Problembakgrund och problemformulering: Sverige är ett av de länder i världen där ehandel förekommer mest frekvent, dock inte av dagligvaror. Detta är ett problem för de matbutiker som väljer att erbjuda e-handel då det inte är lönsamt. Från ett konsumentperspektiv kan detta bero på bland annat livssituation, vanebeteende och köparpersonlighet. Frågan blir då i vilken utsträckning dessa faktorer påverkar val av inköpskanal. Syfte och frågeställning: Syftet med uppsatsen är att beskriva hur attityder mot en rad butikskomponenter ser ut hos olika konsumenter med olika köparpersonligheter och vilka köparpersonligheter som regelbundet handlar dagligvaror online samt vilka som inte gör det. Frågeställningen som uppsatsen utgår ifrån är därför: “Hur kan attityder till butikskomponenter och köparpersonligheter påverka val av inköpskanal hos konsumenter som regelbundet handlar dagligvaror online via en matbutik respektive konsumenter som handlar dagligvaror i fysisk butik?” Metod: En kvalitativ metod användes i den aktuella uppsatsen. Djupintervjuer utfördes med 14 respondenter från Sverige i två olika grupper: de som regelbundet handlar dagligvaror via en matbutik och de som inte gör det. Frågorna som ställdes handlade om attityder, attribut, vanor, livssituation, erfarenheter och val av inköpskanal. För att behandla alla frågor teoretiskt skapades en analysmodell som verktyg för skrivandet av uppsatsen. Slutsats och förslag till framtida forskning: Inga övergripande skillnader mellan de respondenter som regelbundet handlar dagligvaror online via en matbutik och de respondenter som inte gör det fanns genom studien. Dock sågs nyansskillnader inom respektive grupper och mellan grupperna. Vidare fanns att konsumenters köparpersonligheter och utomstående faktorer såsom livssituation hade ungefär samma grad av påverkan på valet av inköpskanal. Det var omkring samma antal respondenter som påverkats till att välja den kanal de valt på grund av utomstående faktorer som det antal som valt inköpskanal på grund av sin köparpersonlighet. Förslag till framtida forskning skulle kunna vara en mer extensiv studie med respondenter från hela Sverige, då den aktuella studien utfördes i Jönköping och Göteborg samt forskning om hur matbutikerna kan få sin e-handel att öka. / Problem background and problem formulation: Sweden is one of the countries in the world where e-commerce is the most present. This is however not the case within groceries. The problem occurs for the supermarkets that chooses to offer e-commerce of groceries when it is not profitable. From a consumer perspective this can depend on living conditions, habits and buyer personality. The question then is to what degree these factors influence the choice of purchase channel. Purpose and research question: The purpose of this essay is to describe how attitudes toward a range of store components look among consumers with different shopping typologies and personalities and which of these personalities that regularly shop for groceries online through a supermarket and which ones does not. The research question therefore is: “How can attitudes to store components and buyer personalities influence the choice of purchasing channel of consumers that regularly shop for groceries online through a grocery store in difference to those consumers who shop for groceries in a physical store?” Method: A qualitative method was used in the present essay. In-depth interviews were conducted with 14 respondents from Sweden in two groups: the ones who regularly shop for groceries online through a supermarket and the ones that do not. The questions asked was about attitudes, attributes, habits, living conditions, experiences and choice of buying channel. In order to treat every question theoretically an analysis model was created as a tool for the essay. Conclusion and recommendations for further research: No general differences between the respondents that shop for groceries online through a supermarket and those who shop in a physical supermarket was found through the present study. However, differences in nuances was seen within both groups and between the groups. Furthermore the analysis showed that consumers’ buyer personalities and external factors such as living conditions had more or less the level of impact on the choice of purchasing channel. It was about the same number of respondents that had been affected to choose the channel that they chose do to external factors, as the number of respondents that had chosen purchasing channel because of their buyer personality. Recommendations for further research could be a more extensive study with respondents from all of Sweden since the present study was conducted in two Swedish cities: Jönköping and Göteborg. Additionally, research about how supermarkets could make their e-commerce efforts be profitable could be of interest.

