This paper will describe the sociocultural and demographic trends of grocery retailing. The sociocultural and demographic trends are a part of the external environmental analysis of a company or industry. One popular trend in the sociocultural environment of grocery retailing is the trend of becoming healthier and wanting grocery stores to offer organic and fresh foods rather than processed foods. The demographic trend will focus on how grocery retailers market to different age groups in the United States, as well as around the world. Grocery retailers around the world can take into consideration these two trends and work towards a better understanding of what their consumers want and desire. General Environmental …show more content…
One trend that seems to come to mind when talking about grocery retailing in a sociocultural sense is the trend of offering fresh and organic items in supermarkets as well as in local grocery stores. The everyday consumer is starting to realize that being healthy is not entirely about working out, but it is also about what kinds of food you put into your body. Therefore, people in today’s day and time, will do whatever it takes to make sure they are their healthiest, and that they look the best. According to the article, “Consumers Want Healthy Foods—And They Will Pay More for Them,” about 88% of consumers are willing to pay the higher prices for the fresh and organic foods that grocery stores supply (Gagliardi, 2015). This could be because the health fad that has presented itself today is much stronger than those in years past. According to an article that was published by the University of Kentucky College of Agriculture, many grocers are finding that customers are changing their preferences about their food, and are now wanting fresh foods and organic foods in their local supermarkets. This paired with increasing transportation costs are causing grocers to rethink the ideas and processes of large centralized distribution centers (Ernst & Woods, 2012). Demographic Forces A second general external environment is the demographic force. This force includes different things such as age, race, gender, and social class (Hill, Schilling, Jones,
• Consumers want to be more nutrition-conscious and the desire for low-calorie products is growing.
The grocery industry has a relatively high market commonality; a lot of grocery stores are somewhat related in terms of technologies used, labor force and the products or services offered in the stores. Differentiation with other competitors is key for survival in this highly competitive industry.
1. The grocery industry is a commoditized industry, which makes it difficult for grocers to sustain through differentiation. Buyer power is high and thus, cost leadership and operational efficiencies are critical. There is fierce competition amongst various grocery stores, with the main players such as Loblaw and A&P holding multi-banner stores in various market segments. Traditional grocery stores also lose some of their market share to drug stores, convenience stores and other retailers who have entered the industry. Threat of substitutes from fast-food and take- away outlets is not as prevalent, since many grocery stores have started stocking ready-to-eat meals and have deli services available for consumers. Competitive
Other than an increase in consumption of fresh fruits, vegetables and grain-based products, vitamins and nutritional supplements have also seen an increase demand due to changes in societal trends. Americans are now more willing to splurge on healthy, organic foods. In fact, organic foods are deemed beneficial and it has since been accepted as a mainstream choice of diet. Changing preferences due to a higher proportion of women in the workforce also mean that consumers today prefer a one-stop shopping experience that is being offered by Whole Foods.
With having true genuine intentions in eating healthy people fall into the ideas advertised by cooperation’s that their products are healthy. Food corporations protect themselves through ingredient secrecy and even through the FDA because they are not required by law to disclose their ingredients; however, the chemicals used need to be considered by the FDA to be Generally Regarded As Safe (Schlosser 25). People should take responsibility in the research of the food products they consume; therefore, allowing an individual to be wise and informed of what their really consuming. Maybe, instead of cutting corners in trying to eat healthy with false idealistic advertisement consumers should consider eating fresh fruits, vegetables, and cooking ingredients. Consumers should like the author Pollan suggested in his rules of thumb: avoid food products unfamiliar, unpronounceable ingredients, and products containing more than five ingredients (Pollan
Take a gander around your local mega-mart today, and what do you see? An epidemic of food like substances taking over the supermarket shelves; an epidemic that has substituted real food for fake, shown links to obesity, and has altered our eating habits. There is, however, a solution that allows you to stick to the healthy foods you want to eat and avoid the foods you don’t.
