La distribution alimentaire à l'heure du digital : opinions et préférences des consommateurs

Abstract

With the development of the internet and new devices making its access easier, more and more people are connected. This has led to new ways of thinking, acting, eating, shopping... In front of this hyper connectivity combined with tougher competition, all sectors have had no choice but to conform to this new reality by considering and integrating digitalization in their activities. The food retailing sector is not the exception. For some years, it's for instance possible to do grocery shopping on the internet. The traditional distributors like Carrefour or Delhaize have launched their own website on which customers can shop grocery products among others. Moreover, online pure players like Amazon and Cdiscount have also entered the food retailing sector by offering in their website a good-quality range of perishable and non-perishable food products. In addition to developing webshops, traditional distributors have somehow digitalized their physical retail shops. New technologies arise in hyper- and supermarkets improving customer journey and delivering patterns to marketing function. Even Amazon has entered the physical world with the development of Amazon Go and the acquisition of Whole Foods Market stores. In a first time, this work tries to go through all the physical points of sales that are run in Belgium by the traditional distributors Carrefour, Delhaize and Colruyt. Their digital offer is analyzed as well. Afterwards, this work examines how the pure players Amazon and Cdiscount have entered the food sector and studies the services Belgian consumers can benefit from. Finally, new technologies that arise in food retail sector are reviewed. In a second time, the quantitative analysis allows us to reap consumers' preferences and perceptions about new and technologies-oriented ways of making grocery shopping. This quantitative analysis also enables us to formulate some recommendations addressed to traditional distributors and pure players marketing function. As a conclusion, we could say that Internet is more and more used by consumers to make grocery shopping. Traditional distributors and pure players fight with each other but the second ones still have a lot to do to enter and conquer the Belgian market. Finally, consumers show more or less an interest in some technologies integrating the food retailing sector.