Title: Issues and challenges faced by organised and unorganised retail outlets of food and grocery in India - an empirical study

Authors: A. Vasumathi; R. Subashini

Addresses: VIT Business School, VIT University, Vellore, 632 014, Tamil Nadu, India ' VIT Business School, VIT University, Vellore, 632 014, Tamil Nadu, India

Abstract: The study examines retail outlets attributes of proximity, price, quality, product variety; promotional offers, etc., to determine which attributes have the greatest impact on customer preference in purchasing food and grocery of organised and unorganised retail outlets. The authors conducted a study for the sample size of 100 customers in Chennai, Tamil Nadu, India (50 from each sector) and 50 managers were approached and conducted interview schedule to find the reasons and expectations of customers preferring the particular retail outlet. The findings of the study are family size is the better predictor for purchasing grocery in particular store as compared to family income. The best combination of store preferred by the customer is main street location, less than 500 square feet and II generation store. The authors used weighted average method to find out the best and least attribute to select a particular retail outlet.

Keywords: organised retail outlets; unorganised retail outlets; food retailing; grocery retailing; proximity; price; quality; product variety; promotional offers; customer preference; store attributes; family size; purchasing grocery purchasing; family income.

DOI: 10.1504/IJSOM.2015.072316

International Journal of Services and Operations Management, 2015 Vol.22 No.3, pp.336 - 362

Received: 02 Jul 2014
Accepted: 04 Jul 2014
Published online: 09 Oct 2015 *

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