<p>Term: Spring term 2007</p><p>Study objects: Reitan Servicehandel AB, Vi-butikerna, ICA Sverige AB</p><p>Purpose: The purpose of this study is to analyse how procurement is used as a strategy to achieve better competitive strength, within the retail food industry.</p><p>Theoretical: The theoretical chapter illustrates different procurement organisations, multiple and single sourcing, brand equity, consumer behaviour and involvement, Efficient Consumer Response including supply chain and category management and finally Demand Chain Management.</p><p>Method: For the case studies, three food retail companies have been interviewed: Reitan Servicehandel AB, Vi-butikerna and ICA AB. To illustrate how consumer behaviour influences retail food market, several secondary consumer research studies have been analysed.</p><p>Conclusions: The results indicate that the procurement organisation can achieve a better competitive strength by a centralised organisation, which make it possible to improve conditions of terms when ordering higher purchase volumes. The sourcing strategies can improve a company’s power within the supply chain. All companies within the study had a very good knowledge about consumer behaviour. Information technology is a very important tool to achieve enhanced efficiency within the organisation. It also indicates that the procurement organisation by its knowledge in sales and marketing can improve a company’s competitive strength.</p>

Term: Spring term 2007 Study objects: Reitan Servicehandel AB, Vi-butikerna, ICA Sverige AB Purpose: The purpose of this study is to analyse how procurement is used as a strategy to achieve better competitive strength, within the retail food industry. Theoretical: The theoretical chapter illustrates different procurement organisations, multiple and single sourcing, brand equity, consumer behaviour and involvement, Efficient Consumer Response including supply chain and category management and finally Demand Chain Management. Method: For the case studies, three food retail companies have been interviewed: Reitan Servicehandel AB, Vi-butikerna and ICA AB. To illustrate how consumer behaviour influences retail food market, several secondary consumer research studies have been analysed. Conclusions: The results indicate that the procurement organisation can achieve a better competitive strength by a centralised organisation, which make it possible to improve conditions of terms when ordering higher purchase volumes. The sourcing strategies can improve a company’s power within the supply chain. All companies within the study had a very good knowledge about consumer behaviour. Information technology is a very important tool to achieve enhanced efficiency within the organisation. It also indicates that the procurement organisation by its knowledge in sales and marketing can improve a company’s competitive strength.

ICA AB is Sweden’s largest retail and wholesale firm, a cooperation of retail proprietors. Here it is studied as the nation’s largest media firm. It is the largest advertiser, the largest publisher of consumer magazines, and plausibly the most advanced user of household shopping data for marketing purposes. ICA’s marketing media system is operated by a constellation of different professional groups, and the study at hand asks questions about how practitioners in different professional communities relate to the idea of value and value creation, how their social practices pushes them towards divergent understandings and priorities, and what such differences do to their opportunities to collaborate within ICA’s marketing processes. We are all ‘practitioners’ in the sense that we go about our daily lives conducting various practices that create value for ourselves and for others. We act in routinized fashions surrounded by social codes that guides us in how to combine and integrate tools, skills and products in different combinations. Since they seem to capture the very purpose of marketing, ‘value’ and ‘value creation’ are concepts which long have been central to the academic debate. However, if our value-creating practices are guided by social codes, this has consequences for marketers and marketing that has been largely left aside in the mainstream marketing theory. Over two years, 2007-2008, through qualitative interviewing and participant observation, the study follows ICA’s marketing communications process and some of its most central practitioners – marketing managers, media agency specialists, editorial staff, and TV network sales representatives. It describes their involvement in TV advertising campaigns, in the customer magazine Buffé, and in the introduction of mass-customized direct marketing in the project Mina varor. Combining some of the most widely cited marketing theories on value creation with a sociological view on activity forwarded by Practice Theory, this thesis suggests that value is best seen as being formed along two intertwined processes – value creation which is the process of physical activity, and value construction which is a social process of understanding what is to be regarded valuable. The findings provide firstly a detailed mapping of how practitioners articulate marketing communications value, what aspects they emphasize, and how they interpret the objective of their practices. Secondly, the study links the articulations of value to 16 value-forming marketing communications practices. Marketing managers, media agency specialists, editorial staff, and TV network sales representatives are all described as acting according to a ‘practical logic’ of their respective professional communities. These logics combine practices for marketing communications production, for mutual interaction, and for valuation of processes, products and outcomes. The benefits of coordination and collaboration have been forwarded in marketing (relationships and networks) and marketing communications (integrated marketing communications) literature over the past decades. The concluding discussion concerns how and to which extent practical logics can be altered, changed, or aligned towards mutually rewarding goals. In other words, how can two parties work together if they have divergent understandings of value, and conversely how can two parties learn to understand value by working together? It thereby puts focus on marketing communications management, and contrary to many textbooks in the field, this study does not describe marketing communications as a de-humanized instrument in the marketer’s toolbox, but as a challenge of coordinating practitioners, practices, and understandings.

