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Introduction
Online grocery shopping in the UK is growing rapidly (around 13 per cent per year in 2014 and 2015) and generates £8.6 billion in sales (Mintel, 2016). Nonetheless, online grocery sales accounted for only 5.5 per cent of all UK grocery sales in 2015 (Mintel, 2016). In comparison, general online purchases in 2014 accounted for 11.4 per cent of all retail sales, at a value of £38 billion (Mintel, 2015). Studies of grocery shoppers’ attitudes and behaviour offer potential reasons for the relatively small size of the online grocery market. While supermarket shopping is commonly perceived as a chore (e.g. Roberts et al., 2003), evidence from both academic and industry studies suggests that buying groceries online is not universally considered a better alternative to shopping in store, because of factors related to the reliability, speed and cost of the service provided by online grocers (Hand et al., 2009; Mintel, 2016). Over a third of UK consumers have either tried online grocery shopping but then abandoned it, or have no intention of shopping online for groceries; only 23 per cent of UK consumers do all or most of their grocery shopping online (Mintel, 2016). The variety of grocery store formats available to consumers provides choice, and ensures that there is a store format to suit every type of grocery shopping trip; Reutterer and Teller (2009), for example, found that different store formats were preferred for major as compared to fill-in grocery shopping trips.
Researchers (e.g. Hand et al., 2009) have highlighted the erratic pattern of online grocery shopping’s adoption, triggered by circumstances, rather than by a cognitive elaboration and rational adoption process. Due to its contingent nature, the adoption of online grocery shopping is often discontinued when the initiating trigger ceases or if the service provided does not meet expectations. Reverting back to the in-store mode of grocery shopping is easy because most online shoppers never cease completely to shop in stores; the online mode of shopping is complementary to store shopping, rather than substitutive (Burke, 2002). This start/stop pattern of online grocery shopping adoption, along with persistent switching behaviour between store and online shopping (and vice-versa) highlights the unpredictability of consumer patronage choices and the uncertainties faced particularly by pure-players such...