Typical questions addressed were:

• Has the economic downturn had an impact on a housewife’s weekly or monthly grocery shopping? How and how much?
• Has she changed her buying habits in any fashion?
• Has she cut her budget down? 
• Has she started buying fewer items on impulse? 
• Has she changed the place where she shops? 
• Is environment still a priority for her regardless of price?

The survey covered 110 respondents across Mumbai and Delhi. The respondents were all women – and were the decision makers in grocery shopping within the household. They were spread across multiple localities in both cities. Sample size numbers were consciously restricted – the survey was more designed  to give  insights and direction and hence throw up areas for future, more detailed investigation.

The findings of the survey have been compiled by Cartesian into an extensive report that covers the following:

• Detailed analysis of responses from entire respondent base to each of the questions
• Analysis by SEC break-up
• Understanding of the impact on grocery loyalty programs
• Cartesian Index of Impact based on answers to a specified set of questions in the survey – and the profiling of individuals by impact.
  

Key findings:

• Recession has had a definite impact on grocery shopping – although perhaps to a lesser extent than areas such as ‘non-essential’ shopping – e.g. department store, apparel, travel, leisure, luxury etc.
• The primary impact of the recession has been seen on total grocery budgets – a significant 18% say that they have reduced their budgets
  Pack sizes – 75% of the base say that they have changed the pack sizes they normally buy
• Brand loyalty seems to have been impacted – especially so in Mumbai where 47% of the base say they have switched to brands offering better deals. Expectedly, the switch is greater with lower SECs
• A significant 20% of the base in Mumbai and 10% in Delhi who never shopped with a list before – have now started using a shopping list.
  Impulse purchases have come down for as much as 41% in Mumbai and 22% in Delhi
• Deals rule the roost – a whopping 86% of the total base are now actively looking for deals and offers
• The days of stocking and hoarding are not so common – it means money blocked. The trend amongst 59% of the base is to re-stock grocery just in time.
  32% of the base were members of a grocery loyalty program. Members are more conscious of their membership – they remember to use their card and keep track of their points; Loyalty programs work better in a recession!
• There is a shift in shopping behavior noticed – moving from the neighborhood kirana to the self-service store – because of better prices and offers.
• Environment awareness exists – usage of environment-friendly products is however not too high; and even this is dependent on the product being reasonably priced.
• Cartesian Index of Impact based on responses to specific questions in this survey indicates that 20% of the base shows medium/high impact.
• Mumbai has been more impacted by the recession than Delhi; also, SEC B1/B2 has shown greater impact ; However, beyond SEC B, the impact declines
• Those impacted by the recession show a greater involvement in their loyalty program membership in terms of actively keeping track of points and remembering to use their card while shopping

With even regular and necessary purchases such as grocery being impacted by the recession, marketers need to be better prepared to adopt new and innovative customer acquisition and retention strategies.
Brands that command high equity and loyalty will continue to do so but must be ready to offer their loyal customers a good deal – this is a necessary investment to ‘thank’ them for their custom and build fences around them for the future.

Retail counters must reflect customer concerns in areas such as stocking just in time, looking for deals, greater involvement in loyalty program rewards etc.

Empathy in such areas through – reminding customers about likely stock-outs (keeping last purchase dates in mind), proactively asking customers for their loyalty card while billing, announcing regular offers and deals, informing customers about the points available for redemption – will all go a long, long way in building a relationship with that elusive personality – THE LOYAL CUSTOMER.

For the detailed report, please click here Cartesian Grocery Survey
For more information on the survey  please email This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it