Organising is the general process by which we structure our world. It is a process that goes beyond social ordering by involving also the technical and the natural realms. Further, it is a process which involves us all. All the time. This dissertation focuses on the organising of business enterprise, more specifically, the organising of food distribution. It is study of formative events in the history of ICA, a major Swedish food distributor. The study provides a detailed account of the development of Hakonbolaget, one of four purchasing centres that formed ICA. Primarily, it accounts for Hakonbolaget´s efforts to establish a modern, rational food distribution system in the 1940s and 1950s. The thrust of these efforts was directed toward three areas of rationalisation: internal operations at the wholesale warehouses, retail operations, and wholesale-retail interaction. Incidentally, these were also central themes in the public debate about the growing costs of goods distribution in Sweden at the time. Through its efforts, Hakonbolaget realised a number of new solutions and established something of a model for modern food distribution. A model that came to characterise operation within ICA from the 1960s and well into the 1990s. Drawing on work within the sociology of science and technology, a conceptual vocabulary is developed for analysing the process of organising. This vocabulary suggests that organising can be regarded as a framing process – as attempts to define and realise sociotechnical situations. The inherent instability of such situations makes stability rather than change a puzzling observation. Consequently, change processes should be regarded as efforts to stabilise situations. Such efforts are closely linked to the establishment of metrics and the generation of representations. In addition to traditional social aspects of organising, the vocabulary also directs attention to the whole heterogeneous materials that surround us. / Diss. Stockholm : Handelshögsk., 2001

Titel: Miljövänliga inköp i dagligvaruhandel - En jämförande studie av publika hållbarhetsredovisningar i dagligvaruhandel Kurs: Ämnesfördjupande arbete i logistik, 2FE25E, VT-17 Författare: Arbnora Dervishaj, Anton Lindén Persson, Erik Lingegård Handledare: Åsa Gustavsson Bakgrund: Hållbarhet beskrivs utifrån tre dimensioner; miljö, social och ekonomi. De utvecklade kraven på de miljömässiga dimensionerna sätter press på verksamheter att ta ett större miljöansvar. Med implementering av miljövänliga produkter har de stora aktörerna inom dagligvaruhandeln stor påverkan på marknaden och branschen har blivit ledande för miljövänlig produktion och konsumtion. Genom dess förmåga att kunna påverka hela produktkedjan betraktas inköpsfunktionen som en nyckelfaktor för att driva verksamheten mot en hållbar utveckling. Syfte: Studiens syfte är att identifiera och jämföra vad aktörer inom dagligvaruhandeln i Sverige förmedlar inom miljö vid inköpsfunktionen genom publika hållbarhetsredovisningar. Vidare är syftet att presentera ett förslag till ett ramverk för att öka jämförbarheten av hållbarhetsredovisningar. Metod: Denna studie utgår från en kvalitativ forskningsmetod med ett deduktivt angreppssätt. Vidare har studien tillämpat ett positivistiskt synsätt samt komparativ undersökningsdesign. Studiens teoretiska referensram är sammanställd från vetenskapliga studier, litteratur samt hemsidor. Datainsamling av empiriskt material har utförts genom publika hållbarhetsredovisningar från fyra aktörer inom dagligvaruhandeln; Axfood AB, Coop Sverige AB, ICA Sverige AB och Lidl Sverige KB. Studiens teoretiska referensram och empiriska material analyseras genom mönsterjämförelser mellan urvalet. Slutsats: Studien har identifierat skillnader och likheter i vad som förmedlas angående inköpsprocessen genom publika hållbarhetsrapporter. Genom de genomförda mönsterjämförelserna har ett ramverk operationaliserats utifrån den teoretiska referensramen. Detta