Virtual grocery shopping intention: an application of the model of goal-directed behaviour
ISSN: 0007-070X
Article publication date: 1 March 2023
Issue publication date: 4 July 2023
Abstract
Purpose
Virtual grocery shopping (VGS), or online grocery shopping, traditionally has seen slow adoption in Canada; however, the COVID-19 pandemic has forced consumers to seek safer ways to shop. Retailers have invested in building new infrastructure to meet the current consumer demands for VGS. However, the main driver for VGS behaviour has not been yet clearly identified. Additionally, it is also not unknown whether the shopping modalities will continue VGS after the pandemic. This study provides insights into consumer intentions to use VGS by extending the model of goal-directed behaviour (MGB) to incorporate consumer technological readiness.
Design/methodology/approach
The study collected 935 valid survey responses from an online survey panel of Canadian consumers. A two-step approach was applied to analyse the data, comprising confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) and structural equation modelling (SEM). The data quality and model fit were tested before testing the proposed relationships among the constructs: attitude, subjective norm, perceived behavioural control, positive and negative anticipated emotions, as well as technological readiness, desire and behaviour intentions. The mediation role of desire between frequency of past online grocery shopping behaviours and the future behavioural intention was also tested using SPSS PROCESS.
Findings
The study results showed that attitudes, subjective norms, perceived behavioural control, positive and negative emotions, technological readiness and frequency of past VGS have a major impact on consumers' desire to embrace VGS in the future. Consumer desire also played a significant mediating role between frequency of past VGS behaviours and future shopping intention online. In addition, the frequency of past VGS showed an even stronger impact on behavioural intention among female consumers than among male consumers.
Originality/value
The findings of this study provide an original insight into the social, cultural and psychological factors that impact consumers' use of VGS, particularly the impacts of gender.
Keywords
Acknowledgements
This research was supported by University of Guelph (43019) Internal Departmental Funds (2977).
Citation
Thomas-Francois, K., Jo, W., Somogyi, S., Li, Q. and Nixon, A. (2023), "Virtual grocery shopping intention: an application of the model of goal-directed behaviour", British Food Journal, Vol. 125 No. 8, pp. 3097-3112. https://doi.org/10.1108/BFJ-06-2022-0510
Publisher
:Emerald Publishing Limited
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