An Empirical Study on the Formation of Consumer Shopping Intention with reference to online Grocery shopping in Gujarat

Abstract

Online grocery shopping is a new means of buying preferred grocery products over the Internet for household consumption. The phenomenon has already picked up momentum in the developed countries and an increasing number of urban and sub-urban consumers are utilizing it for their benefit and convenience. The markets in India have also started responding positively to this phenomenon. Slowly but steadily, in almost a decade every Indian metropolitan city has embraced this technology and is now gradually spreading to tier-II and tier-III cities. In the state of Gujarat, the online grocery business practically took off in the year 2012. There have been quite a few upcoming companies in this segment at the local city level viz. Myonsto.com and Grocart.com in Ahmedabad; Gabvia.com and Mycitycart.com in Surat and Grocery at home and Delivery at home in Vadodara. Other big national level companies like Bigbasket and Amazon are also trying to penetrate these markets in Gujarat by offering more ease and convenience to the online grocery shoppers. newline newlineThis growing segment and competition has also created a need among these online grocery companies to understand the consumer s intent to adapt to these new technological arenas. The better and faster a company understands the consumer s intent and attitude in this respect, the more will this understanding contribute to the company s success. newline newlineThis study focuses on measuring the consumer s shopping intention towards such online grocery services in the state of Gujarat. The study utilizes some popular consumer behavioural models and their underlying theories to gauge the consumers intention. newline newline