Consumers’ Attitudes and Purchases in Online Versus Offline Grocery Shopping

Online grocery shopping has greatly increased with the pandemic, changing the mix of offline versus online purchases and likely consumer attitudes toward these channels. Managers are unsure about the implications for their portfolio of consumer segments and products, such as national versus private label brands, fair trade products and organic products. This research analyzes both attitudes and purchase behavior to show how consumer characteristics, attitudes and purchases differ between also-online and offline-only grocery shoppers. We found that online-also customers are younger, have smaller households with less children and show lower income than offline-only consumers. While more open to technology and innovation, they are less open toward tasting new things. Due to a lower price consciousness and a higher brand preference, the also-online customers show significant higher shares of national brands, despite their lower incomes. While attitudes are similar, online-also customers show more than double the organic share in their purchases. Finally, both attitudes and purchase shares for fair trade products are higher for also-online than for offline-only customers. Implications abound for grocery managers: the online channel is well suited for national brands, organic and fair trade products. However, they should consider that also-online shoppers tend to be younger with lower incomes, and that their attitudes have not always caught up with their purchase patterns, especially for organic products.