Research Implications

In terms of practice, the results of this study also have implications which are more considerable in the marketing sector than was previously believed (Peck and Wiggins 2006). First, the findings of this study can be used by U.K food retailers to formulate a more effective strategy in encouraging consumers to use online grocery shopping. For example, the most influential factor for the consumer’s decision to choose online grocery shopping was revealed as the construct of post-purchase attributive satisfaction followed by the construct of perceived usefulness. Thus, if the food retailers want to get more online customers, the marketing scheme would better be concentrated on not only the features of post-purchase attributive satisfaction in terms of the products and

services provided, but also the usefulness of online grocery shopping. With regard to customer satisfaction, this study has also revealed that consumer’s post-purchase attributive satisfaction positively influences repurchase future intention, such as continuous shopping intention, encouraging people to use the service and returning to the site. If consumers have negative experiences with the quality of delivery service, such as missed order items, cancelled drop-off, unpleasant behaviour of driver, they

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might never consider buying groceries online again. Hand et al. (2009) support this statement that unsatisfied consumers tend to easily diminish or discontinue their frequency of shopping. Therefore, post-purchase attributive satisfaction both directly and indirectly related to the future buyingintention is important to increase customer loyalty which, in turn, leads increased profitability to retailers reducing marketing costs as well as increasing sales per customer (Berry 1995). To summarise, in practice, this study provides significant implications to e-grocery business sector by suggesting the importance of customers’ satisfactions with their attitudes and repurchasing intentions, which become a means of earning customer loyalty and attracting new customers (Cho 2011). In other words, the successful management should be based on the online

customer satisfaction to gain their long-term loyalty for the stable and profitable growth.

The benefits of online grocery shopping which are referred to the usefulness, such as easy of price comparison, easy of tracking spending on the food basket and planned food shopping,are the attractive triggers which can bring more customers to shop for groceries online. That is, to boost the effectiveness of using online grocery shopping, online food retailers should establish an online system which can be stable and easy to use, easy to update the consumer’s details, easy to change the delivery details and easy to keep updating basket-system on the basis. In addition, this study suggests that

increasing their perceptions of the usefulness would indirectly improve their repurchase intentions via created positive attitudes. Thus, online retailers should design their web sites to improve the customers’ task quality as enhancing performance, effectiveness and productivity in searching and purchasing goodsand also as supporting fun experience.

Further, as using the information of detailed shoppers’ profiles, retailers precisely can understand the characteristics of their main shoppers and the tailored marketing

strategies can be developed to achieve maximum marketing results. That is, the market implications will be several and obviously different according to the profile

characteristics of consumers. For example, if the internet grocery retailers want to target the key market segment, more quality guaranteed products should be selected and delivered properly through the temperature controlled delivery van. Degeratu et al. (2000) and Andrews and Currim (2004) have found that online consumers are less price sensitive when shopping groceries online than offline. In addition, Bakos (1997)

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theorises that price sensitivity would be lower online than offline when quality related attributes are important to consumers. That is, the quality controlled products and services will be able to give high satisfaction to the frequent users because major internet grocery buyers tend to have a moderate or higher income that might be less price conscious. However, value for money is also a very significant factor that cannot be ignored when choosing the online retailers because low prices could be a key to the online shoppers. Therefore, providing the best quality of product and service as well as promoting online exclusive offers will be a prominent priority for retailer among other competitors. In terms of age, it is anticipated that the young age group to which the main online grocery shoppers are belonged and the generation of teenagers who have grown up with high penetration of online usage will have more possibility to willingly use online grocery buying in the future. Such a tendency reflects implications for the long term future of shopping online. Hence, identifying the age group of main and potential customers has valuable meaning to build effective targeting strategies which are expected to produce a higher behavioural response from target audiences.

Consequently, the findings of this study provide a number of potentially important and valuable resources for retailers when they devise marketing schemes to target online consumers in the grocery sector because the results reflect the all opinions and the purchasing behaviour of meaningful experienced customers regarding to online grocery shopping. If retailers precisely understand the attitudes of their main target and the profiles which represent the characteristics of main consumers, they can not only select the most suitable marketing strategy for their shoppers focusing their efforts on the particular areas of most important but also improve their service quality including the quality control from the selection of grocery items to the delivery of groceries to the customers to satisfy their online consumers.