1. Introduction The intended purpose of this report is to outline the nature of the Australian retail market, specifically the retail food sector. This report will then discuss the role of market segmentation and how it has resulted in the emergence of new retail channels available to consumers. The emergence of ALDI as a new retail channel will be the focal point of the report along with a brief overview of other new-coming organizations such as Costco. Through the use of current journal articles, books, internet sites and government publications, this report will outline the benefits of the new retail channels available to consumers, especially in regards to saving on common expenses. This report will also discuss the possible room for
In America’s society today, Individuals are taking the blame off of themselves and shifting it onto the food industry. The food industry does indeed put up a very tempting environment for Americans, targeting unhealthy choices, but nevertheless, it is up to the customer as to what they spend their money on. Even with attempted changes in nutrition within the food industry, most people take no interest in it. But, when someone is motivated, results of a healthier lifestyle is shown in multiple ways. Americans need to realize that dedication can overcome temptation and not only lower numbers on the scale, but better their overall
Every retail location carries a variety of products that distinguishes it from other stores in the same chain. Not surprisingly, it is difficult to achieve economies of scale. Supply Chain Mackey describes his consumers as being “part of a cult”. Whole Foods believes that the company’s emphasis on perishables and locally-sourced produce differentiates their stores from run-of-the-mill supermarkets and attracts loyal and devoted customers. However, “fresh produce” is one of the most challenging product categories to operate due to limited product shelf life and high cost of spoilage. Whole Foods has tried to circumvent most of the problems inherent in supplying fresh produce to its stores by sourcing locally and having short and flexible supply chains. In the case of fruits and vegetables, Whole Foods has buying relationships with local farmers who supply the store with seasonal produce. Thus, if one farmer is unable to produce a sufficient amount of yellow corn or heirloom tomatoes, the shortfall can be made up by another farmer. Although challenging to perfect, these short supply chains are agile and difficult for other big retailers to duplicate.
Larger stores also offer people the convenience of additional services along with their shopping, for example post office, pharmacy and opticians. By addressing consumer’s expectations and using their buyer power they can offer a choice of products to reflect consumer’s diverse budgetary, dietary, ethical and environmental requirements. Furthermore their global buyer power enables consumers to benefit from choosing exotic produce all year round. With 30,000,000 customers (Bevan cited in Allen, 2009) choosing to use the big four supermarkets on a weekly basis it would suggest that they provide a format that consumers want.
Based on my shopping experience I completely agree with Marion Nestle and the facts he presents us with in “The Supermarket: Prime Real Estate”. Walking through the aisles I noticed what he mentioned about the way supermarkets arrange their items so that they can increase their sales. I went to Publix to carry my out my research. For me, it felt like Deja Vu. Just to the right of the entrance was the store’s bakery, and I have to say It smelled delicious (I almost went and bought myself a dessert). I continued browsing through the aisles and I noticed that the best-selling/most popular brands were at eye level, and right next to it (at the right) were the store brands. Something else that caught my attention was that the entrance to the
Demographics can consist of population size, density, location, age, sex, race and occupation. In this analysis, we will focus on examining population
The grocery store industry is a retail business that offers food and other products to
The grocery retail industry worldwide has grown in recent years to become one of the most intensely competitive industries due to the continuous amounts of new entrants. A grocery retailer is one that sells food and other general household items. Hypermarkets, supermarkets, discounters and small grocery retailers are all under the grocery retail umbrella. Between 2003 and 2008, the grocery retailing industry accounted for 45% of store-based retail values sales over the world. The figures
There are 92,796 grocery stores in the UK and the market value increase by 19.5% in the last 5 years and according to IGD forecast the UK grocery market should reach £203bn by 2019. But what we can see in the figure 1 that from 2009 to 2014 annual grow in the grocery market start decreasing from 4.9% in 2009 to 2.8% in 2014. One of the reason for this is difficult economic conditions which had an effect for consumer spending. Consumers choose to spend less money on food by buying less food or by looking for cheaper places. Retail market is diversified into three main sectors: Hypermarket and superstores which accounts for 42.3% of retail market, convenience stores 21.4% and small supermarkets 20.3% (Figure 3). So about 84% of sales are done in these three sectors. The biggest 4 retail chains in UK are: Tesco which takes 28.7% market share, Asda has 17.3%, Sainsbury’s 16.6% and Morrison’s 11%. (Figure 2) So, if we will sum up 4 biggest retail market chains we will have about ¾ of market share. Finally, a strong characteristic of this sector is competition with price wars and a