Can we explain consumer shopping habits by demographic and sociological characteristics? Example of a French city, Dijon

Résumé du document

French people's purchasing power has always been a pre-occupation, and it remains as an important issue, in a context of fluctuations of euro currency and political reforms. French people's consumption behaviours have been strongly transformed by the structure of shopping areas, as well as by the emerging confrontation between different kinds of shops. Big supermarkets have to cope with competition from little shops and above all, from discount shops which are increasingly taking up markets shares. For big companies as Carrefour and Auchan, it was the beginning of the problem. They began to lose market shares and that's why a lot of strategies have been implemented by the companies to cope with this new form of competition. The point is to know why they are loosing market shares. And, some common opinions often associate social status with the type of shop one visits. This specific economic context is particularly true in the city of Dijon. Dijon is a medium size city where every kind of shop can be found and accessed easily by consumers. Is this economic antagonism creating specific kinds of consumers? More precisely, we will try to give an answer to the question, can we explain consumer shopping habits by demographic and sociological characteristics?

Extraits

[...] At this step of the study, the coding sheet had been already done (please refer to the appendix section to see the Coding sheet, and also in the Questionnaire part to have more details about its elaboration). Variables had been created and multiple or single choices answers coded. The work was to code open questions. We regrouped responses into categories and affect a number to that category. This enabled us to have exploitable data for the data analysis process. You can find in the appendix section the detail about the coding of open questions. [...]

[...] First, we could lead daily checking of quotas and the stability of results. It was really important because the representativeness of the questionnaire was based on people profession. So we could control the percentage of each categories of people interviewed. We achieved the objectives announced in the Proposal and the response rate achieved is also good because respondents answered all questions required. The only criticize we can do about this process concerns time: we had little delays but that did not affect quality of data collected. [...]

[...] For these reasons, our sample would be a non-probability one. In the non-probability sampling, we have three main sample types: - Convenience sampling which is not relevant for our study because we haven't insurance with it that the sample represents the population under study. - Snowball sampling which is used to hard-to-find individuals by a snowball effect. - Quota sampling which is a method to ensure that the sample is representative of the studied population by determining controls (criterion of population repartition). [...]

[...] Merci par avance de votre participation ! 1 / Citez 3 magasins alimentaires qui vous viennent à l'esprit : 2 / Etes vous la personne qui vous occupez des courses alimentaires pour votre foyer ? Oui Non Cela dépend 3 / A combien estimez vous le montant en euros des courses alimentaires de votre foyer par mois? Euros / Dans quel(s) commerce(s) sont faites les courses alimentaires de votre foyer? (Plusieurs choix sont possibles). Hypermarché (Carrefour Supermarché (Intermarché, Monoprix ) Hard discount (Aldi, Liddl ) Petit commerce de proximité (Superette, boucher ) □Autres 5 / Numérotez de 1 à 4 ces commerces par ordre de préférence. [...]

[...] Price: Facility for payment: Quality of products: Brand: Popularity of the shop: Reception: Diversity des products: Waiting time at the cashiers: Atmosphere: Organisation of the shop: Geographical place: Loyalty program: Home shipping: Online ordering: 7 / In a few words, what does this association of 2 pictures evokes to you? We need now some information about you / How old are you? : 9 / You are: A woman A man 10 / Which CSP (Socio professional Category) do you belong to? [...]