ramverk kan användas som en förlängning till de befintliga ramverken för att öka jämförbarheten av prestationer i inköpsfunktionen. Nyckelord: Hållbarhetsredovisning, Dagligvaruhandel, Logistik, Inköp, Miljö, Ramverk, Sortiment, Transport, Leverantörer / Title: Green procurement in grocery trade - A comparative study of public sustainability reports in grocery industry Authors: Arbnora Dervishaj, Anton Lindén Persson, Erik Lingegård Tutor: Åsa Gustavsson Context: Sustainability is described based on three dimensions; environment, social and economics. The developed requirements on the environmental dimension put pressure on businesses to take environmental responsibilities. With implementations of environmentally friendly products, the major companies in the grocery trade have a great impact on the market and the industry has become a leader in environmentally friendly production and consumption. Through its ability to affect the entire product chain, the purchasing function is considered a key factor in driving the business towards sustainable development. Purpose: The purpose of this study is to identify and compare what companies in the grocery trade in Sweden present about environment in the purchasing function through their public sustainability reports. Furthermore, the purpose is to present a proposed framework to increase the comparability of sustainability reports. Method: This study applies a qualitative research with a deductive approach. Furthermore, the study has applied a positivistic view and comparative research design. The theoretical framework consists of scientific studies, literature and websites. The data collection of empirical materials has been conducted through public sustainability reports from four actors in the grocery trade; Axfood AB, Coop Sverige AB, ICA Sverige AB and Lidl Sverige KB. The theoretical framework and empirical material has been analyzed through pattern comparisons between the selected actors. Results: The authors have identified similarities and differences of the presented material in public sustainability reports regarding purchasing function. A framework has been developed to work as a module to prolong the existing framework and strengthen the comparability. Keywords: Sustainability reports, Grocery trade, Logistics, Purchase, Environment, Framework, Assortment, Transport, Suppliers

The number of people who buy their groceries via e-commerce at least once a month has increased since the start of the covid-19 pandemic. As food and food production contributes about 20 to 30 percent of the total consumption-related environmental impact in Europe, a change in consumer behavior is required. To encourage more sustainable consumer behavior nudging can be implemented. Digital nudging is an interface tool that can be applied in cases of influencing people to do a certain desired action. The scientific literature confirms that a knowledge gap exists in how nudging can be used as previous research has focused more on why nudging is beneficial. Therefore, the purpose of the study is to investigate how nudging can be used in a web-based grocery store to influence consumers to make more sustainable choices. The study uses a qualitative research strategy with semi-structured interviews as a data collection method. The results show that a lack of knowledge regarding the concept of sustainability and sustainable products is the biggest obstacle when it comes to trying to influence consumers to make sustainable choices. For this reason, the study's four nudge proposals are mainly intended to educate consumers about sustainable foods in connection with purchasing them via e-commerce. A need has been identified for future research studies to investigate how nudges can be designed for different customer segments and behavioral groups. In addition, there is a need for similar research studies to be conducted where the consumer perspective is included and explored.

