Customer Purchase Intentions and Choice in Food Retail Environments: A Scoping Review.

Barbara Baquero,Christine Williams,Anuja Majmundar,Iana Castro

doi:10.3390/ijerph15112493

Abstract

Food purchasing and consumption behaviors have implications for nutrition and obesity. Food retail environments, in particular, shape customer food choices and energy intake. The marketing literature offers insights about how public health practitioners can work within food retail environments to encourage healthy food choices. We reviewed experimental studies in the marketing literature to examine factors influencing customer purchase intentions and choice for food products in retail stores. Database searches were conducted in February 2016 for original, empirical articles published in English from 2000–2015 in marketing journals. Each research article included at least one experimental design study conducted in a real or simulated retail environment with purchase intentions or choice of food products as an outcome variable. Backward and forward reference searches were conducted for articles meeting inclusion criteria. Narrative synthesis methods were used to thematically group and summarize the findings of forty-one articles that met inclusion criteria into three categories: shelf display and product factors, pricing and price promotion factors, and in-store and customer decision-making factors. This research contributes to the literature by providing specific and actionable approaches that can increase/decrease customer purchase intentions and choice for food products in retail environments. Translating marketing strategies into public health applications can provide recommendations for future intervention research and policy related to customer food purchasing behavior.

Highlights

In the United States, an estimated 35% of adults and 17% of children are obese [1]
The primary references in this scoping review were peer-reviewed articles published in marketing journals studying purchase intentions and/or choice in food retail environments
The findings of this review build on existing intervention research in the field of public health [7,56,57,58,59,60,61] by drawing from the marketing literature and focusing exclusively on studies that employed experimental design, were conducted in retail environments, and focused on customer purchase intentions and choice for food products as outcome variables

Summary

Introduction

In the United States, an estimated 35% of adults and 17% of children are obese [1]. The influence of the food environment is significant for obesity rates. Recent work suggests that foods and beverages purchased in food retail stores contribute a significant portion (63%) of individual’s total daily energy intake and, among children, are the most important source of empty calories, added sugar, and solid fats [2,3,4]. Considering the impact of purchases made in food retail environments on diet intake and quality, and their implications for obesity and chronic disease, public health policymakers, practitioners, researchers, and community organizations are actively searching for effective strategies to promote healthier customer choices and purchases when shopping. Res. Public Health 2018, 15, 2493; doi:10.3390/ijerph15112493 www.mdpi.com/journal/ijerph

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