Local geographies and online grocery shopping retail channel choice: impacts at the household level

Research on grocery shopping demonstrates that channel decisions, location and product choices are shaped by socially-embedded practices at the household level and that retailers should pay more attention to these factors. Socially-embedded practices of various individuals within the same household are illustrated by a range of “day to day” rituals and codes that are seen to deal with a diversity of situations. In this paper, we present the case for a re-conceptualisation of the ‘geographies’ that surround consumer behaviour and decisions relating to the use of e-grocery services and which will better reflect “specific aspects” of store based retailing at the “monadic” decision level. Retailers are encouraged to re-evaluate their provision of online grocery services by acknowledging and integrating local household and decision making into their strategies. We argue that it is not just a case of creating a new shopping platform but also of nurturing and developing acceptable new practices of shopping that are blended within both the physical, virtual-logistic and household circumstances at the local level. Online retailing models for staple goods such as groceries need to move on to a “next generation” of service provision which reflect the consumer’s ‘real’ engagement with technologies and behaviour. These tend towards evolution and change of perceived local shopping choices that are embedded within household routines and the consumer mindset.