Literature overview for customer inertial behavior in grocery purchases
| Study | Unit of analysis | Channels | The focal inertial behavior | Main contributions |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Bawa (1990) | Brand (cereal, facial tissue and paper towels) | Physical store | Modeling brand choice sequences to estimate inertia and variety-seeking tendencies | ・Within-customer variability is captured as a hybrid of inertia and variety-seeking・More than half of the households exhibited hybrid behavior |
| Chintagunta (1998) | Brand (detergent and soft drinks) | Physical store | Estimation of inertia and variety seeking for purchasing timing and brand choice model | ・State dependence in brand switching, which depends on purchase timing, was estimated・Insights into the optimal timing of brand promotions were provided |
| Dubé et al. (2010) | Brand (orange juice and margarine) | Physical store | Estimation of the effect of structural state dependence | ・Inertia is evaluated through three potential economic explanations: loyalty, consumer search and learning |
| Chintagunta et al. (2012) | Shopping trip | Online and physical store | Product-specific purchase patterns across channel characteristics | ・Transaction costs are quantified in a multichannel setting・Heavy and bulky items are often bought online, while perishables that require physical inspection are typically bought in stores |
| Pozzi (2012) | Brand (cereal) | Online and physical store | Evaluation of brand exploration across channels | ・Brand exploration is more common in-store than online |
| Campo and Breugelmans (2015) | Shopping trip | Online and physical store | Category allocation across channels and the impact of online purchase experience | ・Daily or regular items are more often purchased online than offline・As online purchase experience increases, the perceived risk of buying sensory categories online decreases, narrowing the gap in online category share |
| Melis et al. (2015) | Shopping trip | Online and physical store | The impact of past online purchase frequency and spending on online store choice | ・With more online grocery experience, multichannel customers shift from comparing channels within a chain to comparing chains online |
| Melis et al. (2016) | Shopping trip | Online and physical store | The impact of online channel usage on the share of wallet for a retail chain, and the moderating effect of habitual purchase patterns | ・The shift to multichannel shopping increases the share of wallet for the focal chain・This effect is stronger for time-constrained customers, distant shoppers and infrequent buyers for competing private labels or discounter products |
| Koll and Plank (2022) | Brand (coffee, cola and shampoo) | Physical store | Evaluation of the stability of contextual cues influencing brand repurchasing | ・Stable contextual cues, such as using the same retailer, basket size, day of the week and private labels as in the previous shopping trip, promote brand repurchasing |
| Nakano (2023) | Shopping trip | Online and physical store | Demand concentration for popular products in a shopping basket between online and offline | Compared to physical store, online demand is more concentrated on popular products. As online shopping experience increases, the customer demand concentration becomes stronger |
| Chintala et al. (2024) | Shopping trip | Online and physical store | Variety and similarity in a shopping basket between online and offline | ・Diversity in online shopping baskets (measured by the number of categories and items) is significantly lower than in offline shopping・Customer inertia is reinforced in the online grocery shopping environment |
| This study | Shopping trip | Online and physical store | Customer inertia measured by brand repurchasing share in a shopping basket. The decay of inertia during channel switching. The mitigating role of private labels | ・The brand repurchasing rate is higher for online channel continuation, compared to offline channel continuation・The decay of inertia is stronger when customers switch channels・For customers with a high share of private label purchases, the decay of inertia is mitigated |
| Study | Unit of analysis | Channels | The focal inertial behavior | Main contributions |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Brand (cereal, facial tissue and paper towels) | Physical store | Modeling brand choice sequences to estimate inertia and variety-seeking tendencies | ・Within-customer variability is captured as a hybrid of inertia and variety-seeking・More than half of the households exhibited hybrid behavior | |
| Brand (detergent and soft drinks) | Physical store | Estimation of inertia and variety seeking for purchasing timing and brand choice model | ・State dependence in brand switching, which depends on purchase timing, was estimated・Insights into the optimal timing of brand promotions were provided | |
| Brand (orange juice and margarine) | Physical store | Estimation of the effect of structural state dependence | ・Inertia is evaluated through three potential economic explanations: loyalty, consumer search and learning | |
| Shopping trip | Online and physical store | Product-specific purchase patterns across channel characteristics | ・Transaction costs are quantified in a multichannel setting・Heavy and bulky items are often bought online, while perishables that require physical inspection are typically bought in stores | |
| Brand (cereal) | Online and physical store | Evaluation of brand exploration across channels | ・Brand exploration is more common in-store than online | |
| Shopping trip | Online and physical store | Category allocation across channels and the impact of online purchase experience | ・Daily or regular items are more often purchased online than offline・As online purchase experience increases, the perceived risk of buying sensory categories online decreases, narrowing the gap in online category share | |
| Shopping trip | Online and physical store | The impact of past online purchase frequency and spending on online store choice | ・With more online grocery experience, multichannel customers shift from comparing channels within a chain to comparing chains online | |
| Shopping trip | Online and physical store | The impact of online channel usage on the share of wallet for a retail chain, and the moderating effect of habitual purchase patterns | ・The shift to multichannel shopping increases the share of wallet for the focal chain・This effect is stronger for time-constrained customers, distant shoppers and infrequent buyers for competing private labels or discounter products | |
| Brand (coffee, cola and shampoo) | Physical store | Evaluation of the stability of contextual cues influencing brand repurchasing | ・Stable contextual cues, such as using the same retailer, basket size, day of the week and private labels as in the previous shopping trip, promote brand repurchasing | |
| Shopping trip | Online and physical store | Demand concentration for popular products in a shopping basket between online and offline | Compared to physical store, online demand is more concentrated on popular products. As online shopping experience increases, the customer demand concentration becomes stronger | |
| Shopping trip | Online and physical store | Variety and similarity in a shopping basket between online and offline | ・Diversity in online shopping baskets (measured by the number of categories and items) is significantly lower than in offline shopping・Customer inertia is reinforced in the online grocery shopping environment | |
| This study | Shopping trip | Online and physical store | Customer inertia measured by brand repurchasing share in a shopping basket. The decay of inertia during channel switching. The mitigating role of private labels | ・The brand repurchasing rate is higher for online channel continuation, compared to offline channel continuation・The decay of inertia is stronger when customers switch channels・For customers with a high share of private label purchases, the decay of inertia is mitigated |
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