Bakgrund: COVID-19 pandemin har förändrat samhället och påverkat olika företags förhållningssätt. Konsumentbeteendet har förändrats på grund av isoleringar, statliga rekommendationer och riktlinjer i försök att minska smittspridningen. Detta har påverkat livsmedelsbutiker, de har infört olika åtgärder och förändringar för att möta nya efterfrågan och krav från samhället. Det är därför intressant att studera ifall konsumentbeteenden och åtgärder orsakad av COVID-19 pandemin är bestående när rekommendationer och riktlinjer har avskaffats. Syfte: Syftet med denna studie är att undersöka olika konsumentbeteenden och åtgärder inom livsmedelsbranschen som har uppstått till följd av COVID-19 pandemin. Studien identifierar på vilket sätt dessa nyligen antagna beteenden och åtgärder är bestående efter pandemin.  Metod: Studien utgår från en kvalitativ forskningsmetod där semistrukturerade intervjuer medtre olika bolag har sammanställts utifrån resultatet från fem olika livsmedelsföretag. Studien har antagit en abduktiv forskningsansats med fokus på att skapa en tematisk analys.  Slutsats: Studien visar att konsumentbeteendet har förändrats som ett resultat av pandemin. Samtliga livsmedelsföretag ser numera att konsumenter köper mer produkter med längre hållbarhet. Konsumenter är numera mer strategiska i sin handling av matvaruprodukter. Ehandel har ökat som ett resultat tack vare pandemin och används mer frekvent av konsumenter. Bestående åtgärder är allt ifrån plexiglas i kassor, handdesinfektion runt om i butiker för personal och kunder. / Background: The COVID-19 pandemic has transformed society and impacted how businesses operate regularly. Consumer behaviour has altered due to isolations and government recommendations and guidelines with the goal at reducing the spread of the virus. This has influenced how grocery stores conduct their businesses, as they have implemented various measures and changes to be able to meet the new demands and social requirements. Hence it is interesting to study whether consumer behaviours and measures caused by the COVID-19 pandemic are enduring when recommendations and guidelines have been repealed. Purpose: The purpose of this study is to investigate various consumer behaviours and measures within grocery stores that have emerged as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic. The study aims to identify the extent to which these recently adopted behaviours and measures have persevered after the pandemic. Method: This study has utilised a qualitative research methodology, where semi-structured interviews with three different companies have been compiled based on the findings from five distinct grocery stores. The study has adopted an abductive research approach relying on a thematic analysis. Conclusion: Key findings present that consumer behaviour has changed as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic. Each grocery store now observes that consumers are purchasing more products with a longer sustainability. Consumers are now more strategic while shopping for groceries. E-commerce has increased as a result of the pandemic and is now being used more frequently by consumers. Enduring implemented measures range from plexiglass at checkouts to hand sanitizing stations for both staff and customers throughout the stores.

This thesis aims to conduct a market analysis of the Swedish grocery retail market, with a primary focus on the current market competition and strategic choices. The market analysis is done in order to investigate whether insufficient competition is a contributing factor to the high food prices today. Furthermore, the essay aims to identify and evaluate the strategies used by market players. The market analysis has been conducted by using the Structure-Conduct-Performance model as a theoretical framework to map out and analyse the market's structure, strategy, and outcomes. Over the past year, the prices of groceries have increased drastically, resulting in significant media coverage of the market. The high prices, combined with the timeliness of the topic, justifies the choice of the essay’s subject. The methodology used in the essay is a combination of qualitative and quantitative methods. The market structure is analysed for two different years, 2012 and 2021, in order to enable the evaluation of the firms’ strategic choices. In the thesis’ conclusion, it is stated that the Swedish grocery retail sector is an oligopoly market with high market concentration, where the three largest firms account for 90 percent of the market shares. The market structure is a result of the underlying demand and the barriers of entry identified in the thesis. The strategies processed in the thesis are vertical integration, customer bonus systems, mergers and acquisitions, and price strategies. The