Abstract:

Within grocery retailing, there seems to have been a shift to a more customer oriented perspective. As indicated by the empirical studies presented in this paper, grocery stores customers seem to be generally satisfied, and lack clear notions of how the stores could be improved. One explanation is that since grocery shopping is a frequently occurring activity, customers adapt their expectations to their supplier stores. Working with providing solutions to consumers' routinized problems, retailers thus cannot expect a high level of involvement from their customers in demanding and suggesting improvements. This must be considered by retailers implementing a customer orientation approach.