The International Review of Retail, Distribution and Consumer Research

Grocery retailers increasingly invest in digitalization and get in touch with their customers through digital touchpoints and sales channels. Traditional supermarket retailers sell their products also through online channels and developed shopping apps linking the offline and online world. Such apps can include diverse features, such as ordering for home delivery or click and collect, shopping list functions, digital coupons, digital loyalty card and payment functions. Furthermore, new formats such as checkout-free supermarkets (amazon go) or flash delivery services with delivery times of 15 minutes or less have been introduced offering benefits for customers. Moreover, retailers heavily invest to gain benefit from developments in the context of AR, VR, and Metaverse retailing.

Hence, grocery retailing faces dramatic changes offering challenges and opportunities for traditional players and newcomers. Although the majority of revenues is still generated in the traditional stores, online revenues are growing. Furthermore, digital touchpoints gain importance in customer journeys of food consumers and contribute to a seamless customer experience in omnichannel environments.

Current research on omnichannel food retailing mostly focuses on logistics and supply chain issues. However, more research on customer behaviour in omnichannel retailing and the adoption of new sales channels, touchpoints and technologies is needed. Furthermore, research should provide guidelines for retailers to provide a seamless customer experience by integrating branding, communication and the whole retail marketing mix. Research should also analyse how retailers stimulate a more sustainable food shopping behaviour e.g., due to digital technologies and related measures in their physical retail environments. By focussing on the grocery sector, this special issue aims to address the aforementioned research gaps. Submissions on the following topics with a focus on grocery retailing are highly welcome:

• Omnichannel management and channel integration
• Customer journeys and behaviour in omnichannel environments
• Online grocery shopping and mobile applications
• Consumer adoption of new retail technologies, features and services (e.g., digital instore technologies, app features, click & collect, home delivery)
• New retail formats; AR, VR, and Metaverse retailing
• Customer experience and customer engagement in grocery retailing
• Marketing-mix, integrated marketing communication and retail branding
• CSR and sustainability in omnichannel retail environments (e.g., sustainable customer journeys and food shopping behaviour)

This is not intended to be a proscriptive list and we welcome contributions on any topic related to omnichannel customer behaviour in the grocery retail sector.

Papers should be sent in for review no later than March 1st, 2024. The plan is to publish papers in a special issue in 2024.

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