evaluated strategic choices of the companies are deemed effective for increasing their market power, while also inhibiting competition and making market entry difficult. Because of this, the market outcome is considered not to be fully functional from a welfare perspective. Furthermore this study allows the assumption to be made that the current competitive situation is a contributing factor to today's high food prices. / Uppsatsen syftar till att göra en marknadsanalys av svensk dagligvaruhandel, med stort fokus på den rådande konkurrenssituationen. Detta görs för att utreda huruvida bristfällig konkurrens är en bidragande orsak till dagens höga matpriser eller inte. Vidare syftar uppsatsen till att kartlägga samt utvärdera de strategier som marknadens aktörer använder sig av. Marknadsanalysen har genomförts med Structure-Conduct-Performance-modellen som teoretisk grund för att kartlägga samt analysera marknadens struktur, strategi och utfall. Priserna på dagligvaror har under det senaste året ökat drastiskt, vilket har resulterat i att marknaden har getts stort medialt utrymme. De höga priserna i kombination med ämnets aktualitet motiverar valet av uppsatsämne. Metodvalet i uppsatsen är en kombination av kvalitativ och kvantitativ metod. Marknadsstrukturen undersöks för två olika år, 2012 och 2021, med anledning att möjliggöra utvärdering av aktörernas strategival. I uppsatsens slutsats konstateras det att den svenska dagligvaruhandeln är en oligopolmarknad med hög marknadskoncentration där de tre största aktörerna står för 90 procent av andelarna på marknaden. Marknadsstrukturen är ett resultat av den grundläggande efterfrågan som finns, samt de etableringshinder som identifierats i uppsatsen. De strategier som behandlas i uppsatsen är vertikal integration, kundbonussystem, fusioner och förvärv samt prissättningsstrategi. Dessa strategival utvärderas som effektiva vad gäller utökandet av aktörernas marknadsmakt, samtidigt som de hämmar konkurrens och försvårar för nyetablering på marknaden. Detta leder till att marknadens utfall inte ses vara helt välfungerande utifrån ett välfärdsperspektiv. Efter genomförandet av denna studie görs dessutom antagandet att den rådande konkurrenssituationen är en bidragande orsak till dagens höga matpriser.

Dagligvaruhandeln har i många år präglats av stor osäkerhet och okunskap där ansvariga chefer inte har haft full förståelse för följderna som uppkommer genom resultatet av deras beslut. Under våren 2020 utbröt covid-19, en pandemi som skakade om hela världen. Vilket gjorde att dagligvaruhandeln började tappa besökare och den kompletterande handelsmöjlighetens tillväxt sköt i taket, nämligen e-handeln. Till en början med den ökade tillväxten var det svårt för företagen att hänga med och därav ändrades företagets strategi. När företag ändrar sin strategi resulterar det i att dem även måste ändra sin ekonomistyrning. Studien utfördes med en kvalitativ metod genom att göra en flerfallstudie i en Ica och en Coop butik. Datainsamlingsmetoden som användes var främst semistrukturerade intervjuer där tre anställda från Ica medverkade, respektive fyra från Coop. Respondenterna valdes ut med grund av att de hade olika befattningar inom företagen och förväntades besitta den kunskap som behövdes. Företag som följt med i den snabbskjutande tillväxten har fått uppleva både interna och externa förändringar som ändå resulterat i att ekonomistyrningen varit positiv. E-handeln är förhoppningsvis här för att stanna och företagen ser ljust på framtiden. / The grocery trade has for many years been characterized by uncertainty and ignorance where responsible managers have not had a full understanding of the consequences that arise from the results of their decisions. In the spring of 2020, covid-19 erupted, a pandemic that shook the world. Which meant that the grocery trade began to lose visitors and the growth of the complementary trade opportunity shot to the ceiling, e-commerce. At first, with the increased growth, it was difficult for the companies to keep up and as a result, the company's strategy changed. When companies change their strategy, it results in them also having to change their financial management. The study was performed using a qualitative method by conducting a multiple case study in an Ica and a Coop store. The data collection method used was mainly semi-structured interviews where three employees from Ica participated, and four from Coop. The respondents were selected because they held different positions within the companies and were expected to possess the knowledge needed. Companies that have followed the rapid growth have experienced both internal and external changes that have nevertheless resulted in positive financial management. E-commerce is hopefully here to stay and companies see a bright future.