perceive a growing similarity between them in terms of meeting shopping needs. On the other hand, only few retailers show a “differentiation index” over 50%. Among those who are perceived as highly differentiated, there are some which concentrate on only few retail levers. Finally, not all retail levers give the same contribution to differentiation: only “price” and “range” are perceived as “fairly / completely” different between one retailer and another, while the others (“technology”, “communications”, “in-store marketing” and “services”) are perceived as not differentiated. Our research suggests retailers to invest more in store banner differentiation rather than in store format differentiation, managing all the retail mix levers.